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Developer Tools · head to head

Dagger vs Ping Identity

Dagger logo

Dagger

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Ping Identity logo

Ping Identity

Cybersecurity

Enterprise identity for workforce and customers, with a 5,000 user floor

From
$3/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Dagger has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Ping Identity workforce pricing carries a 5,000 user annual minimum, so an organisation with 800 staff pays for 5,000 and the effective per user cost is over six times the list rate.
  • They diverge on capability: Dagger covers Pipelines as code, Ping Identity covers Single sign-on.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Dagger and Ping Identity actually diverge.

Attributes where Dagger and Ping Identity differ
AttributeDaggerPing Identity
Starting priceFree$3/month
Pricing modelPer month per team for Dagger CloudPer user per month
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, Self-hostedWeb, Linux, Windows
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

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 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

Only in Ping Identity

  • Single sign-on
  • Adaptive MFA
  • Identity orchestration
  • API access management
  • Directory services
  • Flexible deployment
  • ForgeRock capabilities

What people use each for

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

Dagger

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

Ping Identity

  • A bank that must keep identity data on premises in one country while running SaaS identity elsewherenot Dagger
  • An airline or telco with tens of millions of customer identities needing a directory that holds that scalenot Dagger
  • An enterprise assembling authentication journeys that call several external verification and risk vendorsnot Dagger
  • An existing ForgeRock customer deciding what its upgrade path looks like under Ping ownershipnot Dagger

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Ping Identity

  • Workforce pricing carries a 5,000 user annual minimum, so an organisation with 800 staff pays for 5,000 and the effective per user cost is over six times the list rate.
  • Adaptive multi-factor authentication is in the Plus tier only, doubling the per user price for a capability many buyers assume is standard in a modern identity platform.
  • ForgeRock no longer exists as an independent product, so customers who chose it specifically to avoid Ping now face a roadmap set by the vendor they did not pick.
  • Thoma Bravo ownership across both merged companies means the commercial priority is margin, and buyers report firmer renewal negotiations than they saw before 2022.
  • The portfolio has overlapping components from three product lineages, so scoping a deployment requires vendor architects and the licensing conversation is more complicated than the price list implies.

Pricing, plan by plan

Dagger

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

Ping Identity

$3/month
  • PingOne for Workforce Essential$3/month
    • Minimum 5,000 users billed annually
    • Single sign-on and directory services
    • OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML and SCIM
  • PingOne for Workforce Plus$6/month
    • Minimum 5,000 users billed annually
    • Everything in Essential
    • Adaptive multi-factor authentication
  • PingOne for Customers Essential$35000/year
    • Flat annual fee
    • No-code identity orchestration
    • Unified customer profiles
  • PingOne for Customers Plus$50000/year
    • Flat annual fee
    • Everything in Essential
    • Adaptive MFA and device management

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Ping Identity if

  • You need single sign-on.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Windows.
  • You also want adaptive mfa.
Ping Identity review

Questions people ask

Is Dagger or Ping Identity better?
Neither clearly leads. Dagger starts at Free and Ping Identity at $3/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Dagger or Ping Identity?
Dagger has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Dagger and $3/month for Ping Identity.
Does Dagger or Ping Identity run on more platforms?
Dagger runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted. Ping Identity runs on Web, Linux, Windows.
Can I use Dagger for free?
Yes. Dagger has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Ping Identity starts at $3/month.
What is Dagger best used for?
Dagger is most often used for a platform team maintaining near-identical build yaml across forty repositories that wants one versioned module every repository calls instead, an engineering organisation migrating off a ci provider that does not want to rewrite every pipeline as part of the migration, a team whose engineers waste hours pushing commits to debug ci-only failures and needs to reproduce the exact run locally, a monorepo where most commits touch a small subset of services and cache-accurate step skipping cuts build minutes materially. Of those, a platform team maintaining near-identical build yaml across forty repositories that wants one versioned module every repository calls instead and an engineering organisation migrating off a ci provider that does not want to rewrite every pipeline as part of the migration are not what Ping Identity is typically brought in for.
What can Dagger do that Ping Identity cannot?
Dagger covers Pipelines as code, Local and CI parity, Content-addressed caching, Dagger Functions and modules. Ping Identity covers Single sign-on, Adaptive MFA, Identity orchestration, API access management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Ping Identity: Can I still buy ForgeRock?

Not as a separate product. Ping acquired ForgeRock in 2023 and the capabilities are sold within the Ping portfolio. Existing customers should ask about the specific migration path for their components.

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.

Ping Identity: What is the real minimum spend?

PingOne for Workforce Essential is 3 USD per user per month with a 5,000 user annual minimum, so roughly 180,000 USD a year before anything else.

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.

Ping Identity: Is MFA included?

Basic authentication policies are in Essential. Adaptive MFA and passwordless require the Plus tier at 6 USD per user per month.

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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