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Developer Tools · head to head

Frappe vs Garden

Frappe logo

Frappe

Developer Tools

The Python web framework behind ERPNext, sold as managed hosting through Frappe Cloud

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: Frappe the framework is strongly opinionated: its own ORM, templating and job queue mean general Python and Django experience transfers only partly, and onboarding a new developer takes weeks rather than days.; 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: Frappe covers DocType modelling, Garden covers Action graph.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Frappe and Garden actually diverge.

Attributes where Frappe and Garden differ
AttributeFrappeGarden
Pricing modelPer month by site or serverOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, Linux, DockerLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes

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 Frappe

  • DocType modelling
  • Role and field permissions
  • Built-in REST API
  • Background jobs
  • Bench CLI
  • Frappe Cloud hosting
  • App marketplace
  • Multi-tenancy

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.

Frappe

  • A team building an internal business application that needs permissions, audit trail and an API on day one rather than in month threenot Garden
  • An ERPNext user who wants managed hosting, automatic updates and offsite backups without hiring a systems administratornot Garden
  • An Indian or emerging-market business that wants to pay for application hosting in local currency at local price pointsnot Garden
  • A consultancy shipping custom vertical apps to clients on a shared framework with per-client site isolationnot Garden

Garden

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

Where each one falls short

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

Frappe

  • The framework is strongly opinionated: its own ORM, templating and job queue mean general Python and Django experience transfers only partly, and onboarding a new developer takes weeks rather than days.
  • The developer pool is small and heavily concentrated in India, so hiring Frappe experience elsewhere is slow and expensive relative to mainstream stacks.
  • Documentation is uneven in depth and lags behind releases in places, so real answers often come from reading the source or the community forum.
  • Major version upgrades of the framework have historically broken custom apps that reach past the DocType layer, so bespoke code carries a recurring maintenance cost at each upgrade.
  • Frappe Cloud recommends against its cheapest Hetzner-backed option for mission-critical production, so the headline $5 entry price is not the price of a production-grade deployment.

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

Frappe

Free
  • Framework, self-hostedFree
    • MIT licensed, no licence fee
    • Install with bench on your own Linux servers
    • You carry updates, backups and security patching
  • Frappe Cloud Sites$5/month
    • Also listed at ₹410 per month
    • Shared servers with 150+ installable apps
    • Automatic updates and offsite backups
  • Frappe Cloud Servers$40/month
    • Also listed at ₹3,600 per month
    • Dedicated or shared virtual machines
    • Unlimited sites on your server

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 Frappe if

  • You need doctype modelling.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Docker.
  • You also want role and field permissions.
Frappe 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 Frappe or Garden better?
Neither clearly leads. Frappe 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, Frappe or Garden?
Frappe starts at Free and Garden at Free.
Does Frappe or Garden run on more platforms?
Frappe runs on Web, Linux, Docker. Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
Can I use Frappe for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Frappe best used for?
Frappe is most often used for a team building an internal business application that needs permissions, audit trail and an api on day one rather than in month three, an erpnext user who wants managed hosting, automatic updates and offsite backups without hiring a systems administrator, an indian or emerging-market business that wants to pay for application hosting in local currency at local price points, a consultancy shipping custom vertical apps to clients on a shared framework with per-client site isolation. Of those, a team building an internal business application that needs permissions, audit trail and an api on day one rather than in month three and an erpnext user who wants managed hosting, automatic updates and offsite backups without hiring a systems administrator are not what Garden is typically brought in for.
What can Frappe do that Garden cannot?
Frappe covers DocType modelling, Role and field permissions, Built-in REST API, Background jobs. Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Frappe: Is Frappe the same as ERPNext?

No. Frappe is the framework; ERPNext is the ERP application written on it. You can run Frappe without ERPNext to build your own applications.

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.

Frappe: What licence is the framework under?

MIT, which is permissive and imposes no obligation to publish your changes, unlike the AGPL used by several open source ERP rivals.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Frappe: Can I pay in rupees?

Yes. Frappe Cloud publishes the same plans in Indian rupees, ₹410 a month for sites and ₹3,600 for servers, rather than converting a dollar price at checkout.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

Frappe: Do I have to use Frappe Cloud?

No, self-hosting with bench or Docker is fully supported and free. Frappe Cloud is a convenience purchase, and it funds the open source work.

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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