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Cybersecurity · head to head

Eagle Eye Networks vs Garden

Eagle Eye Networks logo

Eagle Eye Networks

Cybersecurity

Cloud video surveillance billed per camera per month, where retention length drives the bill more than anything else

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

Kubernetes development and testing automation with shared caching, now owned by Incredibuild

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Garden has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Eagle Eye Networks cost scales with retention as well as resolution, and long retention has been observed to increase the monthly figure by 200 to 400 percent over 7 day storage, so an insurer or regulator raising the retention requirement can multiply the bill without adding cameras.; Garden incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • They diverge on capability: Eagle Eye Networks covers Bridge and CMVR appliances, Garden covers Action graph.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Eagle Eye Networks and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where Eagle Eye Networks and Garden differ
AttributeEagle Eye NetworksGarden
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelPer camera per monthOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

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 Eagle Eye Networks

  • Bridge and CMVR appliances
  • Per-camera cloud retention
  • Browser and mobile access
  • Cloud analytics
  • Licence plate recognition
  • Multi-site management
  • Video sharing and export
  • Open API

Only in Garden

  • Action graph
  • Shared result caching
  • Remote Kubernetes environments
  • In-cluster builds
  • Same config everywhere
  • Hot reload sync
  • Helm and Kustomize support
  • Templating

What people use each for

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

Eagle Eye Networks

  • A 40-site restaurant group that wants one login across every location without a recorder in each back officenot Garden
  • A school district that must retain incident footage for a fixed statutory period and needs the retention set centrallynot Garden
  • A car dealership needing footage shared with police within minutes of an overnight theftnot Garden
  • A retailer replacing failing DVRs but keeping the ONVIF cameras already installednot Garden

Garden

  • A platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loopnot Eagle Eye Networks
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Eagle Eye Networks
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Eagle Eye Networks
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Eagle Eye Networks

Where each one falls short

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

Eagle Eye Networks

  • Cost scales with retention as well as resolution, and long retention has been observed to increase the monthly figure by 200 to 400 percent over 7 day storage, so an insurer or regulator raising the retention requirement can multiply the bill without adding cameras.
  • Pricing is not published, so the widely cited 15 to 50 US dollars per camera per month range is a reseller-derived estimate rather than a rate you can hold Eagle Eye to.
  • Every camera needs upstream bandwidth for continuous upload, so sites on poor connections either degrade quality or lose the cloud advantage, and the bridge only buffers for a limited period during an outage.
  • Video lives in Eagle Eye’s data centres, which raises data residency questions for public bodies and for European buyers, and exit means downloading years of footage before a subscription ends.
  • It is a per-camera subscription with no perpetual option, so a large site that would have paid once for an on-premises VMS pays indefinitely, and the crossover point against a Genetec or Milestone deployment usually arrives within a few years.

Garden

  • Incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • It is tightly bound to Kubernetes, so teams running on ECS, Nomad, plain VMs or serverless get little from it and would need a different tool entirely.
  • The YAML action graph is a real configuration surface: a large monorepo needs someone to own and maintain Garden config as a first-class artefact, which is a standing platform-engineering cost.
  • Shared remote environments mean every developer needs cluster access and a cost allocation model, so cloud spend rises and namespace sprawl becomes a thing you have to police.
  • Caching correctness depends on declaring dependencies accurately; an under-declared action will serve a stale cached pass and hide a genuine test failure, which is a hard class of bug to notice.

Pricing, plan by plan

Eagle Eye Networks

On request
  • Cloud VMS subscription$undefined/month
    • Priced per camera per month by resolution and retention
    • Retention tiers of 7, 30, 90 and 180 days and 1, 2 and 3 years
    • Independently observed range of roughly 15 to 50 USD per camera per month

Garden

Free
  • Garden open sourceFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed CLI
    • Full action graph and caching
    • Self-managed clusters
  • Commercial tier$undefined/year
    • Hosted caching and team features
    • Support and onboarding
    • Pricing no longer published since the Incredibuild acquisition

Which should you pick?

Choose Eagle Eye Networks if

  • You need bridge and cmvr appliances.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want per-camera cloud retention.
Eagle Eye Networks review

Choose Garden if

  • You need action graph.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
  • You also want shared result caching.
Garden review

Questions people ask

Is Eagle Eye Networks or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. Eagle Eye Networks starts at On request and Garden at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Eagle Eye Networks or Garden?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Eagle Eye Networks and Free for Garden.
Does Eagle Eye Networks or Garden run on more platforms?
Eagle Eye Networks runs on Web, iOS, Android. Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Eagle Eye Networks starts at On request.
What is Eagle Eye Networks best used for?
Eagle Eye Networks is most often used for a 40-site restaurant group that wants one login across every location without a recorder in each back office, a school district that must retain incident footage for a fixed statutory period and needs the retention set centrally, a car dealership needing footage shared with police within minutes of an overnight theft, a retailer replacing failing dvrs but keeping the onvif cameras already installed. Of those, a 40-site restaurant group that wants one login across every location without a recorder in each back office and a school district that must retain incident footage for a fixed statutory period and needs the retention set centrally are not what Garden is typically brought in for.
What can Eagle Eye Networks do that Garden cannot?
Eagle Eye Networks covers Bridge and CMVR appliances, Per-camera cloud retention, Browser and mobile access, Cloud analytics. Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Eagle Eye Networks: Do I need Eagle Eye cameras?

No. The bridge connects existing ONVIF cameras, which is the main reason organisations pick it over camera-maker cloud services.

Garden: Is Garden still maintained?

The open source project remains on GitHub under Incredibuild ownership, but the commercial pricing page redirects to the docs and there is no public paid offer.

Eagle Eye Networks: What does it cost per camera?

Not published. Independent observations put it between roughly 15 and 50 US dollars per camera per month depending on resolution and retention, with Canadian examples up to 79 for 90 day 4K.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

Effectively yes. Garden is built around Kubernetes environments and offers little to teams on other runtimes.

Eagle Eye Networks: What happens if my internet drops?

The on-site bridge buffers recording locally and uploads when the connection returns, but buffer capacity is finite and a long outage loses footage.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

No. It runs inside GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or similar and speeds up what those pipelines execute.

Eagle Eye Networks: Where is my video stored?

In Eagle Eye’s data centres. Confirm the region before buying if you have data residency obligations.

Garden: What is the actual saving?

It comes from skipping builds and tests whose inputs have not changed, so the benefit scales with how many services you have and how often only a few change.

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