Softwr

Cloud · head to head

Cerebrium vs Earthly

Cerebrium logo

Cerebrium

Cloud

Serverless GPU infrastructure for real-time AI inference and applications

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Cerebrium free Hobby tier limited to 3 apps and 5 GPU concurrency; Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact
  • They diverge on capability: Cerebrium covers Ultra-fast cold starts, Earthly covers Policy as code.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 29 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cerebrium and Earthly actually diverge.

Attributes where Cerebrium and Earthly differ
AttributeCerebriumEarthly
Pricing modelFreemium with monthly plans and per-second compute chargesNo pricing published on website
PlatformsCloud, DockerWeb, CLI
CategoryCloudDeveloper Tools
FoundedUnknown2020

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

  • Ultra-fast cold starts
  • Elastic scaling
  • Bring your own code
  • Multi-region failover
  • WebSocket and streaming
  • Asynchronous jobs
  • CI/CD with gradual rollouts
  • OpenTelemetry integration

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.

Cerebrium

  • Deploying voice agents and conversational AI applicationsnot Earthly
  • Video and image model serving with low latencynot Earthly
  • LLM inference and completion endpointsnot Earthly
  • Real-time embeddings and vector database operationsnot Earthly
  • Distributed model training with hyperparameter sweepsnot Earthly

Earthly

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

Where each one falls short

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

Cerebrium

  • Free Hobby tier limited to 3 apps and 5 GPU concurrency
  • Standard plan at $100/month required for production deployments
  • Per-second compute pricing requires continuous cost monitoring
  • Storage costs add up for large model files

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

Cerebrium

Free
  • HobbyFree
    • 3 user seats
    • Up to 3 deployed apps
    • 5 GPU concurrency
  • Standard$100/month
    • Unlimited seats and apps
    • 30 GPU concurrency
    • Custom domains
  • Enterprise$undefined/custom
    • Unlimited resources
    • Volume discounts
    • Dedicated support
  • GPU Compute$undefined/per-second
    • T4: $0.000164/s
    • H100: $0.00167/s

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Cerebrium if

  • You need ultra-fast cold starts.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Cloud, Docker.
  • You also want elastic scaling.
Cerebrium 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 Cerebrium or Earthly better?
Neither clearly leads. Cerebrium starts at Free and Earthly at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cerebrium or Earthly?
Cerebrium starts at Free and Earthly at Free.
Does Cerebrium or Earthly run on more platforms?
Cerebrium runs on Cloud, Docker. Earthly runs on Web, CLI.
Can I use Cerebrium for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Cerebrium best used for?
Cerebrium is most often used for deploying voice agents and conversational ai applications, video and image model serving with low latency, llm inference and completion endpoints, real-time embeddings and vector database operations. Of those, deploying voice agents and conversational ai applications and video and image model serving with low latency are not what Earthly is typically brought in for.
What can Cerebrium do that Earthly cannot?
Cerebrium covers Ultra-fast cold starts, Elastic scaling, Bring your own code, Multi-region failover. Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cerebrium: Is Cerebrium only for inference or can it train models?

Cerebrium supports both inference serving and model training with hyperparameter sweeps. It enables deployment of voice agents, LLMs, video models, and other AI applications.

Source
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
Cerebrium: How do the cold starts compare to other platforms?

Cerebrium achieves 2-4 second cold starts through memory and GPU snapshotting, significantly faster than traditional 30+ second cold boots. This is competitive with platforms like Beam Cloud.

Source
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
Cerebrium: What compliance certifications does Cerebrium have?

Cerebrium maintains SOC 2 Type II compliance, HIPAA certification, GDPR compliance, and ISO certification. It provides gVisor container isolation and configurable data residency for regulated workloads.

Source
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
Share

Related pages

More on Cerebrium

More on Earthly

Keep looking

Other head to heads