Developer Tools · head to head
Garden vs Percy
Garden
Developer Tools
Kubernetes development and testing automation with shared caching, now owned by Incredibuild
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Percy
Testing
Visual regression testing owned by BrowserStack, with a permanent free tier for low screenshot volume
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
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.; Percy pixel-based diffing generates more false positives from font rendering and anti-aliasing noise than Applitools' AI-based comparison, which trains some teams to start ignoring diff alerts over time.
- They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, Percy covers Screenshot diffing.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Garden and Percy actually diverge.
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 Percy
- Screenshot diffing
- Framework integrations
- Responsive and cross-browser snapshots
- Review workflow
- Build history
- BrowserStack platform integration
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 Percy
- An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Percy
- Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Percy
- Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Percy
Percy
- A team already on BrowserStack for device testing that wants to add visual regression without a separate vendor relationshipnot Garden
- A low-traffic project that can run indefinitely on the 5,000-screenshot free tier without paying anythingnot Garden
- A team wanting a lower cost per screenshot than Applitools and willing to tolerate more manual false-positive triagenot Garden
- A Cypress or Playwright test suite adding visual checks without changing its existing test runnernot 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.
Percy
- Pixel-based diffing generates more false positives from font rendering and anti-aliasing noise than Applitools' AI-based comparison, which trains some teams to start ignoring diff alerts over time.
- It is billed separately from core BrowserStack device testing, and stacking Percy with other BrowserStack modules such as Accessibility Testing materially increases total contract value beyond the headline device testing price.
- Paid tier pricing above the free tier is not transparently published as a fixed number, requiring a quote to know actual cost at scale.
- The free tier's 5,000-screenshot cap is easy to exceed for any team running visual tests across multiple browsers and viewports on every commit, pushing many active projects into a paid tier faster than the free number suggests.
- As part of a larger acquired portfolio, Percy's roadmap priority within BrowserStack's broader product strategy is less certain than it would be as a standalone company's sole focus.
Pricing, plan by plan
Garden
Free- Garden open sourceFree
- Apache 2.0 licensed CLI
- Full action graph and caching
- Self-managed clusters
- Commercial tier$undefined/year
- Hosted caching and team features
- Support and onboarding
- Pricing no longer published since the Incredibuild acquisition
Percy
Free- FreeFree
- 5,000 screenshots a month
- Unlimited users and projects
- 30-day build history
- Percy$undefined/month
- Priced by screenshot volume above the free tier
- Sold separately from core BrowserStack device testing plans
- Get a current quote before assuming bundled pricing with other BrowserStack products
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.
Choose Percy if
- You need screenshot diffing.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want framework integrations.
Questions people ask
- Is Garden or Percy better?
- Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and Percy at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Garden or Percy?
- Garden starts at Free and Percy at Free.
- Does Garden or Percy run on more platforms?
- Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. Percy runs on Web.
- 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 Percy is typically brought in for.
- What can Garden do that Percy cannot?
- Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds. Percy covers Screenshot diffing, Framework integrations, Responsive and cross-browser snapshots, Review workflow.
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.
Percy: Is Percy free?
Yes for up to 5,000 screenshots a month with unlimited users and projects; beyond that it is a paid, quote-priced module.
Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?
Effectively yes. Garden is built around Kubernetes environments and offers little to teams on other runtimes.
Percy: Is Percy included if I already pay for BrowserStack device testing?
No, it is billed separately by screenshot volume, not bundled into core device testing plans.
Garden: Does it replace my CI system?
No. It runs inside GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or similar and speeds up what those pipelines execute.
Percy: How does it compare to Applitools?
Percy uses pixel-based diffing, which is generally cheaper per screenshot but produces more false positives than Applitools' AI-based perceptual comparison.
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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