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Testing · head to head

GrowthBook vs Tilt

GrowthBook logo

GrowthBook

Testing

Open source feature flags and A/B testing that run experiment analysis inside your own data warehouse

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Tilt logo

Tilt

Developer Tools

Local Kubernetes development loop that rebuilds and live-updates containers on save

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: GrowthBook warehouse-native analysis is only an advantage if you have a warehouse with clean event data in it; without one, GrowthBook has nothing to compute against and you are back to buying an event-collecting platform.; Tilt docker acquired Tilt in 2022 and the team now splits its time across Compose and Docker Desktop, so feature velocity is modest and the product's long-term priority inside Docker is not guaranteed; treat it as a stable utility, not a growing platform.
  • They diverge on capability: GrowthBook covers Feature flags, Tilt covers Live update.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which GrowthBook and Tilt actually diverge.

Attributes where GrowthBook and Tilt differ
AttributeGrowthBookTilt
Pricing modelPer user per monthOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, DockerLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryTestingDeveloper Tools

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 GrowthBook

  • Feature flags
  • Warehouse-native analysis
  • Reusable metric definitions
  • Bayesian and frequentist engines
  • CUPED variance reduction
  • Visual editor
  • Self-hosting
  • Guardrail metrics

Only in Tilt

  • Live update
  • Tiltfile as code
  • Unified web UI
  • Selective rebuilds
  • Local and remote clusters
  • Resource dependencies
  • Extensions registry
  • Custom buttons and triggers

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

GrowthBook

  • An engineering team that wants feature flags without a per-monthly-active-user bill that grows with product successnot Tilt
  • A data team that needs experiment results to reconcile exactly with the metrics reported in its BI toolnot Tilt
  • A company with data residency or privacy constraints that cannot send user-level event data to a third-party vendornot Tilt
  • Running long-tail experiments where sequential testing and CUPED shorten the time to a decision on low-traffic surfacesnot Tilt

Tilt

  • A team of ten or more engineers whose application is fifteen microservices on Kubernetes and who currently wait on CI to test a changenot GrowthBook
  • An organisation onboarding new developers who want a single command that stands up the whole stack from a committed Tiltfilenot GrowthBook
  • A platform team giving product engineers a consistent local environment against a shared remote development clusternot GrowthBook
  • A codebase where one repository contains several services and rebuilding all of them on every edit is the main source of lost timenot GrowthBook

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

GrowthBook

  • Warehouse-native analysis is only an advantage if you have a warehouse with clean event data in it; without one, GrowthBook has nothing to compute against and you are back to buying an event-collecting platform.
  • Metrics are SQL, so a marketing or product team without data engineering support cannot define or fix them, and a badly written metric silently produces a confident wrong answer.
  • Cloud Pro bills per seat and then adds CDN request and bandwidth overages, so a high-traffic site can find the variable component exceeds the seat cost it budgeted for.
  • Self-hosting means you own the Mongo database, the SDK endpoint availability and the upgrade path, and a flag service that is down is a production incident, not an analytics inconvenience.
  • The statistics engine exposes real choices, Bayesian versus frequentist, sequential testing, variance reduction, and the tool will not stop a team that configures them wrongly, so it rewards statistical literacy and punishes its absence.

Tilt

  • Docker acquired Tilt in 2022 and the team now splits its time across Compose and Docker Desktop, so feature velocity is modest and the product's long-term priority inside Docker is not guaranteed; treat it as a stable utility, not a growing platform.
  • The Tiltfile is Starlark, a Python dialect, so non-trivial setups become real programs that need reviewing and maintaining, and the person who wrote yours becomes a single point of failure.
  • Live update only works when the running container can accept synced files and restart the process; compiled languages, distroless images and read-only filesystems often force you back to a full image rebuild, which removes the main benefit.
  • It assumes Kubernetes. If your development target is plain Docker Compose or serverless functions, Tilt adds a cluster you did not need and a layer of abstraction with no payoff.
  • There is no commercial support contract, no SLA and no paid tier, so when a Kubernetes version upgrade breaks something you are dependent on GitHub issues and a Slack channel rather than a vendor you can escalate to.

Pricing, plan by plan

GrowthBook

Free
  • Open source (self-hosted)Free
    • Unlimited users, feature flags and experiments
    • One project
    • MIT licensed, you run the infrastructure
  • Starter (cloud)Free
    • Up to 3 users
    • 1 project
    • Unlimited flags, experiments and traffic
  • Pro (cloud)$40/month
    • Per seat, up to 50 users
    • 3 projects
    • CDN overage at $10 per million requests beyond the included allowance
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Unlimited users and projects
    • SSO, audit logs and advanced permissions
    • Available on cloud or self-hosted

Tilt

Free
  • TiltFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed
    • All features, no paid tier
    • Community support via the Kubernetes Slack #tilt channel

Which should you pick?

Choose GrowthBook if

  • You need feature flags.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want warehouse-native analysis.
GrowthBook review

Choose Tilt if

  • You need live update.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want tiltfile as code.
Tilt review

Questions people ask

Is GrowthBook or Tilt better?
Neither clearly leads. GrowthBook starts at Free and Tilt at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, GrowthBook or Tilt?
GrowthBook starts at Free and Tilt at Free.
Does GrowthBook or Tilt run on more platforms?
GrowthBook runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker. Tilt runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use GrowthBook for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is GrowthBook best used for?
GrowthBook is most often used for an engineering team that wants feature flags without a per-monthly-active-user bill that grows with product success, a data team that needs experiment results to reconcile exactly with the metrics reported in its bi tool, a company with data residency or privacy constraints that cannot send user-level event data to a third-party vendor, running long-tail experiments where sequential testing and cuped shorten the time to a decision on low-traffic surfaces. Of those, an engineering team that wants feature flags without a per-monthly-active-user bill that grows with product success and a data team that needs experiment results to reconcile exactly with the metrics reported in its bi tool are not what Tilt is typically brought in for.
What can GrowthBook do that Tilt cannot?
GrowthBook covers Feature flags, Warehouse-native analysis, Reusable metric definitions, Bayesian and frequentist engines. Tilt covers Live update, Tiltfile as code, Unified web UI, Selective rebuilds.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

GrowthBook: Is the self-hosted version actually usable, or crippled?

It is genuinely usable: unlimited users, flags and experiments on one project under an MIT licence. The paid tiers add multiple projects, SSO, audit logs and support.

Tilt: Is Tilt free?

Yes, entirely. It is Apache 2.0 open source with no paid tier and no licence fee.

GrowthBook: Do I need a data warehouse?

For experiment analysis, effectively yes. Feature flagging works without one, but the reason to choose GrowthBook over a flag-only tool is the warehouse-native statistics.

Tilt: Who owns Tilt now?

Docker, which acquired it in May 2022. It remains open source and the repository is still actively maintained.

GrowthBook: How does the cost compare with LaunchDarkly or Optimizely?

GrowthBook charges per seat rather than per monthly active user or per tracked event, so cost stops scaling with traffic. At high volume that difference is large.

Tilt: Do I need a remote cluster?

No. It works against a local cluster such as kind, minikube or Docker Desktop, and also against a shared remote development cluster if your services are too heavy to run locally.

GrowthBook: Does it support mobile and server-side flags?

Yes, there are SDKs across JavaScript, React, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java, Kotlin, Swift and more, covering client, server and mobile evaluation.

Tilt: How is it different from Skaffold?

Both automate the build-deploy loop. Tilt puts more weight on the live-update path and a multi-service dashboard; Skaffold is more configuration-driven and closer to Google's tooling.

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