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Developer Tools · head to head

Earthly vs Koyeb

Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Koyeb logo

Koyeb

Cloud

High-performance serverless infrastructure for APIs, inference, and databases

From
$29/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Earthly has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact; Koyeb pricing starts at $29/month with additional compute costs
  • They diverge on capability: Earthly covers Policy as code, Koyeb covers Serverless containers.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 29 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Earthly and Koyeb actually diverge.

Attributes where Earthly and Koyeb differ
AttributeEarthlyKoyeb
Starting priceFree$29/month
Pricing modelNo pricing published on websiteUnknown
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, CLIWeb, CLI, API
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCloud
Founded2020Unknown

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 Earthly

  • Policy as code
  • Multi-stage enforcement
  • AI agent governance
  • Repository-wide policies
  • Incident response automation
  • Compliance management
  • Earthfiles build tool
  • Satellites

Only in Koyeb

  • Serverless containers
  • GPU support
  • Global distribution
  • Multi-protocol support
  • Serverless Postgres
  • Zero-downtime deployments

What people use each for

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

Earthly

  • Enforcing engineering standards across AI and human developersnot Koyeb
  • Automating incident response procedures across all repositoriesnot Koyeb
  • Embedding compliance requirements into development workflowsnot Koyeb
  • Standardizing build processes with Earthfilesnot Koyeb

Koyeb

  • Deploying AI inference models globally with GPU accelerationnot Earthly
  • Building SaaS platforms with automatic scalingnot Earthly
  • Running distributed AI agents and background workersnot Earthly

Where each one falls short

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

Earthly

  • Pricing model not published; requires sales contact
  • Earthly Lunar is a recent launch (2025) with limited track record
  • Primarily GitHub-focused; limited integration with other platforms
  • No public documentation on pricing or feature tiers

Koyeb

  • Pricing starts at $29/month with additional compute costs
  • GPU compute is expensive at $0.75-$2.50 per hour
  • Limited customization for infrastructure configuration

Pricing, plan by plan

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Koyeb

$29/month
  • Pro$29/month
    • $10 included compute
    • 10 users
    • 100 services
  • Scale$299/month
    • $100 included compute
    • 50 users
    • 1,000 services
  • Enterprise$1000/month
    • Unlimited users
    • Custom resources
    • SSO/RBAC

Which should you pick?

Choose Earthly if

  • You need policy as code.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, CLI.
  • You also want multi-stage enforcement.
Earthly review

Choose Koyeb if

  • You need serverless containers.
  • You work on Web, CLI, API.
  • You also want gpu support.
Koyeb review

Questions people ask

Is Earthly or Koyeb better?
Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and Koyeb at $29/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Earthly or Koyeb?
Earthly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Earthly and $29/month for Koyeb.
Does Earthly or Koyeb run on more platforms?
Earthly runs on Web, CLI. Koyeb runs on Web, CLI, API.
Can I use Earthly for free?
Yes. Earthly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Koyeb starts at $29/month.
What is Earthly best used for?
Earthly is most often used for enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers, automating incident response procedures across all repositories, embedding compliance requirements into development workflows, standardizing build processes with earthfiles. Of those, enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers and automating incident response procedures across all repositories are not what Koyeb is typically brought in for.
What can Earthly do that Koyeb cannot?
Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. Koyeb covers Serverless containers, GPU support, Global distribution, Multi-protocol support.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Earthly: What is the difference between Earthfiles and Earthly Lunar?

Earthfiles is an open-source build tool that reached 12,000 GitHub stars and is used by companies like NVIDIA, Intel, and Databricks. Earthly Lunar is a separate governance platform launched in 2025 for enforcing standards across development workflows.

Source
Koyeb: What are Koyeb's subscription plans?

Pro plan is $29/month with $10 included compute, Scale plan is $299/month with $100 included compute and 99.9% SLA, and Enterprise starts at $1,000/month with unlimited users and 99.99% SLA.

Source
Earthly: How does Earthly Lunar enforce standards?

Lunar converts engineering standards, compliance requirements, and processes documented in AGENTS.md files, wikis, and incident postmortems into enforceable guardrails that apply consistently across repositories and development stages.

Source
Koyeb: How much does GPU compute cost?

GPU pricing is per-second: RTX-A6000 costs $0.75/hour, A100 costs $1.60/hour, H100 costs $2.50/hour, and 8x H100 costs $20.00/hour.

Source
Earthly: What is the pricing for Earthly Lunar?

Pricing is not published on the website. Interested customers should contact Earthly's sales team for current pricing and feature tiers.

Source
Koyeb: What database options are available?

Koyeb offers serverless Postgres starting at free (0.25 vCPU, 1GB RAM) up to 3XL at $1.28/hour with 8 vCPU and 32GB RAM. Storage costs $0.50/month per GB.

Source
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