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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs Unit21

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Unit21 logo

Unit21

Cybersecurity

No-code fraud and AML risk operations platform for fintechs and neobanks

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.; Unit21 it is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.
  • They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, Unit21 covers No-code rule builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and Unit21 actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and Unit21 differ
AttributeGardenUnit21
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesWeb
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 Unit21

  • No-code rule builder
  • Case management
  • SAR filing
  • Backtesting
  • Identity and device signals
  • Data ingestion API

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 Unit21
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Unit21
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Unit21
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Unit21

Unit21

  • A neobank whose sponsor bank requires a documented monitoring programme before it will keep the BIN sponsorshipnot Garden
  • A crypto exchange needing SAR filing and case management without building an internal compliance engineering teamnot Garden
  • A payments startup where the fraud lead needs to ship a new rule the same day a new attack pattern appearsnot Garden
  • A lender consolidating fraud alerts from three point tools into one investigator queue with a single audit trailnot 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.

Unit21

  • It is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.
  • No-code rule authoring shifts power to the risk team, which is the point, but without governance it produces rule sprawl that nobody can explain to an examiner two years later.
  • Detection quality depends on the signals you feed it, so a thin integration produces thin results and the platform cannot compensate with proprietary consortium data the way larger vendors do.
  • Pricing is quoted by volume with an annual commitment, so a fintech whose growth stalls pays for headroom it did not use.
  • SAR filing coverage is oriented to United States FinCEN reporting, so firms filing in the United Kingdom, European Union or Asia handle those submissions outside the tool.

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

Unit21

On request
  • Unit21 Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by monitored volume and modules, annual contract
    • Fraud, AML and case management packaged separately
    • Implementation and historical data backfill quoted with the subscription

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 Unit21 if

  • You need no-code rule builder.
  • You also want case management.
Unit21 review

Questions people ask

Is Garden or Unit21 better?
Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and Unit21 at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Garden or Unit21?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Garden and On request for Unit21.
Does Garden or Unit21 run on more platforms?
Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. Unit21 runs on Web.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Unit21 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 Unit21 is typically brought in for.
What can Garden do that Unit21 cannot?
Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds. Unit21 covers No-code rule builder, Case management, SAR filing, Backtesting.

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.

Unit21: Do we need engineers to run it?

Only for the initial data integration. After that the design intent is that risk and compliance staff author and deploy rules themselves.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

Unit21: Does it file SARs?

Yes, it generates and electronically files suspicious activity reports to FinCEN. Non-US regimes are not covered to the same depth.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

Unit21: Can we test a rule before it goes live?

Yes. Backtesting against historical data to see projected alert volume is one of the more useful parts of the product, because alert volume is the real cost.

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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