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Developer Tools · head to head

Atlantis vs Sourcegraph

Atlantis logo

Atlantis

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Sourcegraph logo

Sourcegraph

Developer Tools

Code search and intelligence platform for large codebases with Cody AI assistant

From
$16000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Atlantis has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • 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.; Sourcegraph enterprise pricing starting at $16k annually creates significant barrier for small teams
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Atlantis and Sourcegraph actually diverge.

Attributes where Atlantis and Sourcegraph differ
AttributeAtlantisSourcegraph
Starting priceFree$16000/year
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feesubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hostedCloud, Self-hosted

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Developer Tools).

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 Sourcegraph

Nothing recorded that Atlantis does not also cover.

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 Sourcegraph
  • Removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keysnot Sourcegraph
  • Getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platformnot Sourcegraph
  • Enforcing Conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can runnot Sourcegraph

Sourcegraph

  • Large-scale code migrations across hundreds of repositoriesnot Atlantis
  • Enterprise governance and code ownership trackingnot Atlantis
  • AI-assisted bug hunting and security pattern detectionnot Atlantis
  • Onboarding engineers into large unfamiliar codebasesnot Atlantis
  • Regulatory compliance and code audit trailsnot 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.

Sourcegraph

  • Enterprise pricing starting at $16k annually creates significant barrier for small teams
  • No free tier or standard plan published; all options require custom sales engagement
  • Complex enterprise-only positioning limits adoption compared to GitHub Copilot's pervasiveness
  • Requires indexing entire codebase; not suitable for small or ephemeral projects

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

Sourcegraph

$16000/year
  • Enterprise$16000/year
    • Scales with team size
    • Credits for AI features per user
    • Deep Search

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 Sourcegraph if

  • You work on Cloud, Self-hosted.
Sourcegraph review

Questions people ask

Is Atlantis or Sourcegraph better?
Neither clearly leads. Atlantis starts at Free and Sourcegraph at $16000/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Atlantis or Sourcegraph?
Atlantis has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Atlantis and $16000/year for Sourcegraph.
Does Atlantis or Sourcegraph run on more platforms?
Atlantis runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted. Sourcegraph runs on Cloud, Self-hosted.
Can I use Atlantis for free?
Yes. Atlantis has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sourcegraph starts at $16000/year.
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 Sourcegraph is typically brought in for.
What can Atlantis do that Sourcegraph cannot?
Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Comment driven apply, Workspace locking, Policy checking.

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.

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.

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.

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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