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Developer Tools · head to head

Earthly vs Vagrant

Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Vagrant logo

Vagrant

Cloud

Development environments made easy

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact; Vagrant vagrant 2.4.3 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • They diverge on capability: Earthly covers Policy as code, Vagrant covers Box management.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Earthly and Vagrant actually diverge.

Attributes where Earthly and Vagrant differ
AttributeEarthlyVagrant
Pricing modelNo pricing published on websiteopen-source
PlatformsWeb, CLILinux, Windows, Mac
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCloud
Founded20202010

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Vagrant

  • Box management
  • Provider support
  • Multi-machine setups
  • Provisioners
  • Networking
  • Synced folders
  • Snapshots
  • Plugins

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

Vagrant

  • Reproducible local development environments defined in a Vagrantfilenot Earthly
  • Provisioning identical VMs across VirtualBox, VMware and Hyper-V for a teamnot Earthly
  • Sandboxing multi-machine setups on a developer laptopnot 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

Vagrant

  • Vagrant 2.4.3 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • The Additional Use Grant forbids offering Vagrant to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis in a paid product that competes with IBM's paid versions of Vagrant
  • Each version converts to the MPL 2.0 Change License only four years after that version is first published
  • Uses that fall outside the Additional Use Grant require a separately negotiated licence from the licensor

Pricing, plan by plan

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Vagrant

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Development environment provisioning
    • Multiple providers
    • Provisioner support

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 Vagrant if

  • You need box management.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Mac.
  • You also want provider support.
Vagrant review

Questions people ask

Is Earthly or Vagrant better?
Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and Vagrant at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Earthly or Vagrant?
Earthly starts at Free and Vagrant at Free.
Does Earthly or Vagrant run on more platforms?
Earthly runs on Web, CLI. Vagrant runs on Linux, Windows, Mac.
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 Vagrant is typically brought in for.
What can Earthly do that Vagrant cannot?
Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. Vagrant covers Box management, Provider support, Multi-machine setups, Provisioners.

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
Vagrant: Is Vagrant free to use?

Vagrant is a free, open-source command-line utility for managing virtual machine lifecycles.

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
Vagrant: Does Vagrant offer a paid tier?

Vagrant itself is free. HashiCorp offers a HCP Vagrant Registry with a free tier for use with Vagrant.

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
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