Developer Tools · head to head
Garden vs PHP
Garden
Developer Tools
Kubernetes development and testing automation with shared caching, now owned by Incredibuild
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
PHP
Web Development
A popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
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.; PHP distributed under the Modified BSD License, also called the PHP License version 4, per php.net/license/; there is no paid tier or vendor price to compare
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Garden and PHP 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 PHP
Nothing recorded that Garden does not also cover.
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 PHP
- An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot PHP
- Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot PHP
- Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot PHP
PHP
- Server-side web developmentnot Garden
- Content management systemsnot Garden
- API backendsnot 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.
PHP
- Distributed under the Modified BSD License, also called the PHP License version 4, per php.net/license/; there is no paid tier or vendor price to compare
- PHP 8.2 lost active support on 31 Dec 2024 and enters full end of life on 31 Dec 2026, with only security fixes since, per php.net/supported-versions.php (Aug 2026)
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
PHP
FreeNo published plan breakdown. See the PHP review.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Garden or PHP better?
- Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and PHP at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Garden or PHP?
- Garden starts at Free and PHP at Free.
- Does Garden or PHP run on more platforms?
- Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. PHP 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 PHP is typically brought in for.
- What can Garden do that PHP cannot?
- Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds.
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.
PHP: Is PHP free to use?
Yes, PHP is completely free and open-source software under the PHP Foundation governance. There are no licensing fees or paid tiers.
SourceGarden: Do I need Kubernetes?
Effectively yes. Garden is built around Kubernetes environments and offers little to teams on other runtimes.
PHP: Does the PHP Foundation offer paid support?
The PHP Foundation accepts voluntary donations to support long-term development, but donations are optional and not required to use PHP.
SourceGarden: 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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- PHP vs Alpine.js
- PHP vs Astro
- PHP vs Carrd