Softwr

Developer Tools · head to head

Atlantis vs Teleport

Atlantis logo

Atlantis

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
Free plan
No
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.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Atlantis and Teleport actually diverge.

Attributes where Atlantis and Teleport differ
AttributeAtlantisTeleport
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hostedLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

Identical on both: 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 Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

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

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot Atlantis
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot Atlantis
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot Atlantis
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot 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.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

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

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

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 Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

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

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.

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

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.

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

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.

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

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.

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

Share

Related pages

More on Atlantis

More on Teleport

Keep looking

Other head to heads