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Business Intelligence · head to head

Cabin vs Dagger

Cabin logo

Cabin

Business Intelligence

Cookieless web analytics that also reports the carbon footprint of your website

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit CabinFull review
Dagger logo

Dagger

Developer Tools

Programmable CI/CD engine that runs your pipeline as containers on any runner

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit DaggerFull review

The short version

  • Cabin is a privacy-first analytics tool.
  • Free plans on both; paid from $14/mo and $50/mo.
  • Only Cabin lists cookieless tracking; only Dagger lists pipelines as code.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cabin and Dagger actually diverge.

Attributes where Cabin and Dagger differ
AttributeCabinDagger
Pricing modelPer month by pageview volumePer month per team for Dagger Cloud
PlatformsWebLinux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted
CategoryBusiness IntelligenceDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes).

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 Cabin

  • Cookieless tracking
  • Carbon reporting
  • 1.2kb script
  • Custom events
  • Ad-blocker bypass
  • MCP access
  • Branded dashboards
  • EU data storage

Only in Dagger

  • Pipelines as code
  • Local and CI parity
  • Content-addressed caching
  • Dagger Functions and modules
  • CI-provider agnostic
  • Dagger Cloud traces
  • GitHub Checks integration
  • Container-native execution

What people use each for

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

Cabin

  • Replacing Google Analytics on a site where a cookie consent banner is hurting conversion and you do not need behavioural advertising datanot Dagger
  • An organisation with a published sustainability commitment that needs a reportable figure for its website emissionsnot Dagger
  • An agency managing many client sites that wants unlimited domains and branded client dashboards for a flat $45 a monthnot Dagger
  • A developer who wants to query site analytics conversationally through an MCP-connected assistant rather than reading a dashboardnot Dagger

Dagger

  • A platform team maintaining near-identical build YAML across forty repositories that wants one versioned module every repository calls insteadnot Cabin
  • An engineering organisation migrating off a CI provider that does not want to rewrite every pipeline as part of the migrationnot Cabin
  • A team whose engineers waste hours pushing commits to debug CI-only failures and needs to reproduce the exact run locallynot Cabin
  • A monorepo where most commits touch a small subset of services and cache-accurate step skipping cuts build minutes materiallynot Cabin

Where each one falls short

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

Cabin

  • The analytics are deliberately shallow: no funnels, no cohort retention, no session replay and no user-level journeys, so anything beyond traffic and event counts requires a second tool
  • Carbon figures are modelled from bytes transferred using CO2.js assumptions about grid intensity and device energy, not measured, so they are directionally useful and should never be presented as audited emissions data
  • Cabin is a product of Normally, a design studio, rather than a company whose sole business is analytics, which puts a reasonable question mark over long-term roadmap investment and support depth
  • The 30-day retention on the free tier and 12 months on Plus mean year-on-year comparison needs the $45 Scale plan, which is a large jump for a small site that only wanted longer history
  • Because it does not use cookies or cross-site identifiers, returning-visitor and multi-session attribution are approximations, which matters if anyone in the business is trying to reconcile it with an ad platform's numbers

Dagger

  • Dagger is not a CI provider, so you keep paying for GitHub Actions or GitLab runners underneath it; the Dagger Cloud subscription is an addition to your CI bill, not a replacement for it
  • Writing pipelines in Go or TypeScript raises the barrier to entry: a release engineer who could edit a YAML step now needs to read code, and the people who can fix a broken build shrink to those comfortable with the SDK
  • The engine runs as a container on the runner and needs a persistent cache volume to deliver its main benefit, so ephemeral CI runners give you correctness without the speed, and provisioning durable cache storage is extra platform work
  • The Team plan caps at ten users and ten million events per month; an organisation of any size crosses that quickly and moves to Enterprise pricing that is not published, so cost at scale is unknowable up front
  • The module ecosystem is young and thinly maintained relative to the marketplace of a mature CI provider, so integrations that exist as a one-line Action often have to be written yourself as a Dagger function

Pricing, plan by plan

Cabin

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 1 domain
    • 10,000 pageviews per month
    • 30-day data retention
  • Plus$14/mo
    • Up to 10 domains
    • 100,000 pageviews per month
    • 12-month retention
  • Scale$45/mo
    • Unlimited domains
    • 5,000,000 pageviews per month
    • Unlimited retention

Dagger

Free
  • IndividualFree
    • One user
    • One million events per month
    • Workflow logs and function call traces
  • Team$50/mo
    • Up to ten users
    • Ten million events per month
    • Module insights and module catalogue
  • EnterpriseOn request
    • Custom user and event limits
    • SSO
    • Managed single-tenant deployment

Which should you pick?

Choose Cabin if

  • You need cookieless tracking.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want carbon reporting.
Cabin review

Choose Dagger if

  • You need pipelines as code.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted.
  • You also want local and ci parity.
Dagger review

Questions people ask

Is Cabin or Dagger better?
Neither clearly leads. Cabin starts at Free and Dagger at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cabin or Dagger?
Cabin starts at Free and Dagger at Free.
Does Cabin or Dagger run on more platforms?
Cabin runs on Web. Dagger runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted.
Can I use Cabin for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Cabin best used for?
Cabin is most often used for replacing google analytics on a site where a cookie consent banner is hurting conversion and you do not need behavioural advertising data, an organisation with a published sustainability commitment that needs a reportable figure for its website emissions, an agency managing many client sites that wants unlimited domains and branded client dashboards for a flat $45 a month, a developer who wants to query site analytics conversationally through an mcp-connected assistant rather than reading a dashboard. Of those, replacing google analytics on a site where a cookie consent banner is hurting conversion and you do not need behavioural advertising data and an organisation with a published sustainability commitment that needs a reportable figure for its website emissions are not what Dagger is typically brought in for.
What can Cabin do that Dagger cannot?
Cabin covers Cookieless tracking, Carbon reporting, 1.2kb script, Custom events. Dagger covers Pipelines as code, Local and CI parity, Content-addressed caching, Dagger Functions and modules.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cabin: Do I need a cookie consent banner with Cabin?

No. It sets no cookies and collects no cross-site identifiers, and data is stored in the EU, which is the specific reason most buyers switch to it.

Dagger: Does Dagger replace GitHub Actions?

No. Dagger runs inside GitHub Actions or any other CI. It replaces the YAML that describes your pipeline steps, not the trigger and runner layer.

Cabin: How accurate is the carbon measurement?

It is an estimate derived from data transfer using the CO2.js model. It is reliable for tracking change over time on your own site and unsuitable as an audited emissions figure.

Dagger: Is the engine open source?

Yes, the Dagger engine and SDKs are open source and free. Dagger Cloud, the observability product, is what costs money.

Cabin: Who makes Cabin?

It was built at Normally, a research and design studio in London, out of work on data, privacy and the carbon footprint of digital products.

Dagger: What is an event in the pricing?

Dagger Cloud meters pipeline telemetry events. One million per month is free; the Team plan at 50 USD per month allows ten million.

Cabin: Can it replace Google Analytics entirely?

For traffic, referrer and event reporting, yes. For advertising attribution, audience building and funnel analysis, no.

Dagger: Can I run the same pipeline on my laptop?

Yes, that is the main reason teams adopt it. The dagger CLI executes the identical graph locally, so CI-only failures become reproducible.

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