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Developer Tools · head to head

Atlantis vs Cucumber

Atlantis logo

Atlantis

Developer Tools

Runs Terraform plan and apply from pull request comments, self-hosted and free

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Cucumber logo

Cucumber

Testing

Behaviour-driven development testing framework that returned to community ownership after nine years under SmartBear

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Atlantis there is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.; Cucumber gherkin's plain-language layer adds a real maintenance burden, keeping feature files, step definitions and implementation code synchronised across a large suite is a known source of drift and duplicated effort.
  • They diverge on capability: Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Cucumber covers Gherkin syntax.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Atlantis and Cucumber actually diverge.

Attributes where Atlantis and Cucumber differ
AttributeAtlantisCucumber
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hostedLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryDeveloper ToolsTesting

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Atlantis

  • Pull request plans
  • Comment driven apply
  • Workspace locking
  • Policy checking
  • Multi-platform webhooks
  • Custom workflows

Only in Cucumber

  • Gherkin syntax
  • Step definition binding
  • Multi-language support
  • Living documentation
  • Tagging and scenario outlines
  • Reporting plugins

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Atlantis

  • Making Terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approvernot Cucumber
  • Removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keysnot Cucumber
  • Getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platformnot Cucumber
  • Enforcing Conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can runnot Cucumber

Cucumber

  • A team practising behaviour-driven development that wants shared, readable specifications between product owners and engineersnot Atlantis
  • An organisation wanting living documentation that stays synchronised with actual test coverage rather than a separate specification documentnot Atlantis
  • A QA team migrating acceptance tests from a proprietary BDD tool to an open source, community-governed alternativenot Atlantis
  • A Java, JavaScript or Ruby project needing a mature BDD framework rather than building Gherkin-style parsing from scratchnot Atlantis

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Atlantis

  • There is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.
  • The security surface is inherently sharp, because it is an internet-reachable webhook endpoint that executes applies with privileged credentials, gated by pull request comment authorisation that is coarse next to a real policy engine.
  • It is stateful, holding a working directory and lock database on local disk, so high availability and horizontal scaling are awkward and you own upgrades, webhook plumbing, secret rotation and the host itself.
  • It lacks the features that distinguish the commercial alternatives, with no native drift detection, no cost estimation, no managed state interface and no policy engine beyond the Conftest integration.
  • Terragrunt and monorepo layouts are not first-class, requiring hand-written custom workflows and repository configuration that becomes a growing maintenance burden as the number of repositories increases.

Cucumber

  • Gherkin's plain-language layer adds a real maintenance burden, keeping feature files, step definitions and implementation code synchronised across a large suite is a known source of drift and duplicated effort.
  • Ownership has moved twice in under a decade, from independent to SmartBear-owned to independent community ownership again, which should temper confidence in any specific long-range roadmap claim.
  • Non-technical stakeholders who are meant to read and write Gherkin scenarios often do not engage with them in practice, leaving the readability benefit unrealised while the maintenance cost remains.
  • Step definition reuse across a large feature file set can become tangled, with ambiguous step matching causing hard-to-debug failures as a suite grows.
  • As a community-owned project without a corporate backer's support infrastructure, enterprise buyers wanting a formal support contract have no vendor to buy one from, unlike some competing BDD tools still sold commercially.

Pricing, plan by plan

Atlantis

Free
  • AtlantisFree
    • Apache-2.0, no usage limits and no seat count
    • No commercial edition and no paid support tier
    • Community support through GitHub and the CNCF Slack channel

Cucumber

Free
  • CucumberFree
    • Full functionality across Cucumber-JVM, Cucumber-JS, Cucumber-Ruby and other implementations
    • Community support via GitHub
    • Returned to independent community ownership in December 2024 after nine years connected to SmartBear

Which should you pick?

Choose Atlantis if

  • You need pull request plans.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
  • You also want comment driven apply.
Atlantis review

Choose Cucumber if

  • You need gherkin syntax.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want step definition binding.
Cucumber review

Questions people ask

Is Atlantis or Cucumber better?
Neither clearly leads. Atlantis starts at Free and Cucumber at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Atlantis or Cucumber?
Atlantis starts at Free and Cucumber at Free.
Does Atlantis or Cucumber run on more platforms?
Atlantis runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted. Cucumber runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Atlantis for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Atlantis best used for?
Atlantis is most often used for making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver, removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys, getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platform, enforcing conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can run. Of those, making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver and removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys are not what Cucumber is typically brought in for.
What can Atlantis do that Cucumber cannot?
Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Comment driven apply, Workspace locking, Policy checking. Cucumber covers Gherkin syntax, Step definition binding, Multi-language support, Living documentation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Atlantis: Is there a company behind Atlantis?

No. It runs as a series of LF Projects under the Linux Foundation and is maintained by volunteers. There is no vendor to buy support from and no service level agreement.

Cucumber: Is Cucumber owned by SmartBear?

No, not currently. SmartBear acquired Cucumber Ltd in 2019 but the open source project returned to independent community ownership in December 2024.

Atlantis: Is it a CNCF project?

No. It uses a channel in the CNCF Slack, which is often misread as membership, but the project sits under LF Projects rather than the CNCF.

Cucumber: Is Cucumber free?

Yes, entirely open source with no licence fee across all its language implementations.

Atlantis: Does it work with OpenTofu?

Yes, there is a dedicated integration guide alongside Terraform, and it also has configuration for working with hosted Terraform backends.

Cucumber: Does Cucumber replace Selenium or Appium?

No, Cucumber provides the Gherkin specification layer and step definition binding; the actual browser or mobile automation still needs a driver such as Selenium or Appium underneath.

Atlantis: What does it not do that a paid platform does?

Drift detection, cost estimation, a managed state and run interface, and a real policy engine. Atlantis does pull request plan and apply well and stops there.

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