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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs Katalon

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Katalon logo

Katalon

Testing

Commercial low-code test automation platform built on Appium and Selenium, priced per seat plus separate cloud session add-ons

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Garden has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Katalon real cost stacks three separate charges, per-seat authoring licence, the True Platform add-on for test management, and per-session cloud execution, so the advertised seat price significantly understates total spend for a team running cloud tests regularly.
  • They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, Katalon covers Low-code test recording.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and Katalon actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and Katalon differ
AttributeGardenKatalon
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer seat per month, plus separate per-session cloud execution charges
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesWeb, Windows, macOS
CategoryDeveloper ToolsTesting

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 Garden

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

Only in Katalon

  • Low-code test recording
  • Built on Selenium and Appium
  • Object repository
  • AI-assisted test generation
  • TestCloud execution
  • TestOps management

What people use each for

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

Garden

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

Katalon

  • A QA team wanting a lower-code authoring layer over Selenium and Appium for testers without deep coding backgroundsnot Garden
  • An organisation wanting test management and AI-assisted test maintenance bundled with automation authoring in one commercial productnot Garden
  • A team needing occasional cross-browser or device cloud sessions without maintaining its own device lab or Selenium Gridnot Garden
  • An enterprise wanting a single vendor and support contract for test authoring, management and cloud execution togethernot Garden

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Katalon

  • Real cost stacks three separate charges, per-seat authoring licence, the True Platform add-on for test management, and per-session cloud execution, so the advertised seat price significantly understates total spend for a team running cloud tests regularly.
  • Since it is built on Selenium and Appium underneath, a team with strong automation engineers can replicate most of the core capability for free, paying only for optional cloud execution elsewhere, making Katalon's value proposition mainly about authoring speed rather than unique capability.
  • The steep first-three-seats discount versus the fourth-seat-and-beyond price means cost per seat rises sharply as a team scales past three testers on Katalon Studio alone.
  • Low-code recorded tests can become brittle and hard to maintain at scale in the same way any record-and-playback approach does, requiring the team to still write real code for complex scenarios.
  • Enterprise pricing is quote-only, so the largest deployments lose the pricing transparency the published seat tiers otherwise offer.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Katalon

On request
  • Katalon Studio$84/month
    • Annual billing, first three seats at 84 US dollars a seat a month
    • Fourth seat and beyond at 150 US dollars a seat a month
    • Low-code recording, object repository, Selenium and Appium engine underneath
  • True Automation$167/month
    • Annual billing, per seat
    • Includes Studio features plus test management and AI agents
    • True Platform TestOps and TestCloud sold as a further add-on at 700 US dollars a seat a year
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom quote for private SaaS and hybrid licensing
    • Dedicated support
    • Negotiated cloud session volume

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Katalon if

  • You need low-code test recording.
  • You work on Web, Windows, macOS.
  • You also want built on selenium and appium.
Katalon review

Questions people ask

Is Garden or Katalon better?
Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and Katalon at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Garden or Katalon?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Garden and On request for Katalon.
Does Garden or Katalon run on more platforms?
Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. Katalon runs on Web, Windows, macOS.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Katalon starts at On request.
What is Garden best used for?
Garden is most often used for a platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loop, an organisation with thirty or more services on kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates production, giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environment, running the identical build and test definition locally and in ci so failures reproduce on a laptop. Of those, a platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loop and an organisation with thirty or more services on kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates production are not what Katalon is typically brought in for.
What can Garden do that Katalon cannot?
Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds. Katalon covers Low-code test recording, Built on Selenium and Appium, Object repository, AI-assisted test generation.

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.

Katalon: Is Katalon free?

No, though a 30-day free trial with no credit card is offered; the product is commercial with per-seat licensing.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Katalon: Does Katalon replace Selenium and Appium?

No, it is built on top of them; Katalon adds a low-code authoring layer, test management and cloud execution rather than a different automation engine.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

Katalon: Is cloud execution included in the seat price?

No, TestCloud cross-browser and mobile sessions are billed separately, at 197 US dollars a session monthly or 1,899 annually per session.

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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Related pages

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