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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs Spacelift

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Spacelift logo

Spacelift

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; 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.
  • They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and Spacelift actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and Spacelift differ
AttributeGardenSpacelift
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeBy private worker and tier, not by user
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesWeb, Self-hosted, Cloud

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 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.

Garden

  • A platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loopnot Spacelift
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot Spacelift
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot Spacelift
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot Spacelift

Spacelift

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

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

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

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 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 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 Garden or Spacelift better?
Neither clearly leads. Garden 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, Garden or Spacelift?
Garden starts at Free and Spacelift at Free.
Does Garden or Spacelift run on more platforms?
Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. Spacelift runs on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.
Can I use Garden for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
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 Spacelift is typically brought in for.
What can Garden do that Spacelift cannot?
Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds. Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration, Policy as code, Private workers, Spaces.

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.

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.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

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

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.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

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

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.

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.

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.

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