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Developer Tools · head to head

ConfigCat vs Garden

ConfigCat logo

ConfigCat

Developer Tools

Feature flag service priced per flag and environment with unlimited seats and unlimited monthly active users

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: ConfigCat there is no experimentation or statistical analysis engine, so teams wanting real A/B tests with significance testing must buy and integrate a separate analytics or experimentation product.; 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: ConfigCat covers Feature flags and configuration, Garden covers Action graph.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ConfigCat and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where ConfigCat and Garden differ
AttributeConfigCatGarden
Pricing modelPer month by feature flag and environment countOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, API, iOS, Android, Node.js, .NET, Java, Python, GoLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Developer Tools).

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 ConfigCat

  • Feature flags and configuration
  • Percentage rollouts
  • Targeting rules and segments
  • Unlimited seats
  • Global CDN delivery
  • Audit log
  • Public API and webhooks
  • SDKs across languages

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.

ConfigCat

  • A consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-MAU flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worthnot Garden
  • A team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seatnot Garden
  • Decoupling deployment from release with percentage rollouts and a kill switch, without buying an experimentation platformnot Garden
  • A small team that needs ten flags permanently and can run indefinitely on the free tiernot Garden

Garden

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

Where each one falls short

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

ConfigCat

  • There is no experimentation or statistical analysis engine, so teams wanting real A/B tests with significance testing must buy and integrate a separate analytics or experimentation product.
  • Pricing by flag count punishes exactly the hygiene you want: the Pro tier caps at 100 flags, so teams that do not aggressively retire stale flags are pushed to the 325 dollar Smart tier for housekeeping reasons rather than growth.
  • The free tier allows only 2 environments, which does not cover the common development, staging and production split, so almost any real deployment starts on a paid plan.
  • It is a smaller vendor than the category incumbents, so enterprise procurement teams will find less depth in compliance attestations, contractual terms and reference architecture than LaunchDarkly offers.
  • Flag evaluation relies on SDK-side caching of a CDN-delivered config, which is fast but means propagation of a change is eventually consistent rather than instant, something to understand before relying on it as an emergency kill switch.

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

ConfigCat

Free
  • Forever FreeFree
    • 10 feature flags
    • 2 environments and 2 products
    • 2 segments
  • Pro$110/month
    • 100 feature flags
    • 3 environments and 3 products
    • Unlimited seats and MAUs
  • Smart$325/month
    • Unlimited feature flags
    • Unlimited environments, products and segments
    • Unlimited seats and MAUs
  • Enterprise$900/month
    • Everything in Smart
    • Enterprise support and controls
    • Unlimited everything on flag counts

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 ConfigCat if

  • You need feature flags and configuration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, API, iOS, Android, Node.js, .NET, Java, Python, Go.
  • You also want percentage rollouts.
ConfigCat 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 ConfigCat or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. ConfigCat starts at Free and Garden at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ConfigCat or Garden?
ConfigCat starts at Free and Garden at Free.
Does ConfigCat or Garden run on more platforms?
ConfigCat runs on Web, API, iOS, Android, Node.js, .NET, Java, Python, Go. Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
Can I use ConfigCat for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is ConfigCat best used for?
ConfigCat is most often used for a consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-mau flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worth, a team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seat, decoupling deployment from release with percentage rollouts and a kill switch, without buying an experimentation platform, a small team that needs ten flags permanently and can run indefinitely on the free tier. Of those, a consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-mau flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worth and a team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seat are not what Garden is typically brought in for.
What can ConfigCat do that Garden cannot?
ConfigCat covers Feature flags and configuration, Percentage rollouts, Targeting rules and segments, Unlimited seats. Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ConfigCat: How is ConfigCat priced?

By feature flag, environment and product count. Seats, monthly active users and flag reads are unlimited on every plan.

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.

ConfigCat: Is the free tier usable?

For small projects yes, but at 10 flags and 2 environments it will not cover a dev, staging and production setup.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

ConfigCat: Can it run A/B tests?

It can split traffic, but there is no statistics engine. You need a separate analytics tool to decide a winner.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

ConfigCat: How fast does a flag change take effect?

SDKs poll and cache, so changes propagate on the polling interval rather than instantly.

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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