Softwr

Cybersecurity · head to head

Camio vs Garden

Camio logo

Camio

Cybersecurity

AI video search that runs on cameras you already own, starting near five dollars per camera per month

From
$4.99/month
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: Camio the 4.99 US dollars per camera per month starting rate is genuinely a starting rate: Flex add-ons run from 1 to 89 dollars per stream per month, so a busy camera with detailed vehicle labelling can cost more than fifteen times a quiet one and a site budget built on the headline number will be badly wrong.; 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: Camio covers Natural language video search, Garden covers Action graph.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Camio and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where Camio and Garden differ
AttributeCamioGarden
Starting price$4.99/monthFree
Pricing modelPer camera per monthOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, LinuxLinux, 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 Camio

  • Natural language video search
  • Works with existing cameras
  • Free Box software
  • Zone and schedule rules
  • Vehicle and person attributes
  • Retail and queue analytics
  • Alerting integrations
  • Camio Flex add-ons

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.

Camio

  • A warehouse that needs an alert when a trailer door opens outside scheduled hours rather than a recording nobody watchesnot Garden
  • A retailer investigating a shrink pattern who needs to find every instance of a behaviour across a month of footagenot Garden
  • A manufacturer wanting a safety alert when a person enters a machine zone during a runnot Garden
  • A property manager who wants search and alerting on an existing camera estate without replacing recordersnot Garden

Garden

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

Where each one falls short

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

Camio

  • The 4.99 US dollars per camera per month starting rate is genuinely a starting rate: Flex add-ons run from 1 to 89 dollars per stream per month, so a busy camera with detailed vehicle labelling can cost more than fifteen times a quiet one and a site budget built on the headline number will be badly wrong.
  • Camio is analytics and search, not a full video management system, so most sites still need a recorder or VMS alongside it and end up with two products and two bills.
  • The Camio Box gateway must sit on the same local network as the cameras, which means a device, power and network port at every site, and multi-site estates multiply that install work.
  • It is a small private company against Verkada, Eagle Eye and the analytics bundled free into major VMS platforms, so it is structurally exposed to an incumbent bundling equivalent capability at no extra charge.
  • Analytic accuracy depends heavily on the existing cameras’ placement, resolution and lighting, and cameras installed years ago for recording rather than for computer vision often produce detection rates that disappoint against the demo.

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

Camio

$4.99/month
  • Camio usage-based plan$4.99/month
    • Starting rate per camera per month
    • Scales with search, storage and feature use
    • Works with existing ONVIF and RTSP cameras
  • Camio Flex add-ons$undefined/month
    • Optional services from 1 to 89 USD per stream per month
    • High-traffic cameras and detailed vehicle labelling at the expensive end
    • Priced per stream rather than per site

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 Camio if

  • You need natural language video search.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Linux.
  • You also want works with existing cameras.
Camio 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 Camio or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. Camio starts at $4.99/month and Garden at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Camio or Garden?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $4.99/month for Camio and Free for Garden.
Does Camio or Garden run on more platforms?
Camio runs on Web, iOS, Android, Linux. 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. Camio starts at $4.99/month.
What is Camio best used for?
Camio is most often used for a warehouse that needs an alert when a trailer door opens outside scheduled hours rather than a recording nobody watches, a retailer investigating a shrink pattern who needs to find every instance of a behaviour across a month of footage, a manufacturer wanting a safety alert when a person enters a machine zone during a run, a property manager who wants search and alerting on an existing camera estate without replacing recorders. Of those, a warehouse that needs an alert when a trailer door opens outside scheduled hours rather than a recording nobody watches and a retailer investigating a shrink pattern who needs to find every instance of a behaviour across a month of footage are not what Garden is typically brought in for.
What can Camio do that Garden cannot?
Camio covers Natural language video search, Works with existing cameras, Free Box software, Zone and schedule rules. Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Camio: Do I have to buy Camio cameras?

No. Camio works with ONVIF and RTSP cameras you already have, which is the main reason to choose it over camera-bundled AI platforms.

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.

Camio: Do I have to buy the Camio Box?

Not necessarily. The gateway software can be downloaded onto hardware you already own; Box and Box Pro units are for sites needing more processing capacity.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Camio: What does it really cost?

Plans start at 4.99 US dollars per camera per month, but Flex add-ons run from 1 to 89 dollars per stream per month, so per-camera cost varies enormously by traffic and labelling detail.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

Camio: Does Camio replace my recorder?

No. It adds search and alerting. Continuous recording and evidence retention usually still need a VMS or recorder.

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.

Share

Related pages

More on Camio

More on Garden

Keep looking

Other head to heads