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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs Nomad

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Nomad logo

Nomad

Cloud

Flexible workload orchestration

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; Nomad nomad 1.7.0 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, Nomad covers Container orchestration.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and Nomad actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and Nomad differ
AttributeGardenNomad
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeopen-source
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesLinux, Windows, Mac, Cloud
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCloud
FoundedUnknown2015

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 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 Nomad

  • Container orchestration
  • Job scheduling
  • Multi-cloud support
  • Auto-scaling
  • Service discovery
  • Rolling deployments
  • Monitoring integration
  • High availability

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 Nomad
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Nomad
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Nomad
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Nomad

Nomad

  • Container and workload orchestration across infrastructurenot Garden
  • Multi-region application deploymentnot Garden
  • Flexible scheduling for batch jobs and servicesnot 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.

Nomad

  • Nomad 1.7.0 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • The Additional Use Grant forbids offering Nomad to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis in a paid product that competes with IBM's paid versions
  • Each version converts to MPL 2.0 only four years after that version is published
  • Resource quotas, Sentinel policies and audit logging sit in a Governance and Policy add-on module that is separate from the Enterprise base platform package
  • Multi-region deployments, multiple Vault namespaces and Nomad Autopilot advanced server management require Nomad Enterprise

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

Nomad

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Workload orchestration
    • Multi-cloud
    • Flexible scheduling

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 Nomad if

  • You need container orchestration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Mac, Cloud.
  • You also want job scheduling.
Nomad review

Questions people ask

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

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.

Nomad: Is HashiCorp Nomad free?

HashiCorp Nomad is open source and free to use. Commercial enterprise support and hosting options may be available through HashiCorp, but the core product is free.

Source
Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Nomad: Does HashiCorp Nomad have a pricing model?

Nomad is open source software with no published pricing tiers. HashiCorp offers commercial hosting and support for their products on a usage-based or custom pricing model, but Nomad itself is free to download and deploy.

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.

Nomad: What is HashiCorp's pricing model for enterprise Nomad?

HashiCorp offers flexible pricing for enterprise Nomad support including pay-as-you-go (PAYG) billing with no long-term commitment, flex plans with preferred pricing, and enterprise self-managed plans. Contact HashiCorp sales for custom quotes.

Source
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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