chaosd vs Steadybit

Chaosd is free Apache-2.0 software for injecting and recovering faults on physical machines. It can create process, network, CPU or memory pressure, disk, and host faults. Use it as a command-line tool or run it as a background service controlled through HTTP requests. Chaosd is deployed separately from Chaos Mesh; PhysicalMachineChaos experiments require service mode on each targeted physical or virtual machine. The documented environment requires glibc 2.17 or later, and the binary download described is a Linux amd64 tarball. Network experiments using tc or iptables require sudo or root privileges. Deployment prerequisites include tc, ipset, and iptables; source builds additionally list stress-ng and byteman. Experiments can be searched and recovered by UID. TLS certificates are shown for service security, and running without generated certificates is not recommended.

Steadybit is a chaos engineering platform for teams assessing reliability through planned testing. A no-code editor and templates support experiment design, while a live run view shows progress. Reliability Advice flags risks against best practices and suggests experiments and mitigations. Discovery identifies targets and metadata so teams can visualize and group system components. Tests can inject faults and check health across network, resource, and application layers. The platform supports scheduled experiments and blast-radius controls, with open source integrations for Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, GCP, Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus, Kafka, and RabbitMQ. Teams can also create integrations and custom actions with Extension Kits, ActionKit, and AdviceKit. Steadybit is available as SaaS and supports on-premises deployments, including air-gapped environments. Teams, roles, and fine-grained permissions help govern testing. Pricing is available on request; there is no free plan, but a 30-day free trial is offered. Professional has standard support during 9–5; Enterprise lists on-prem installation, SAML, audit logs, enterprise support, and tailored onboarding.