Garden vs OrbStack
Garden
garden.io
OrbStack
orbstack.devSide by side
| Figure | Garden | OrbStack |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $50/mo | $8/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 4 | 3 |
| Spec score · Container Development Environments | 9.1 (#1) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Security | A Garden community response states that the company is SOC 2 compliant and undergoes regular penetration testing. | For its paid subscription service, Orbital Labs describes access controls, multi-factor authentication, firewalls, monitoring, and encryption safeguards. |
| Support | Garden directs users to Garden Discussions and its GitHub repository for help and issue reporting. | Official support is offered through email, discussions, an issue tracker and a Discord community. |
| System requirement | The installation guide requires Git 2.14 or newer; local Kubernetes is needed when building and running services locally. | The current Homebrew cask requires macOS 14 or newer and publishes separate Apple Silicon and Intel builds. |
| What it does | Garden automates development and testing workflows for Kubernetes and other cloud-native applications. | OrbStack runs Docker containers and Linux machines in a macOS application positioned as an alternative to Docker Desktop and WSL. |
Plans
In their own words
Garden
Garden is a DevOps automation tool for developing and testing Kubernetes applications. It creates production-like environments for development, testing, and CI on demand, then represents infrastructure, builds, services, and tests in a dependency-aware action graph. Graph-aware caching avoids rerunning unchanged images and tests. Garden Core uses YAML declarations to make workflows reproducible across developer machines and CI, and sync mode live-syncs changes to running deployments. Plugins cover Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform, Pulumi, and local scripts. Its Terraform provider validates and provisions infrastructure and exposes stack outputs to Garden actions; the Pulumi plugin is experimental and deploys stacks in dependency order. Garden Cloud's Remote Container Builder uses managed remote compute and shared Docker layer caches. Garden supports Linux, macOS, Windows, and self-hosted use. It requires Git 2.14 or newer, and local service builds need a local Kubernetes installation. The free tier has limits on build minutes, cache hits, and cache retention. Enterprise is a self-hosted Garden Cloud distribution installed into a customer's Kubernetes infrastructure.
OrbStack
OrbStack is a macOS app for running Docker containers and Linux machines. It can also run a lightweight, single-node Kubernetes cluster for local development, with a GUI and network integration. The maker says it starts in two seconds and uses optimized networking, file systems, and x86 emulation. Docker CLI, Compose, Earthly, and VS Code Dev Containers work with OrbStack. Linux machines integrate with macOS networking and file sharing, and support SSH agent forwarding and remote VS Code. OrbStack requires macOS 14.0 or later. Personal, non-commercial use is free; freelance, business, and commercial users need a license for each user, with up to five devices covered per user. Pro costs $8/user/mo, billed as $96 annually, and adds Debug Shell and priority support. Enterprise lists SAML SSO and invoice and PO payments, with no price listed. A trial is available without a card, and the FAQ gives users a 30-day grace period to purchase a license. Linux graphical apps and GPU are listed as unsupported.