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Developer Tools · head to head

Fig vs Garden

F

Fig

Developer Tools

IDE-style autocomplete for your existing terminal

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

Kubernetes development and testing automation with shared caching, now owned by Incredibuild

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Fig shut down on 1 September 2024. Amazon acquired Fig in August 2023 and folded it into Amazon Q Developer, which now carries the terminal autocomplete; Garden incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Fig and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where Fig and Garden differ
AttributeFigGarden
Pricing modelfreemiumOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWebLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes
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 Fig

Nothing recorded that Garden does not also cover.

Only in Garden

  • Action graph
  • Shared result caching
  • Remote Kubernetes environments
  • In-cluster builds
  • Same config everywhere
  • Hot reload sync
  • Helm and Kustomize support
  • Templating

What people use each for

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

Fig

No use cases recorded yet. See the Fig review.

Garden

  • A platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loopnot Fig
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Fig
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Fig
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Fig

Where each one falls short

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

Fig

  • Shut down on 1 September 2024. Amazon acquired Fig in August 2023 and folded it into Amazon Q Developer, which now carries the terminal autocomplete
  • The standalone desktop app is no longer available or supported
  • The completion specs remain open source on GitHub, but the product that consumed them is gone

Garden

  • Incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • It is tightly bound to Kubernetes, so teams running on ECS, Nomad, plain VMs or serverless get little from it and would need a different tool entirely.
  • The YAML action graph is a real configuration surface: a large monorepo needs someone to own and maintain Garden config as a first-class artefact, which is a standing platform-engineering cost.
  • Shared remote environments mean every developer needs cluster access and a cost allocation model, so cloud spend rises and namespace sprawl becomes a thing you have to police.
  • Caching correctness depends on declaring dependencies accurately; an under-declared action will serve a stale cached pass and hide a genuine test failure, which is a hard class of bug to notice.

Pricing, plan by plan

Fig

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Fig review.

Garden

Free
  • Garden open sourceFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed CLI
    • Full action graph and caching
    • Self-managed clusters
  • Commercial tier$undefined/year
    • Hosted caching and team features
    • Support and onboarding
    • Pricing no longer published since the Incredibuild acquisition

Which should you pick?

Choose Fig if

  • You want to start without paying.
Fig review

Choose Garden if

  • You need action graph.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
  • You also want shared result caching.
Garden review

Questions people ask

Is Fig or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. Fig starts at Free and Garden at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Fig or Garden?
Fig starts at Free and Garden at Free.
Does Fig or Garden run on more platforms?
Fig runs on Web. Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
Can I use Fig for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What can Fig do that Garden cannot?
Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Garden: Is Garden still maintained?

The open source project remains on GitHub under Incredibuild ownership, but the commercial pricing page redirects to the docs and there is no public paid offer.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

Effectively yes. Garden is built around Kubernetes environments and offers little to teams on other runtimes.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

No. It runs inside GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or similar and speeds up what those pipelines execute.

Garden: What is the actual saving?

It comes from skipping builds and tests whose inputs have not changed, so the benefit scales with how many services you have and how often only a few change.

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