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Developer Tools · head to head

Dagger vs Teleport

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
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
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.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: Dagger covers Pipelines as code, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Dagger and Teleport actually diverge.

Attributes where Dagger and Teleport differ
AttributeDaggerTeleport
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelPer month per team for Dagger Cloudquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, Self-hostedLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
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 Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

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 Teleport
  • An engineering organisation migrating off a CI provider that does not want to rewrite every pipeline as part of the migrationnot Teleport
  • A team whose engineers waste hours pushing commits to debug CI-only failures and needs to reproduce the exact run locallynot Teleport
  • A monorepo where most commits touch a small subset of services and cache-accurate step skipping cuts build minutes materiallynot Teleport

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot Dagger
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot Dagger
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot Dagger
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot 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.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

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

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

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 Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is Dagger or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. Dagger starts at Free and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Dagger or Teleport?
Dagger has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Dagger and On request for Teleport.
Does Dagger or Teleport run on more platforms?
Dagger runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use Dagger for free?
Yes. Dagger has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Teleport starts at On request.
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 Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can Dagger do that Teleport cannot?
Dagger covers Pipelines as code, Local and CI parity, Content-addressed caching, Dagger Functions and modules. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

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.

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

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.

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

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.

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

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.

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

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