Developer Tools · head to head
Depot vs etcd
Depot
Developer Tools
Cloud-based builds and CI runs 55x faster with less cost
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
etcd
Technology
A distributed key-value store using Raft consensus, built for cluster coordination rather than application data.
- From
- On request
- Free plan
- No
The short version
- Only Depot has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Depot developer plan minute limits may be insufficient for active development; etcd it is sized for coordination data, not application data: the default backend quota is 2 GB and 8 GB is the documented recommended maximum, and exceeding it puts the cluster into a NOSPACE alarm where it accepts no writes until an operator compacts, defragments and clears the alarm by hand.
- They diverge on capability: Depot covers Depot CI, etcd covers Raft consensus.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Depot and etcd actually diverge.
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 Depot
- Depot CI
- Container builds
- GitHub Actions runners
- Distributed caching
- Build API
- Depot Registry
- Cross-platform builds
- SSH debugging
Only in etcd
- Raft consensus
- Linearizable reads
- Transactions
- Leases
- Watches
- MVCC revision history
- Role-based access control
- Snapshot backup and restore
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Depot
- Accelerating Docker builds for container-based developmentnot etcd
- Replacing GitHub Actions runners with faster infrastructurenot etcd
- Distributing cache across Monorepo buildsnot etcd
- Debugging failed CI builds interactively with SSHnot etcd
etcd
- Storing Kubernetes cluster state, which is what the overwhelming majority of etcd deployments are doingnot Depot
- Leader election and distributed locking in a home-grown scheduler or control plane, using leases and transactionsnot Depot
- Service discovery and dynamic configuration where readers need to be notified of changes rather than poll for themnot Depot
- Coordinating failover in a clustered database, as Patroni does for PostgreSQLnot Depot
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Depot
- Developer plan minute limits may be insufficient for active development
- Startup plan at $200/mo is expensive for smaller teams
- Business plan requires custom pricing consultation
- macOS M2 runners not available on Developer plan
etcd
- It is sized for coordination data, not application data: the default backend quota is 2 GB and 8 GB is the documented recommended maximum, and exceeding it puts the cluster into a NOSPACE alarm where it accepts no writes until an operator compacts, defragments and clears the alarm by hand.
- Every write is replicated and fsynced before acknowledgement, so cluster performance is bounded by the slowest disk in it; a member on network-attached storage with high fsync latency causes leader elections and cluster-wide latency spikes that look like network problems and are not.
- Adding members increases availability but reduces write throughput, because each write must reach a larger quorum; you run three or five members for fault tolerance, and increasing capacity means faster hardware rather than more nodes.
- There is no sharding and no multi-tenancy, so isolating workloads means running separate clusters, each with its own quorum, certificates, backup schedule and upgrade path, and that operational multiplication is often unexpected.
- Running it yourself is a real job: periodic compaction and defragmentation, snapshot backups you have actually rehearsed restoring, and rotation of both peer and client TLS certificates, none of which happens automatically outside a managed Kubernetes service.
- Losing quorum is not self-healing; recovering a cluster that has lost a majority means restoring from a snapshot and accepting that everything written since that snapshot is gone, which makes backup frequency a data-loss budget decision rather than a routine setting.
Pricing, plan by plan
Depot
Free- Developer$20/month
- 1 user
- 500 Docker build minutes per month
- 2,000 Depot CI minutes per month
- Startup$200/month
- Unlimited users
- 5,000 Docker build minutes per month
- 20,000 Depot CI minutes per month
- Business$undefined/custom
- Custom pricing
- Unlimited users
- Custom monthly compute
etcd
On requestNo published plan breakdown. See the etcd review.
Which should you pick?
Choose Depot if
- You need depot ci.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Cloud, GitHub, CLI.
- You also want container builds.
Questions people ask
- Is Depot or etcd better?
- Neither clearly leads. Depot starts at Free and etcd at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Depot or etcd?
- Depot has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Depot and On request for etcd.
- Does Depot or etcd run on more platforms?
- Depot runs on Cloud, GitHub, CLI. etcd runs on Web.
- Can I use Depot for free?
- Yes. Depot has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. etcd starts at On request.
- What is Depot best used for?
- Depot is most often used for accelerating docker builds for container-based development, replacing github actions runners with faster infrastructure, distributing cache across monorepo builds, debugging failed ci builds interactively with ssh. Of those, accelerating docker builds for container-based development and replacing github actions runners with faster infrastructure are not what etcd is typically brought in for.
- What can Depot do that etcd cannot?
- Depot covers Depot CI, Container builds, GitHub Actions runners, Distributed caching. etcd covers Raft consensus, Linearizable reads, Transactions, Leases.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Depot: How much faster are Depot runners compared to GitHub Actions?
Depot runners offer 30% faster CPUs and 10x faster networking than standard GitHub-hosted runners, enabling builds to complete significantly faster.
Sourceetcd: Can I use etcd as an application database?
No. It is designed for metadata and coordination, with a recommended maximum store size of around 8 GB, no sharding and a write path deliberately optimised for durability rather than throughput. Application data belongs in a database built for it.
Depot: What is included in the Developer plan?
Developer plan ($20/month) includes 500 Docker build minutes, 2,000 Depot CI minutes, 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes, 25 GB storage, unlimited concurrency, and community support.
Sourceetcd: How many members should a cluster have?
Three for most cases, five where you need to survive two simultaneous failures. Always an odd number, because an even-sized cluster gains no additional fault tolerance while making quorum harder to reach.
Depot: Can I use Depot with my own AWS account?
Yes, Depot Managed allows deployment within customer AWS accounts. This is available to interested customers; contact sales for details.
Sourceetcd: What happens when the store fills up?
The cluster raises a NOSPACE alarm and stops accepting writes, becoming effectively read-only. Recovery requires compacting old revisions, defragmenting each member and then explicitly disarming the alarm, all done by an operator.
etcd: Why is my etcd cluster slow or unstable?
Almost always disk latency. Because every write is fsynced before acknowledgement, slow or shared storage causes heartbeat timeouts, leader elections and cascading latency. Local SSDs with low fsync latency are effectively a requirement.
etcd: How does it compare with Consul or ZooKeeper?
All three provide consensus-backed coordination. etcd has the simplest data model and the Kubernetes ecosystem behind it; Consul bundles service discovery, health checking and a service mesh; ZooKeeper is older, JVM-based and still common under Kafka and Hadoop-era systems.
Related pages
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- etcd vs ConfigCat
- etcd vs Avo
- etcd vs Azure DevOps
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- etcd vs Asana
- etcd vs ClickUp
- etcd vs Figma
- etcd vs Istio
- etcd vs MongoDB
- etcd vs Finxact
- etcd vs Sentry
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- etcd vs Apache Hadoop
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