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Cybersecurity · head to head

Frontegg vs Garden

Frontegg logo

Frontegg

Cybersecurity

Customer identity and access management platform for SaaS applications

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Frontegg detailed per-unit pricing beyond the free tier is not published, requiring use of an online calculator or sales contact to estimate costs.; 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.
  • They diverge on capability: Frontegg covers Hosted login, Garden covers Action graph.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Frontegg and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where Frontegg and Garden differ
AttributeFronteggGarden
Pricing modelusage-basedOpen source, no licence fee
Platformsweb, apiLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

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 Frontegg

  • Hosted login
  • Enterprise SSO/SCIM
  • Multi-tenant organizations
  • Custom domains
  • M2M tokens
  • Fraud protection

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.

Frontegg

  • Adding enterprise SSO/SCIM to a B2B SaaS productnot Garden
  • Multi-tenant customer identity managementnot Garden
  • White-labeled, custom-domain login experiencesnot Garden
  • Securing AI agent access to a SaaS product via Agen.conot Garden

Garden

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

Where each one falls short

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

Frontegg

  • Detailed per-unit pricing beyond the free tier is not published, requiring use of an online calculator or sales contact to estimate costs.
  • Advanced fraud protection and multiple environments are Enterprise-only, unavailable on the Pay As You Go plan.
  • The 7,500 free monthly active users is comparatively modest next to some competitors' free tiers.
  • As a broader CIAM platform, it can be more complex to integrate than lighter-weight developer-first auth tools for smaller apps.

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

Frontegg

Free
  • Pay As You GoFree
    • 7,500 monthly active users included
    • 5 enterprise connections (SSO/SCIM)
    • Unlimited organizations
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Custom pricing
    • Multiple environments
    • Advanced fraud protection

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 Frontegg if

  • You need hosted login.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on web, api.
  • You also want enterprise sso/scim.
Frontegg 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 Frontegg or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. Frontegg 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, Frontegg or Garden?
Frontegg starts at Free and Garden at Free.
Does Frontegg or Garden run on more platforms?
Frontegg runs on web, api. Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
Can I use Frontegg for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Frontegg best used for?
Frontegg is most often used for adding enterprise sso/scim to a b2b saas product, multi-tenant customer identity management, white-labeled, custom-domain login experiences, securing ai agent access to a saas product via agen.co. Of those, adding enterprise sso/scim to a b2b saas product and multi-tenant customer identity management are not what Garden is typically brought in for.
What can Frontegg do that Garden cannot?
Frontegg covers Hosted login, Enterprise SSO/SCIM, Multi-tenant organizations, Custom domains. Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Frontegg: What does Frontegg cost?

Frontegg's Pay As You Go plan is free up to 7,500 monthly active users, after which pricing scales with users, enterprise connections and M2M tokens via an online calculator; Enterprise pricing is custom.

Source
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.

Frontegg: Is there a free plan and what are its limits?

Yes, the free Pay As You Go plan includes 7,500 monthly active users, 5 enterprise SSO/SCIM connections, unlimited organizations, and a custom domain.

Source
Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Frontegg: How is usage metered?

Pricing is consumption-based, driven by monthly active users, monthly enterprise connections (SSO/SCIM), and monthly M2M tokens, with customers paying only for usage beyond the free 7,500-user threshold.

Source
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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