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Developer Tools · head to head

Earthly vs Varonis Data Security Platform

Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Varonis Data Security Platform logo

Varonis Data Security Platform

Cybersecurity

Data security platform that maps effective permissions, content classification and access activity across file shares, Microsoft 365 and SaaS.

From
$100/year
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; Varonis Data Security Platform deployment is a project rather than an installation: collectors, service accounts, the initial crawl of a large file estate and behavioural baselining typically run for weeks to months before the first genuinely useful report, so value arrives well after the invoice does.
  • They diverge on capability: Earthly covers Policy as code, Varonis Data Security Platform covers Effective permissions modelling.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Earthly and Varonis Data Security Platform actually diverge.

Attributes where Earthly and Varonis Data Security Platform differ
AttributeEarthlyVaronis Data Security Platform
Starting priceFree$100/year
Pricing modelNo pricing published on websitesubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, CLIWeb, Desktop
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity
Founded20202005

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 Varonis Data Security Platform

  • Effective permissions modelling
  • Content classification
  • Access activity auditing
  • Behavioural alerting
  • Blast radius view
  • Automated remediation
  • Stale data identification
  • Ransomware detection

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

Varonis Data Security Platform

  • Answering an auditor or a board asking exactly which sensitive files are reachable by every employee and who has opened themnot Earthly
  • Cleaning up Microsoft 365 sprawl where Teams, SharePoint sites and shared links accumulated faster than governancenot Earthly
  • Investigating an insider incident where you need a defensible record of what a departing employee accessed and whennot Earthly
  • Reducing the blast radius of a compromised account before an incident by removing global access groups and broken inheritancenot 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

Varonis Data Security Platform

  • Deployment is a project rather than an installation: collectors, service accounts, the initial crawl of a large file estate and behavioural baselining typically run for weeks to months before the first genuinely useful report, so value arrives well after the invoice does.
  • The collection model requires granting the platform broad read access across the data you are trying to protect, which needs its own approval and creates a high-value target, and some change boards spend longer approving that access than approving the purchase.
  • Findings are produced far faster than remediation capacity: an initial scan routinely surfaces hundreds of thousands of overexposed objects, and fixing them means altering permissions owned by business units, so without an executive mandate it becomes a dashboard nobody acts on.
  • Licensing is driven by identity counts and connected data sources, so a directory full of stale accounts and service principals inflates the bill and every additional platform you connect adds cost, which quietly pushes organisations to leave their least-governed systems uncovered.
  • Coverage is deepest in the Microsoft estate and thinner elsewhere: connectors exist for other SaaS and database platforms but they do not all support the same classification, alerting and automated remediation, so a heterogeneous estate receives uneven protection at a uniform price.

Pricing, plan by plan

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Varonis Data Security Platform

$100/year
  • Varonis Essentials$100/year
    • Data classification
    • Access visibility
    • Permission management
  • Varonis Professional$175/year
    • All Essentials features
    • Threat detection
    • User behavior analytics
  • Varonis Enterprise$300/year
    • All Professional features
    • Advanced analytics
    • Incident response

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 Varonis Data Security Platform if

  • You need effective permissions modelling.
  • You work on Web, Desktop.
  • You also want content classification.
Varonis Data Security Platform review

Questions people ask

Is Earthly or Varonis Data Security Platform better?
Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and Varonis Data Security Platform at $100/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Earthly or Varonis Data Security Platform?
Earthly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Earthly and $100/year for Varonis Data Security Platform.
Does Earthly or Varonis Data Security Platform run on more platforms?
Earthly runs on Web, CLI. Varonis Data Security Platform runs on Web, Desktop.
Can I use Earthly for free?
Yes. Earthly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Varonis Data Security Platform starts at $100/year.
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 Varonis Data Security Platform is typically brought in for.
What can Earthly do that Varonis Data Security Platform cannot?
Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. Varonis Data Security Platform covers Effective permissions modelling, Content classification, Access activity auditing, Behavioural alerting.

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
Varonis Data Security Platform: Is this data loss prevention?

No, and it is a common confusion. DLP watches data in motion and tries to stop it leaving. Varonis works on data at rest: where it is, who can reach it, and who touched it. They address different halves of the same problem and organisations frequently run both.

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
Varonis Data Security Platform: On-premises or SaaS?

It is now sold principally as SaaS, with edge collectors deployed on your network to reach on-premises file shares and directories. Older on-premises deployments with Windows collectors and SQL Server still exist in the field and are being migrated.

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
Varonis Data Security Platform: Does it need agents on every server?

Generally no. It collects through APIs and network protocols with service accounts, with collectors deployed near the data rather than agents on every host. That is one reason deployment is less invasive than the scale of the data suggests.

Varonis Data Security Platform: How long until it is useful?

Expect weeks to a few months depending on the size of the file estate and how quickly the service accounts and access are approved. The classification and behavioural baselining both need time before the alerts mean anything.

Varonis Data Security Platform: Can it fix the problems it finds automatically?

Yes, it can remove global access groups, repair broken inheritance and quarantine exposed files under policy. Most organisations run this in simulation first, because automatically changing permissions on live business data goes wrong loudly.

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