ActiveState Platform vs PortBay
ActiveState Platform
docs.activestate.comPortBay
portbay.appSide by side
| Figure | ActiveState Platform | PortBay |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $4.92/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 10 |
| Spec score · Development Environment Managers | 9.1 (#1) | 7.8 (#23) |
| Spec score · Development Environment Management Tools | 9.1 (#1) | 7.7 (#17) |
| Compliance | ActiveState says it achieved SOC 2 Type 2 certification and provides access to its audit report and third-party penetration testing results through its Trust Center, with some materials available on request. | PortBay states that it does not currently hold SOC 2 or ISO certification and has no team plan or admin console. |
| Support | The State Tool troubleshooting documentation directs users with errors to [email protected]. | Pro includes priority support, and the plugin Studio licence includes priority email support. |
Plans
ActiveState Platform
- Free organizationFree
- Paid organizationPriced on request
PortBay
- CommunityFree
- Pro$10 a month
- Plugin Solo$59 a year
- Plugin Studio$99 a year
- Agent Solo$168 a year
- Plugin Agency$199 a year
- Agent Studio$288 a year
- Plugin Unlimited$399 a year
- Agent Agency$444 a year
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
ActiveState Platform
ActiveState Platform hosts custom runtimes assembled from source. Projects specify runtime components, preserve project history and provide deployment instructions; their artifacts may include packages, dependencies, patches and bundles, but not contributors’ first-party code. Create projects in the web interface or with the State Tool CLI, then deploy and activate them locally. Projects can remain personal, be shared with an organization or be public. The platform supports Windows, macOS and Linux deployments, and its GraphQL API can build open-source software for different operating systems and languages without requiring users to manage build infrastructure. It provides immutable SBOMs in SPDX formats and describes build safeguards including reproducible builds, checksum checks and isolated containers. A free organization plan costs nothing and is limited to public projects. Curated Catalog annual pricing is $25,000 for fewer than 100 employees, $50,000 for 100–999 employees and $150,000 for 1,000 or more; those prices do not apply to legacy Platform subscriptions.
PortBay
PortBay is a local development environment for running apps on a Mac and dispatching AI coding agents from a task board. Cards can be assigned to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or Antigravity; each card can have its own Git worktree so multiple agents can work on one repository at once. PortBay provides local project runtimes, trusted HTTPS on.test domains, per-project MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, and Mailpit email capture. Community includes public Cloudflare and SSH tunnels. Pro adds persistent SSH options including keep-alive, auto-reconnect, reverse tunnels, SOCKS proxy, and multi-hop. PortBay says source code is not uploaded and project files, task cards, the board, and agent comments stay on the machine. Agent sandboxing is on by default and denies access to credential stores and.env files outside the assigned project. The free Community plan supports up to six projects, two sandboxed runs, and one Mac. Pro is $10 a month for the first 100 licences while the subscription remains active, then $24 a month; it includes a 7-day trial. PortBay supports macOS and Linux; Windows is on the roadmap.