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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs Sardine

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Sardine logo

Sardine

Cybersecurity

Device intelligence and behaviour biometrics for fraud and compliance

From
On request
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.; Sardine signal quality depends on the SDK being embedded in your own web and mobile clients, so fraud improvements become dependent on your app release cycle and any coverage gap is a blind spot.
  • They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, Sardine covers Device intelligence.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and Sardine actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and Sardine differ
AttributeGardenSardine
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesWeb, iOS, Android
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 Sardine

  • Device intelligence
  • Behaviour biometrics
  • Scam detection
  • Onboarding risk scoring
  • AML transaction monitoring
  • Dispute and chargeback handling
  • Rules editor

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

Sardine

  • A neobank losing money to authorised push payment scams where the customer genuinely approved the transfernot Garden
  • A crypto exchange trying to detect accounts being operated by remote access rather than by their ownernot Garden
  • A fintech seeing synthetic identity signups that pass document verification but share device characteristicsnot Garden
  • A lender wanting first party fraud signals at application time that a credit bureau file does not containnot 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.

Sardine

  • Signal quality depends on the SDK being embedded in your own web and mobile clients, so fraud improvements become dependent on your app release cycle and any coverage gap is a blind spot.
  • Behavioural and device telemetry collection needs a documented lawful basis under GDPR, and EU privacy reviews frequently delay rollouts that were scoped as engineering work.
  • Pricing is per session or per active user, so a consumer product with many low value sessions pays in proportion to traffic rather than to fraud exposure.
  • As a younger private company it lacks the enforcement-tested audit history that a bank examiner expects, which makes it a harder sell inside a regulated bank than inside a fintech.
  • It is strongest on session-time signals and weaker as a system of record for long horizon AML typologies, so larger institutions end up running it alongside a traditional monitoring platform rather than instead of one.

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

Sardine

On request
  • Sardine$undefined/year
    • Priced per user session or per monthly active user
    • Annual contract with volume commitment
    • SDK for web, iOS and Android

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 Sardine if

  • You need device intelligence.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want behaviour biometrics.
Sardine review

Questions people ask

Is Garden or Sardine better?
Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and Sardine at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Garden or Sardine?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Garden and On request for Sardine.
Does Garden or Sardine run on more platforms?
Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. Sardine runs on Web, iOS, Android.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sardine 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 Sardine is typically brought in for.
What can Garden do that Sardine cannot?
Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds. Sardine covers Device intelligence, Behaviour biometrics, Scam detection, Onboarding risk scoring.

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.

Sardine: Does Sardine do document verification?

It focuses on device, behavioural and transaction signals, and integrates identity verification providers rather than being one. Treat it as complementary to a KYC vendor.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Sardine: What does it need from us to work?

An SDK in your web and mobile applications plus transaction feeds. Without the client side collector you lose the signals that differentiate it.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

Sardine: Is pricing published?

No. It is quoted, typically per session or per monthly active user with an annual volume commitment.

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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