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Machine Learning · head to head

Pachyderm vs Teleport

P

Pachyderm

Machine Learning

Data versioning and container pipelines that run on your Kubernetes cluster

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Pachyderm has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Pachyderm it runs only on Kubernetes, so operating it means someone who can debug pods, storage classes and node pressure, and on a team without that person a cluster problem and an ML outage are the same event.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: Pachyderm covers Versioned file system, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Pachyderm and Teleport actually diverge.

Attributes where Pachyderm and Teleport differ
AttributePachydermTeleport
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelfreemiumquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinuxLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
CategoryMachine LearningCybersecurity
Founded2014Unknown

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 Pachyderm

  • Versioned file system
  • Datum-based incremental processing
  • Container pipelines
  • Automatic provenance
  • Parallel execution
  • S3 gateway
  • Enterprise authentication
  • Object storage backends

Only in Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

What people use each for

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

Pachyderm

  • Reprocessing a growing archive of images or documents where a full pass every night would be wasteful and only the new files matternot Teleport
  • Regulated pipelines where an auditor will ask which exact input files and which code version produced a given resultnot Teleport
  • Genomics and scientific workflows built from existing command line tools that are easier to containerise than to rewritenot Teleport
  • Teams that already run Kubernetes and want data lineage without adopting a full commercial ML platformnot Teleport

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot Pachyderm
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot Pachyderm
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot Pachyderm
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot Pachyderm

Where each one falls short

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

Pachyderm

  • It runs only on Kubernetes, so operating it means someone who can debug pods, storage classes and node pressure, and on a team without that person a cluster problem and an ML outage are the same event.
  • Data is held in Pachyderm's content-addressed repositories rather than as plain files in a bucket, so every other tool reaches it through the client or the S3 gateway and migrating away is a full export rather than a redirect.
  • The glob pattern that decides the unit of parallel work is the most consequential line in a pipeline specification, and getting it wrong produces either one enormous serial job or millions of tiny ones whose container start-up dominates the runtime.
  • Compute is billed by your cloud provider, not by Pachyderm, so a platform that looks inexpensive on the licence line runs on a cluster that has to be sized for peak pipeline load and, for training work, carries GPU nodes.
  • The project's direction now sits inside a large hardware vendor's portfolio following the 2023 acquisition, and a team adopting the community edition has no contractual claim on its continued development.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

Pricing, plan by plan

Pachyderm

Free
  • CommunityFree
    • Core features
    • Community support
  • EnterpriseFree
    • Advanced security
    • Premium support
    • SLAs

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

Which should you pick?

Choose Pachyderm if

  • You need versioned file system.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux.
  • You also want datum-based incremental processing.
Pachyderm review

Choose Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is Pachyderm or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. Pachyderm starts at Free and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Pachyderm or Teleport?
Pachyderm has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Pachyderm and On request for Teleport.
Does Pachyderm or Teleport run on more platforms?
Pachyderm runs on Linux. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use Pachyderm for free?
Yes. Pachyderm has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Teleport starts at On request.
What is Pachyderm best used for?
Pachyderm is most often used for reprocessing a growing archive of images or documents where a full pass every night would be wasteful and only the new files matter, regulated pipelines where an auditor will ask which exact input files and which code version produced a given result, genomics and scientific workflows built from existing command line tools that are easier to containerise than to rewrite, teams that already run kubernetes and want data lineage without adopting a full commercial ml platform. Of those, reprocessing a growing archive of images or documents where a full pass every night would be wasteful and only the new files matter and regulated pipelines where an auditor will ask which exact input files and which code version produced a given result are not what Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can Pachyderm do that Teleport cannot?
Pachyderm covers Versioned file system, Datum-based incremental processing, Container pipelines, Automatic provenance. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Pachyderm: Is Pachyderm open source?

The community edition is, under Apache 2.0. Authentication, role-based access control, the console and multi-tenancy sit behind an enterprise licence key, which is the set of features most organisations need once more than one team uses it.

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

Pachyderm: Do I need Kubernetes to run it?

Yes. There is no non-Kubernetes deployment. A local single-node install exists for evaluation, but anything real is a cluster with object storage behind it.

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

Pachyderm: How is it different from DVC?

DVC is a command line tool a person runs alongside Git, with no server. Pachyderm is a server that owns the data and schedules the work centrally. DVC records what you did; Pachyderm does it and records it.

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

Pachyderm: What does it actually cost to run?

The licence is separate from the infrastructure. You pay your cloud provider for the Kubernetes nodes that run every pipeline pod and for the object storage holding every version of every data set, and that bill grows with history as well as with size.

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

Pachyderm: Can I serve models with it?

No. It is a batch data and training pipeline system. Serving is a separate tool and a separate deployment.

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