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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs Sourcegraph

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Sourcegraph logo

Sourcegraph

Developer Tools

Code search and intelligence platform for large codebases with Cody AI assistant

From
$16000/year
Rated
-
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.; Sourcegraph enterprise pricing starting at $16k annually creates significant barrier for small teams
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and Sourcegraph actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and Sourcegraph differ
AttributeGardenSourcegraph
Starting priceFree$16000/year
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feesubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesCloud, Self-hosted

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Developer Tools).

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 Sourcegraph

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

Sourcegraph

  • Large-scale code migrations across hundreds of repositoriesnot Garden
  • Enterprise governance and code ownership trackingnot Garden
  • AI-assisted bug hunting and security pattern detectionnot Garden
  • Onboarding engineers into large unfamiliar codebasesnot Garden
  • Regulatory compliance and code audit trailsnot 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.

Sourcegraph

  • Enterprise pricing starting at $16k annually creates significant barrier for small teams
  • No free tier or standard plan published; all options require custom sales engagement
  • Complex enterprise-only positioning limits adoption compared to GitHub Copilot's pervasiveness
  • Requires indexing entire codebase; not suitable for small or ephemeral projects

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

Sourcegraph

$16000/year
  • Enterprise$16000/year
    • Scales with team size
    • Credits for AI features per user
    • Deep Search

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 Sourcegraph if

  • You work on Cloud, Self-hosted.
Sourcegraph review

Questions people ask

Is Garden or Sourcegraph better?
Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and Sourcegraph at $16000/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Garden or Sourcegraph?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Garden and $16000/year for Sourcegraph.
Does Garden or Sourcegraph run on more platforms?
Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. Sourcegraph runs on Cloud, Self-hosted.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sourcegraph starts at $16000/year.
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 Sourcegraph is typically brought in for.
What can Garden do that Sourcegraph 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.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Garden: 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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Related pages

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