Is PHP or Spacelift better?

Neither clearly leads. PHP starts at Free and Spacelift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, PHP or Spacelift?

PHP starts at Free and Spacelift at Free.

Does PHP or Spacelift run on more platforms?

PHP runs on Web. Spacelift runs on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.

Can I use PHP for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is PHP best used for?

PHP is most often used for server-side web development, content management systems, api backends. Of those, server-side web development and content management systems are not what Spacelift is typically brought in for.

What can PHP do that Spacelift cannot?

Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration, Policy as code, Private workers, Spaces.

Web Development · head to head

PHP vs Spacelift

PHP

Web Development

A popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development

From: Free
Free plan: Yes

Full review Website

Spacelift

Developer Tools

Infrastructure-as-code orchestration for Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi and Kubernetes

From: Free
Free plan: Yes

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: PHP distributed under the Modified BSD License, also called the PHP License version 4, per php.net/license/; there is no paid tier or vendor price to compare; Spacelift users are unlimited and private workers are metered, so deployment concurrency rather than headcount drives the bill, which inverts how most engineering budgets are built and is easy to under-forecast.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which PHP and Spacelift actually diverge.

Attributes where PHP and Spacelift differ
Attribute	PHP	Spacelift
Pricing model	open-source	By private worker and tier, not by user
Platforms	Web	Web, Self-hosted, Cloud
Category	Web Development	Developer 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 PHP

Nothing recorded that Spacelift does not also cover.

Only in Spacelift

Multi-tool orchestration
Policy as code
Private workers
Spaces
Blueprints
Drift detection

What people use each for

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

PHP

Server-side web developmentnot Spacelift
Content management systemsnot Spacelift
API backendsnot Spacelift

Spacelift

Platform teams running infrastructure changes through approval gates rather than through application CInot PHP
Organisations standardising Terraform and OpenTofu across many teams with policy enforcementnot PHP
Estates needing private runners so cloud credentials never leave the networknot PHP
Teams wanting drift detection and reconciliation rather than plan-time checks alonenot PHP

Where each one falls short

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

PHP

Distributed under the Modified BSD License, also called the PHP License version 4, per php.net/license/; there is no paid tier or vendor price to compare
PHP 8.2 lost active support on 31 Dec 2024 and enters full end of life on 31 Dec 2026, with only security fixes since, per php.net/supported-versions.php (Aug 2026)

Spacelift

Users are unlimited and private workers are metered, so deployment concurrency rather than headcount drives the bill, which inverts how most engineering budgets are built and is easy to under-forecast.
There is no affordable paid entry point. The free tier stops at two users and the next tier is a five-figure commitment with nothing in between.
Three of the five tiers are quote-only, so a shortlist cannot be costed without entering a sales process with each vendor on it.
The self-hosted build lags the hosted one, has no public worker pool and lacks the Azure and Google Cloud integrations available in the SaaS product, with OIDC federation offered as the workaround.
Stacks, Rego policies, Blueprints, Spaces and Spacelift-managed state are proprietary constructs, so leaving means rebuilding the orchestration layer rather than pointing it at a different runner.

Pricing, plan by plan

PHP

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the PHP review.

Spacelift

Free

FreeFree
- Two users
- Public workers only
- No private workers
Starter Plus$undefined/year
- Unlimited users
- Two public workers
- One to two private workers
Business$undefined/year
- Unlimited users
- Three private workers
- Quoted
Enterprise$undefined/year
- Unlimited users
- Five to thirty private workers
- Self-hosted option

Which should you pick?

Choose PHP if

You want to start without paying.

PHP review

Choose Spacelift if

You need multi-tool orchestration.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.
You also want policy as code.

Spacelift review

Questions people ask

Is PHP or Spacelift better?: Neither clearly leads. PHP starts at Free and Spacelift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, PHP or Spacelift?: PHP starts at Free and Spacelift at Free.
Does PHP or Spacelift run on more platforms?: PHP runs on Web. Spacelift runs on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.
Can I use PHP for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is PHP best used for?: PHP is most often used for server-side web development, content management systems, api backends. Of those, server-side web development and content management systems are not what Spacelift is typically brought in for.
What can PHP do that Spacelift cannot?: Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration, Policy as code, Private workers, Spaces.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

PHP: Is PHP free to use?

Yes, PHP is completely free and open-source software under the PHP Foundation governance. There are no licensing fees or paid tiers.

Source

Spacelift: How is Spacelift priced?

By tier and by private worker count rather than per user. Users are unlimited on every paid plan. The published figure on the pricing page carries no period label, and the FAQ describes the tier as an annual subscription, so confirm the period in writing.

PHP: Does the PHP Foundation offer paid support?

The PHP Foundation accepts voluntary donations to support long-term development, but donations are optional and not required to use PHP.

Source

Spacelift: Does it support OpenTofu?

Yes, and Spacelift sponsors the OpenTofu project, which is a substantive hedge for anyone avoiding Terraform under the Business Source Licence.

Spacelift: Is there a self-hosted version?

Yes, described as carrying Enterprise functionality, but it is priced on request and lags the hosted product on cloud integrations.

Spacelift: Why not just use the CI system we already have?

That is the real comparison. General purpose CI handles state, drift, approval gates and concurrency control for infrastructure poorly, and whether that is worth a five-figure floor depends on how much infrastructure change your organisation actually ships.

Spacelift: What happens to our pipelines if we leave?

They do not port. Rego policies, Blueprints, Spaces and managed state are Spacelift constructs and the orchestration has to be rebuilt elsewhere.

PHP vs Spacelift

PHP

Spacelift

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in PHP

Only in Spacelift

What people use each for

PHP

Spacelift

Where each one falls short

PHP

Spacelift

Pricing, plan by plan

PHP

Spacelift

Which should you pick?

Choose PHP if

Choose Spacelift if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on PHP

More on Spacelift

Keep looking

Other head to heads