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Cybersecurity · head to head

Baffle vs Garden

Baffle logo

Baffle

Cybersecurity

Transparent proxy that encrypts, tokenises and masks database fields without application code changes

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

Kubernetes development and testing automation with shared caching, now owned by Incredibuild

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Garden has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Baffle the proxy sits in the production data path, so it becomes a latency contributor and a failure domain, and any deployment needs load and failover testing that customers routinely underestimate.; Garden incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • They diverge on capability: Baffle covers Transparent proxy deployment, Garden covers Action graph.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Baffle and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where Baffle and Garden differ
AttributeBaffleGarden
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsLinux, WebLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

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 Baffle

  • Transparent proxy deployment
  • Field-level encryption
  • Tokenisation
  • Format-preserving de-identification
  • Dynamic data masking
  • Bring your own key
  • Analytics and pipeline support
  • AI pipeline protection

Only in Garden

  • Action graph
  • Shared result caching
  • Remote Kubernetes environments
  • In-cluster builds
  • Same config everywhere
  • Hot reload sync
  • Helm and Kustomize support
  • Templating

What people use each for

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

Baffle

  • A bank with a legacy application it cannot safely refactor that has an audit finding requiring field-level encryption of account datanot Garden
  • A company wanting to take a reporting database out of PCI scope by tokenising card fields before they landnot Garden
  • A healthcare organisation that must ensure database administrators and cloud operators cannot read patient identifiers in the tables they administernot Garden
  • A team moving regulated data into a warehouse or an AI retrieval pipeline that needs identifiers de-identified in transit without rewriting the ingest jobsnot Garden

Garden

  • A platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loopnot Baffle
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Baffle
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Baffle
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Baffle

Where each one falls short

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

Baffle

  • The proxy sits in the production data path, so it becomes a latency contributor and a failure domain, and any deployment needs load and failover testing that customers routinely underestimate.
  • What you can still do in SQL depends on the protection mode chosen, and stronger modes restrict comparisons, joins and aggregations on protected columns, which can quietly break existing reports and analytics.
  • Database and driver coverage is finite, so an organisation with an unusual engine, an old driver or heavy use of stored procedures may find its most important system is exactly the one not supported.
  • Pricing is unpublished and scales with protected data stores, which means an enterprise trying to protect a long tail of small databases pays disproportionately compared with protecting a handful of large ones.
  • Key management is your responsibility under bring your own key, and while that is the correct security posture, it moves a real operational burden and a genuine data-loss risk onto the customer.

Garden

  • Incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • It is tightly bound to Kubernetes, so teams running on ECS, Nomad, plain VMs or serverless get little from it and would need a different tool entirely.
  • The YAML action graph is a real configuration surface: a large monorepo needs someone to own and maintain Garden config as a first-class artefact, which is a standing platform-engineering cost.
  • Shared remote environments mean every developer needs cluster access and a cost allocation model, so cloud spend rises and namespace sprawl becomes a thing you have to police.
  • Caching correctness depends on declaring dependencies accurately; an under-declared action will serve a stale cached pass and hide a genuine test failure, which is a hard class of bug to notice.

Pricing, plan by plan

Baffle

On request
  • Baffle Data Protection Services$undefined/year
    • Quoted by protected data stores and deployment scale
    • Self-managed and cloud marketplace deployment options
    • Annual subscription

Garden

Free
  • Garden open sourceFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed CLI
    • Full action graph and caching
    • Self-managed clusters
  • Commercial tier$undefined/year
    • Hosted caching and team features
    • Support and onboarding
    • Pricing no longer published since the Incredibuild acquisition

Which should you pick?

Choose Baffle if

  • You need transparent proxy deployment.
  • You work on Linux, Web.
  • You also want field-level encryption.
Baffle review

Choose Garden if

  • You need action graph.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
  • You also want shared result caching.
Garden review

Questions people ask

Is Baffle or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. Baffle starts at On request and Garden at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Baffle or Garden?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Baffle and Free for Garden.
Does Baffle or Garden run on more platforms?
Baffle runs on Linux, Web. Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Baffle starts at On request.
What is Baffle best used for?
Baffle is most often used for a bank with a legacy application it cannot safely refactor that has an audit finding requiring field-level encryption of account data, a company wanting to take a reporting database out of pci scope by tokenising card fields before they land, a healthcare organisation that must ensure database administrators and cloud operators cannot read patient identifiers in the tables they administer, a team moving regulated data into a warehouse or an ai retrieval pipeline that needs identifiers de-identified in transit without rewriting the ingest jobs. Of those, a bank with a legacy application it cannot safely refactor that has an audit finding requiring field-level encryption of account data and a company wanting to take a reporting database out of pci scope by tokenising card fields before they land are not what Garden is typically brought in for.
What can Baffle do that Garden cannot?
Baffle covers Transparent proxy deployment, Field-level encryption, Tokenisation, Format-preserving de-identification. Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Baffle: Do applications need code changes?

No. That is the central design choice. Baffle intercepts traffic as a proxy rather than requiring an SDK call at every read and write.

Garden: Is Garden still maintained?

The open source project remains on GitHub under Incredibuild ownership, but the commercial pricing page redirects to the docs and there is no public paid offer.

Baffle: Can you still query encrypted columns?

Partly, and it depends on the protection mode. Some modes preserve equality matching and format, stronger modes restrict what SQL operations remain possible, so this must be tested against your actual queries.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

Effectively yes. Garden is built around Kubernetes environments and offers little to teams on other runtimes.

Baffle: Does it take systems out of PCI scope?

Tokenisation can reduce scope by ensuring card data never lands in the protected system, but scope reduction is an assessor judgement, not a product setting.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

No. It runs inside GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or similar and speeds up what those pipelines execute.

Baffle: Who holds the encryption keys?

You do, through your own key management service. Baffle supports bring your own key rather than holding customer keys itself.

Garden: What is the actual saving?

It comes from skipping builds and tests whose inputs have not changed, so the benefit scales with how many services you have and how often only a few change.

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