Developer Tools · head to head
Fig vs Steampipe
Fig
Developer Tools
IDE-style autocomplete for your existing terminal
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Steampipe
Developer Tools
Query cloud APIs, SaaS tools and code with SQL, with no extract or load step
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
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; Steampipe aGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Fig and Steampipe actually diverge.
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 Steampipe does not also cover.
Only in Steampipe
- SQL over live APIs
- Wide plugin set
- Embedded Postgres
- Compliance benchmarks
- Joins across providers
- Hosted option
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.
Steampipe
- Security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly exportnot Fig
- Compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is askednot Fig
- Inventory and drift questions spanning several cloud providers in one querynot Fig
- Engineers who would rather write SQL than learn each provider command line toolnot 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
Steampipe
- AGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
- Dashboards, benchmarks and mods were removed from Steampipe entirely at version 1.0 in October 2024 and now live in a separate product, so pre-2024 documentation and tutorials describe commands that no longer exist.
- Live querying is bound by cloud provider API rate limits and keeps no persistent store by default, which is why a separate DuckDB-backed product exists for log volumes and why large accounts return slowly.
- The company is fifteen people and bootstrapped, maintaining four command line tools plus a hosted service plus two further products, and the newer tools have thin community traction relative to that surface area.
- Hosted tiers include only three users regardless of tier, with additional Enterprise users charged separately, so a team of thirty costs an order of magnitude more than the headline figure before compute and storage are counted.
Pricing, plan by plan
Fig
FreeNo published plan breakdown. See the Fig review.
Steampipe
Free- Steampipe CLIFree
- AGPL-3.0
- All plugins
- No user or query limits
- Pipes DeveloperFree
- One user
- 400 compute minutes
- 3GB storage
- Pipes Team$49/month
- Three users
- 2,000 compute minutes
- 20GB storage
- Pipes Enterprise$249/month
- Three users
- 10,000 compute minutes
- 100GB storage
Which should you pick?
Choose Steampipe if
- You need sql over live apis.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
- You also want wide plugin set.
Questions people ask
- Is Fig or Steampipe better?
- Neither clearly leads. Fig starts at Free and Steampipe at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Fig or Steampipe?
- Fig starts at Free and Steampipe at Free.
- Does Fig or Steampipe run on more platforms?
- Fig runs on Web. Steampipe runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
- 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 Steampipe cannot?
- Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Steampipe: When did Steampipe become AGPL?
May 2021, about four months after the project went public. It is a settled licence rather than a recent change, and predates the Business Source Licence wave it is often confused with.
Steampipe: Where did the dashboards and benchmarks go?
Into Powerpipe. They were deprecated in March 2024 and removed from Steampipe at version 1.0 in October 2024, so the check, dashboard, mod and variable commands are gone.
Steampipe: Is it fast on a large cloud estate?
Not always. Queries call provider APIs at request time, so rate limits rather than query planning set the pace, and there is no persistent store by default.
Steampipe: Does the AGPL affect internal use?
Running it internally for your own analysis is fine. Putting a web interface in front of it that other people use is where the network clause becomes a question for your legal team.
Steampipe: Is a bootstrapped vendor a risk?
It cuts both ways. There is no investor pressure toward a licence change or an exit, and there are also fifteen people supporting a large product surface.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- Fig vs Visual Studio Code
- Fig vs ESLint
- Fig vs Turborepo
- Fig vs pnpm
- Fig vs Sweep
- Fig vs Cody
- Fig vs Warp
- Fig vs Keycloak
- Fig vs Rust
- Fig vs CodeSandbox
- Fig vs Vite
- Fig vs Daytona
- Fig vs Ona (formerly Gitpod)
- Fig vs GNU Emacs
- Fig vs Keil MDK
- Fig vs Bazel
- Fig vs Atlantis
- Fig vs Jitsu
- Fig vs Frappe
- Fig vs Penpot
- Fig vs Eclipse IDE
- Fig vs Pants Build
- Fig vs Swagger UI
- Fig vs Ansible
- Fig vs Helix
- Fig vs JFrog Artifactory
- Fig vs Namespace
- Fig vs Nix
- Fig vs Nixpacks
- Fig vs Octopus Deploy
- Fig vs Okteto
- Steampipe vs Visual Studio Code
- Steampipe vs ESLint
- Steampipe vs Turborepo
- Steampipe vs pnpm
- Steampipe vs Sweep
- Steampipe vs Cody
- Steampipe vs Warp
- Steampipe vs Keycloak
- Steampipe vs Rust
- Steampipe vs CodeSandbox
- Steampipe vs Vite
- Steampipe vs Daytona
- Steampipe vs Ona (formerly Gitpod)
- Steampipe vs GNU Emacs
- Steampipe vs Keil MDK
- Steampipe vs Bazel
- Steampipe vs Atlantis
- Steampipe vs Jitsu
- Steampipe vs Frappe
- Steampipe vs Penpot
- Steampipe vs Eclipse IDE
- Steampipe vs Pants Build
- Steampipe vs Swagger UI
- Steampipe vs Ansible
- Steampipe vs Helix
- Steampipe vs JFrog Artifactory
- Steampipe vs Namespace
- Steampipe vs Nix
- Steampipe vs Nixpacks
- Steampipe vs Octopus Deploy
- Steampipe vs Okteto