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Developer Tools · head to head

Earthly vs Tilt

Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Tilt logo

Tilt

Developer Tools

Local Kubernetes development loop that rebuilds and live-updates containers on save

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact; Tilt docker acquired Tilt in 2022 and the team now splits its time across Compose and Docker Desktop, so feature velocity is modest and the product's long-term priority inside Docker is not guaranteed; treat it as a stable utility, not a growing platform.
  • They diverge on capability: Earthly covers Policy as code, Tilt covers Live update.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Earthly and Tilt actually diverge.

Attributes where Earthly and Tilt differ
AttributeEarthlyTilt
Pricing modelNo pricing published on websiteOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, CLILinux, macOS, Windows
Founded2020Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Developer Tools).

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 Tilt

  • Live update
  • Tiltfile as code
  • Unified web UI
  • Selective rebuilds
  • Local and remote clusters
  • Resource dependencies
  • Extensions registry
  • Custom buttons and triggers

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

Tilt

  • A team of ten or more engineers whose application is fifteen microservices on Kubernetes and who currently wait on CI to test a changenot Earthly
  • An organisation onboarding new developers who want a single command that stands up the whole stack from a committed Tiltfilenot Earthly
  • A platform team giving product engineers a consistent local environment against a shared remote development clusternot Earthly
  • A codebase where one repository contains several services and rebuilding all of them on every edit is the main source of lost timenot 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

Tilt

  • Docker acquired Tilt in 2022 and the team now splits its time across Compose and Docker Desktop, so feature velocity is modest and the product's long-term priority inside Docker is not guaranteed; treat it as a stable utility, not a growing platform.
  • The Tiltfile is Starlark, a Python dialect, so non-trivial setups become real programs that need reviewing and maintaining, and the person who wrote yours becomes a single point of failure.
  • Live update only works when the running container can accept synced files and restart the process; compiled languages, distroless images and read-only filesystems often force you back to a full image rebuild, which removes the main benefit.
  • It assumes Kubernetes. If your development target is plain Docker Compose or serverless functions, Tilt adds a cluster you did not need and a layer of abstraction with no payoff.
  • There is no commercial support contract, no SLA and no paid tier, so when a Kubernetes version upgrade breaks something you are dependent on GitHub issues and a Slack channel rather than a vendor you can escalate to.

Pricing, plan by plan

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Tilt

Free
  • TiltFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed
    • All features, no paid tier
    • Community support via the Kubernetes Slack #tilt channel

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 Tilt if

  • You need live update.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want tiltfile as code.
Tilt review

Questions people ask

Is Earthly or Tilt better?
Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and Tilt at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Earthly or Tilt?
Earthly starts at Free and Tilt at Free.
Does Earthly or Tilt run on more platforms?
Earthly runs on Web, CLI. Tilt runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Earthly for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
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 Tilt is typically brought in for.
What can Earthly do that Tilt cannot?
Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. Tilt covers Live update, Tiltfile as code, Unified web UI, Selective rebuilds.

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
Tilt: Is Tilt free?

Yes, entirely. It is Apache 2.0 open source with no paid tier and no licence fee.

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
Tilt: Who owns Tilt now?

Docker, which acquired it in May 2022. It remains open source and the repository is still actively maintained.

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
Tilt: Do I need a remote cluster?

No. It works against a local cluster such as kind, minikube or Docker Desktop, and also against a shared remote development cluster if your services are too heavy to run locally.

Tilt: How is it different from Skaffold?

Both automate the build-deploy loop. Tilt puts more weight on the live-update path and a multi-service dashboard; Skaffold is more configuration-driven and closer to Google's tooling.

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