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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs Ping Identity

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Ping Identity logo

Ping Identity

Cybersecurity

Enterprise identity for workforce and customers, with a 5,000 user floor

From
$3/month
Free plan
No
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.; Ping Identity workforce pricing carries a 5,000 user annual minimum, so an organisation with 800 staff pays for 5,000 and the effective per user cost is over six times the list rate.
  • They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, Ping Identity covers Single sign-on.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and Ping Identity actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and Ping Identity differ
AttributeGardenPing Identity
Starting priceFree$3/month
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer user per month
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesWeb, Linux, Windows
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

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 Ping Identity

  • Single sign-on
  • Adaptive MFA
  • Identity orchestration
  • API access management
  • Directory services
  • Flexible deployment
  • ForgeRock capabilities

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

Ping Identity

  • A bank that must keep identity data on premises in one country while running SaaS identity elsewherenot Garden
  • An airline or telco with tens of millions of customer identities needing a directory that holds that scalenot Garden
  • An enterprise assembling authentication journeys that call several external verification and risk vendorsnot Garden
  • An existing ForgeRock customer deciding what its upgrade path looks like under Ping ownershipnot 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.

Ping Identity

  • Workforce pricing carries a 5,000 user annual minimum, so an organisation with 800 staff pays for 5,000 and the effective per user cost is over six times the list rate.
  • Adaptive multi-factor authentication is in the Plus tier only, doubling the per user price for a capability many buyers assume is standard in a modern identity platform.
  • ForgeRock no longer exists as an independent product, so customers who chose it specifically to avoid Ping now face a roadmap set by the vendor they did not pick.
  • Thoma Bravo ownership across both merged companies means the commercial priority is margin, and buyers report firmer renewal negotiations than they saw before 2022.
  • The portfolio has overlapping components from three product lineages, so scoping a deployment requires vendor architects and the licensing conversation is more complicated than the price list implies.

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

Ping Identity

$3/month
  • PingOne for Workforce Essential$3/month
    • Minimum 5,000 users billed annually
    • Single sign-on and directory services
    • OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML and SCIM
  • PingOne for Workforce Plus$6/month
    • Minimum 5,000 users billed annually
    • Everything in Essential
    • Adaptive multi-factor authentication
  • PingOne for Customers Essential$35000/year
    • Flat annual fee
    • No-code identity orchestration
    • Unified customer profiles
  • PingOne for Customers Plus$50000/year
    • Flat annual fee
    • Everything in Essential
    • Adaptive MFA and device management

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 Ping Identity if

  • You need single sign-on.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Windows.
  • You also want adaptive mfa.
Ping Identity review

Questions people ask

Is Garden or Ping Identity better?
Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and Ping Identity at $3/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Garden or Ping Identity?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Garden and $3/month for Ping Identity.
Does Garden or Ping Identity run on more platforms?
Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. Ping Identity runs on Web, Linux, Windows.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Ping Identity starts at $3/month.
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 Ping Identity is typically brought in for.
What can Garden do that Ping Identity cannot?
Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds. Ping Identity covers Single sign-on, Adaptive MFA, Identity orchestration, API access management.

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.

Ping Identity: Can I still buy ForgeRock?

Not as a separate product. Ping acquired ForgeRock in 2023 and the capabilities are sold within the Ping portfolio. Existing customers should ask about the specific migration path for their components.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Ping Identity: What is the real minimum spend?

PingOne for Workforce Essential is 3 USD per user per month with a 5,000 user annual minimum, so roughly 180,000 USD a year before anything else.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

Ping Identity: Is MFA included?

Basic authentication policies are in Essential. Adaptive MFA and passwordless require the Plus tier at 6 USD per user per month.

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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