Argo CD vs Flux CD
Argo CD
argo-cd.readthedocs.io
Flux CD
fluxcd.ioSide by side
| Figure | Argo CD | Flux CD |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · GitOps Tools | 8.3 (#9) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Spec score · Deployment Automation Software | 8.3 (#10) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Spec score · Continuous Delivery Software | 8.3 (#11) | 8.5 (#8) |
| Founded | 2017 | 2016 |
| Project status | The CNCF lists Argo as a graduated project and says it moved to graduated maturity on December 6, 2022. | Flux is a CNCF Graduated project. |
| Security | The security documentation says Argo CD has undergone internal security reviews and penetration testing to satisfy PCI compliance requirements. | The project describes a pull-based model, least-privilege access, and adherence to Kubernetes security policies as security design principles. |
Plans
In their own words
Argo CD
Argo CD is a declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. It uses Git repositories as the source of truth for desired application state and automates deployment to target environments. It compares running applications with that desired state, displays differences, and supports manual or automatic synchronization. The tool can deploy to multiple clusters and works with Kustomize, Helm, Jsonnet, plain YAML or JSON manifests, and configured custom configuration management tools. A web UI shows real-time application activity, while a CLI supports automation and CI integration. Access features include multi-tenancy, role-based controls, and single sign-on integrations such as OIDC, OAuth2, LDAP, SAML 2.0, GitHub, GitLab, Microsoft, and LinkedIn. It also provides access tokens, audit trails, and Prometheus metrics. Local accounts do not provide advanced features such as groups or login history; the documentation recommends SSO for those needs. Argo CD is free and open source with a self-managed installation. A common multi-tenant deployment serves multiple developer teams and is typically maintained by a platform team; the non-high-availability installation is not recommended for production.
Flux CD
Flux CD is a free, open-source set of continuous and progressive delivery tools for Kubernetes. It uses GitOps to reconcile clusters with configuration from sources such as Git repositories, and manages Kubernetes resources along with infrastructure and workload dependencies. Integrations include GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, S3-compatible buckets, OCI, container registries, Helm, and Kustomize. With Flagger, it supports canary deployments, feature flags, and A/B rollouts; it can also scan container images and push automated updates back to Git. Flux can send alerts to external systems, including chat systems such as Slack. For multi-tenancy, it uses Kubernetes RBAC through impersonation and supports multiple repositories and clusters. Its CLI and controller images are signed, and controller deployments follow the Kubernetes restricted pod security standard. Flux does not provide its own UI, although third-party interfaces are available. Installation requires cluster-admin rights, and older end-of-life Kubernetes versions are unsupported; the listed minimum versions begin at v1.34.1 for v1.34.