Software · head to head
Domino Data Lab vs Seldon
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Domino Data Lab pricing is by quote only: the pricing page publishes no rate and no minimum, and the tier breakdown is behind a downloadable datasheet form; Seldon production deployment requires a Kubernetes cluster, whether managed such as GKE, EKS or AKS, or on-premises such as OpenShift
- They diverge on capability: Domino Data Lab covers Reproducible environments, Seldon covers Model serving.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Domino Data Lab and Seldon actually diverge.
| Attribute | Domino Data Lab | Seldon |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | subscription | freemium |
| Platforms | Web | Linux |
| Founded | 2013 | 2014 |
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Unknown).
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 Domino Data Lab
- Reproducible environments
- Model registry
- Model monitoring
- Collaboration
- Governance
- AWS
- Azure
- GCP
Only in Seldon
- Model serving
- A/B testing
- Canary deployments
- Outlier detection
- Model explainability
- Istio
- Prometheus
- Grafana
Both cover
- Kubernetes
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Domino Data Lab
- Running reproducible data science workspaces and experiments on shared computenot Seldon
- Deploying and monitoring models with governance controlsnot Seldon
- Giving regulated enterprises a self managed MLOps platformnot Seldon
Seldon
- Serving and routing machine learning models on Kubernetesnot Domino Data Lab
- Building multi-step inference pipelines with A/B tests and explainersnot Domino Data Lab
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Domino Data Lab
- Pricing is by quote only: the pricing page publishes no rate and no minimum, and the tier breakdown is behind a downloadable datasheet form
- Licensing is split by user type, with separate data science professional, data analyst, service account and admin licences
- FinOps, Nexus and Governance are paid add on modules rather than part of the platform
- Support level is a separate priced choice
- Self managed VPC or on premises deployment requires the Premium tier or higher
- No free trial is offered on the pricing page
Seldon
- Production deployment requires a Kubernetes cluster, whether managed such as GKE, EKS or AKS, or on-premises such as OpenShift
- The documented components carry both minimum and maximum supported versions, so newer Kubernetes and dependency versions are not automatically supported
- Dataflow Pipelines need an additional component that the docs recommend avoiding installing when pipelines are not used
- The Docker Compose install is offered as a lightweight alternative for environments without Kubernetes rather than as a production path
Pricing, plan by plan
Domino Data Lab
Free- TrialFree
- 14-day trial
- Full features
- EnterpriseFree
- Full platform
- Enterprise support
- SLA
Seldon
Free- Seldon CoreFree
- Open source
- Kubernetes deployment
- Model serving
- Seldon DeployFree
- Enterprise features
- GUI
- Monitoring
Which should you pick?
Choose Domino Data Lab if
- You need reproducible environments.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want model registry.
Choose Seldon if
- You need model serving.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux.
- You also want a/b testing.
Questions people ask
- Is Domino Data Lab or Seldon better?
- Neither clearly leads. Domino Data Lab starts at Free and Seldon at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Domino Data Lab or Seldon?
- Domino Data Lab starts at Free and Seldon at Free.
- Does Domino Data Lab or Seldon run on more platforms?
- Domino Data Lab runs on Web. Seldon runs on Linux.
- Can I use Domino Data Lab for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Domino Data Lab best used for?
- Domino Data Lab is most often used for running reproducible data science workspaces and experiments on shared compute, deploying and monitoring models with governance controls, giving regulated enterprises a self managed mlops platform. Of those, running reproducible data science workspaces and experiments on shared compute and deploying and monitoring models with governance controls are not what Seldon is typically brought in for.
- What can Domino Data Lab do that Seldon cannot?
- Domino Data Lab covers Reproducible environments, Model registry, Model monitoring, Collaboration. Seldon covers Model serving, A/B testing, Canary deployments, Outlier detection. Both handle Kubernetes.