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Developer Tools · head to head

Earthly vs Rill Data

Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit EarthlyFull review
Rill Data logo

Rill Data

Business Intelligence

Local-first BI on DuckDB and ClickHouse with dashboards defined as code

From
$20/month
Free plan
No
Visit Rill DataFull review

The short version

  • Earthly is free; Rill Data starts at $20/mo.
  • Only Earthly lists multi-stage enforcement; only Rill Data lists local development.
  • Where Earthly falls short: pricing model not published; requires sales contact.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Earthly and Rill Data actually diverge.

Attributes where Earthly and Rill Data differ
AttributeEarthlyRill Data
Starting priceFree$20/month
Pricing modelNo pricing published on websitePer user per month plus metered compute
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows
CategoryDeveloper ToolsBusiness Intelligence

Not yet recorded: founded for Rill Data.

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 Rill Data

  • Local development
  • Dashboards as code
  • Embedded DuckDB
  • Bring your own database
  • Alerts and scheduled reports
  • Embedded analytics

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 Rill Data
  • Automating incident response procedures across all repositoriesnot Rill Data
  • Embedding compliance requirements into development workflowsnot Rill Data
  • Standardizing build processes with Earthfilesnot Rill Data

Rill Data

  • An analytics team that wants dashboard changes to go through code review rather than being edited in a web UInot Earthly
  • Interactive exploration of event-scale data where a warehouse round trip per filter click is too slownot Earthly
  • Embedding fast slice-and-dice dashboards into a product where the underlying store is already ClickHouse or Druidnot Earthly
  • A data engineer prototyping a metrics layer locally on a laptop before committing to any cloud spendnot 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

Rill Data

  • The seat price of 20 dollars is misleading as a budget figure: Rill’s own calculator puts a small two-seat project at around 256 dollars a month, with compute making up the great majority
  • Dashboards are defined in YAML and SQL, so business users cannot create or change one without a developer and a Git workflow, which stalls self-service adoption
  • It is built for the explore-a-metric pattern and does not produce pixel-perfect financial or operational reports, so most organisations still need a second reporting tool
  • AI tokens and API calls are quota-limited per seat, with API overage at a cent per call, so programmatic consumers can create an unbudgeted line item
  • As a smaller vendor competing against Looker, Tableau and Power BI, the ecosystem of consultants, templates and trained analysts is thin, which raises the cost of hiring for it

Pricing, plan by plan

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Rill Data

$20/month
  • Starter$20/mo
    • Per seat, up to twenty seats
    • Three projects
    • Compute at 0.15 USD per compute unit hour
  • Growth$30/mo
    • Per seat, up to one hundred seats
    • Ten projects
    • Compute at 0.20 USD per compute unit hour
  • EnterpriseOn request
    • Annual platform licence with negotiated capacity
    • Unlimited seats and projects
    • Dedicated infrastructure

Which should you pick?

Choose Earthly if

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

Choose Rill Data if

  • You need local development.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want dashboards as code.
Rill Data review

Questions people ask

Is Earthly or Rill Data better?
Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and Rill Data at $20/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Earthly or Rill Data?
Earthly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Earthly and $20/month for Rill Data.
Does Earthly or Rill Data run on more platforms?
Earthly runs on Web, API. Rill Data runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Earthly for free?
Yes. Earthly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Rill Data starts at $20/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 Rill Data is typically brought in for.
What can Earthly do that Rill Data cannot?
Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. Rill Data covers Local development, Dashboards as code, Embedded DuckDB, Bring your own database.

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
Rill Data: Is Rill open source?

The Rill developer binary is open source and free to run locally; Rill Cloud is the paid product.

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
Rill Data: How much does it actually cost?

Seats start at 20 USD per month, but hosted compute at 0.15 USD per compute unit hour typically dominates the bill. Bringing your own database removes the usage fee.

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
Rill Data: Can business users build dashboards?

Not directly. Dashboards are YAML and SQL under version control.

Rill Data: Which databases can back a deployed project?

DuckDB, ClickHouse, Druid, Pinot, Snowflake and others.

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