Developer Tools · head to head
Depot vs Trino
Depot
Developer Tools
Cloud-based builds and CI runs 55x faster with less cost
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
Trino
Technology
A distributed SQL engine that queries data where it already lives, across object storage, warehouses and operational databases.
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Depot developer plan minute limits may be insufficient for active development; Trino trino stores nothing and computes no statistics of its own, so the plan it produces is only as good as the partitioning, file sizes and table statistics on the source; a Hive table of thousands of small files or a lake with no stats produces a slow query the engine cannot improve.
- They diverge on capability: Depot covers Depot CI, Trino covers Federated querying.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Depot and Trino actually diverge.
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 Depot
- Depot CI
- Container builds
- GitHub Actions runners
- Distributed caching
- Build API
- Depot Registry
- Cross-platform builds
- SSH debugging
Only in Trino
- Federated querying
- Connector architecture
- Predicate and aggregation pushdown
- Massively parallel execution
- Fault-tolerant execution
- Resource groups
- Iceberg and Delta table support
- Standard client protocols
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Depot
- Accelerating Docker builds for container-based developmentnot Trino
- Replacing GitHub Actions runners with faster infrastructurenot Trino
- Distributing cache across Monorepo buildsnot Trino
- Debugging failed CI builds interactively with SSHnot Trino
Trino
- Ad hoc analysis that spans a data lake and one or more operational databases, without building an ingestion pipeline firstnot Depot
- Serving a BI tool a single SQL endpoint over an estate that is actually several separate storage systemsnot Depot
- Querying Iceberg or Delta tables on object storage interactively, as the compute layer of a lakehousenot Depot
- Investigating whether a dataset is worth ingesting, by querying it in place before committing to a pipeline for itnot 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
Trino
- Trino stores nothing and computes no statistics of its own, so the plan it produces is only as good as the partitioning, file sizes and table statistics on the source; a Hive table of thousands of small files or a lake with no stats produces a slow query the engine cannot improve.
- Federated queries pull data out of the systems they touch, so a join between a lake table and a production Postgres can put a full table scan onto an OLTP database that other applications depend on, and the person who wrote the query will not see the incident it causes.
- Releases come roughly every one to two weeks with no community long-term support line, and deprecations arrive quickly, so you either dedicate someone to keeping current or you buy Starburst Enterprise for a supported long-term version.
- It is memory-based and disk spilling was deprecated in favour of fault-tolerant execution, so a query exceeding cluster memory fails outright rather than degrading; enabling fault-tolerant execution requires an external exchange store on object storage and makes queries measurably slower.
- It is a query engine and not a warehouse: there is no built-in job scheduling, no incremental materialised view maintenance and no transformation framework, so producing curated tables still needs dbt or an equivalent layer that somebody has to own.
- The 2020 fork split the ecosystem, so documentation, connectors, Stack Overflow answers and vendor material written before then describe PrestoDB, which is now a different project with different behaviour, and following the wrong one wastes real time.
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
Trino
FreeNo published plan breakdown. See the Trino 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.
Choose Trino if
- You need federated querying.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want connector architecture.
Questions people ask
- Is Depot or Trino better?
- Neither clearly leads. Depot starts at Free and Trino at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Depot or Trino?
- Depot starts at Free and Trino at Free.
- Does Depot or Trino run on more platforms?
- Depot runs on Cloud, GitHub, CLI. Trino runs on Web.
- Can I use Depot for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- 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 Trino is typically brought in for.
- What can Depot do that Trino cannot?
- Depot covers Depot CI, Container builds, GitHub Actions runners, Distributed caching. Trino covers Federated querying, Connector architecture, Predicate and aggregation pushdown, Massively parallel execution.
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.
SourceTrino: What is the difference between Trino and Presto?
They share an origin. The original creators left Meta and renamed their fork from PrestoSQL to Trino in December 2020; PrestoDB continues separately under the Linux Foundation. They have diverged in features, connectors and SQL behaviour, so material written for one may not apply to the other.
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.
SourceTrino: Does Trino replace my data warehouse?
Not on its own. It is compute without storage, scheduling or transformation. Paired with Iceberg or Delta on object storage and something like dbt for modelling it can serve as a lakehouse; used alone it is a query layer over what you already have.
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.
SourceTrino: Why is my federated query slow?
Usually because a connector could not push a filter or aggregation down, so Trino is pulling whole tables across the network to join them itself. The fix is usually better source-side partitioning or statistics, or ingesting that source rather than federating it.
Trino: What happens when a query runs out of memory?
It fails. Disk spilling was deprecated in favour of fault-tolerant execution, which checkpoints to an external exchange store such as S3 and lets long queries survive memory pressure and worker loss, at the cost of noticeably slower execution.
Trino: Is there commercial support?
Yes, from Starburst, which offers Starburst Enterprise with long-term supported releases and Starburst Galaxy as a managed service. The open source project itself has no long-term support line.
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