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Cybersecurity · head to head

BigID vs Earthly

BigID logo

BigID

Cybersecurity

Data discovery and classification across cloud, on-premise and unstructured stores

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Earthly has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: BigID pricing scales with data sources and volume, so the cost rises exactly as the estate you need to scan grows, and the modules shown in a demo, including AI security posture and headless deployment, are frequently separate licences that appear only in the final quote.; Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact
  • They diverge on capability: BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Earthly covers Policy as code.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BigID and Earthly actually diverge.

Attributes where BigID and Earthly differ
AttributeBigIDEarthly
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteNo pricing published on website
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, API, Self-hostedWeb, CLI
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
FoundedUnknown2020

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 BigID

  • Structured and unstructured scanning
  • Identity correlation
  • Data security posture management
  • Access intelligence
  • Privacy request support
  • Retention and minimisation
  • AI data controls
  • Policy and remediation workflow

Only in Earthly

  • Policy as code
  • Multi-stage enforcement
  • AI agent governance
  • Repository-wide policies
  • Incident response automation
  • Compliance management
  • Earthfiles build tool
  • Satellites

What people use each for

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

BigID

  • A bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migrationnot Earthly
  • A privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s recordsnot Earthly
  • A security team wanting to find sensitive data sitting in publicly readable object storage buckets before an attacker doesnot Earthly
  • A company building retrieval augmented AI that must exclude regulated personal data from the index it feeds to a modelnot Earthly

Earthly

  • Enforcing engineering standards across AI and human developersnot BigID
  • Automating incident response procedures across all repositoriesnot BigID
  • Embedding compliance requirements into development workflowsnot BigID
  • Standardizing build processes with Earthfilesnot BigID

Where each one falls short

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

BigID

  • Pricing scales with data sources and volume, so the cost rises exactly as the estate you need to scan grows, and the modules shown in a demo, including AI security posture and headless deployment, are frequently separate licences that appear only in the final quote.
  • Scanning large unstructured estates is slow and computationally expensive, so most organisations sample rather than scan everything, which reintroduces uncertainty into the very question they bought the tool to settle.
  • Classification accuracy on messy unstructured content requires tuning, and out of the box false positives on things like reference numbers create a large triage backlog that a small governance team cannot clear.
  • It discovers and reports but does not remediate, so realising value requires a separate process and often separate tooling to actually delete, restrict or move the data it flags.
  • It is built for large enterprises and both the price and the administrative overhead are disproportionate below a few thousand employees, where a lighter DSPM tool covers the security use case for far less.

Earthly

  • Pricing model not published; requires sales contact
  • Earthly Lunar is a recent launch (2025) with limited track record
  • Primarily GitHub-focused; limited integration with other platforms
  • No public documentation on pricing or feature tiers

Pricing, plan by plan

BigID

On request
  • BigID Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by number of data sources and data volume
    • Discovery and classification core
    • Optional DSPM, access intelligence and AI security modules licensed separately

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Which should you pick?

Choose BigID if

  • You need structured and unstructured scanning.
  • You work on Web, API, Self-hosted.
  • You also want identity correlation.
BigID review

Choose Earthly if

  • You need policy as code.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, CLI.
  • You also want multi-stage enforcement.
Earthly review

Questions people ask

Is BigID or Earthly better?
Neither clearly leads. BigID starts at On request and Earthly at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BigID or Earthly?
Earthly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for BigID and Free for Earthly.
Does BigID or Earthly run on more platforms?
BigID runs on Web, API, Self-hosted. Earthly runs on Web, CLI.
Can I use Earthly for free?
Yes. Earthly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. BigID starts at On request.
What is BigID best used for?
BigID is most often used for a bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migration, a privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s records, a security team wanting to find sensitive data sitting in publicly readable object storage buckets before an attacker does, a company building retrieval augmented ai that must exclude regulated personal data from the index it feeds to a model. Of those, a bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migration and a privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s records are not what Earthly is typically brought in for.
What can BigID do that Earthly cannot?
BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Identity correlation, Data security posture management, Access intelligence. Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BigID: What does BigID cost?

It is quoted by data source count and volume. Reported contracts run from roughly 15,000 to 175,000 US dollars a year, and add-on modules such as AI security posture are licensed on top.

Earthly: What is the difference between Earthfiles and Earthly Lunar?

Earthfiles is an open-source build tool that reached 12,000 GitHub stars and is used by companies like NVIDIA, Intel, and Databricks. Earthly Lunar is a separate governance platform launched in 2025 for enforcing standards across development workflows.

Source
BigID: Does it handle unstructured data?

Yes, and that is its main advantage. It classifies data in files and shares and correlates findings back to individuals, not just to data types.

Earthly: How does Earthly Lunar enforce standards?

Lunar converts engineering standards, compliance requirements, and processes documented in AGENTS.md files, wikis, and incident postmortems into enforceable guardrails that apply consistently across repositories and development stages.

Source
BigID: Will it delete the data it finds?

Not by itself in most deployments. It identifies and routes findings; deletion and remediation happen through your own processes or connected systems.

Earthly: What is the pricing for Earthly Lunar?

Pricing is not published on the website. Interested customers should contact Earthly's sales team for current pricing and feature tiers.

Source
BigID: Is it a privacy tool or a security tool?

Both are sold from the same discovery core. Buyers increasingly come from security wanting data security posture management rather than from legal wanting privacy.

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