oasdiff vs Pact Broker

oasdiff compares OpenAPI specifications, produces changelogs, and identifies breaking changes before release. It supports OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2, and detects 755 distinct breaking and non-breaking API changes. The CLI is available through Homebrew, a shell installer, Docker, and pre-built Linux, macOS, and Windows binaries. Output formats include text, JSON, YAML, HTML, Markdown, and GitHub Actions annotations. Its GitHub Action compares pull-request and base-branch specifications, adding inline annotations for breaking changes. A browser diff tool compares OpenAPI or Swagger specifications without installation or sign-up. Specs and changelogs are encrypted client-side before upload, and servers retain ciphertext they cannot read. The open-source engine, CLI, and GitHub Action use the Apache 2.0 license. A free plan includes CLI diffing, changelogs, GitHub Action annotations, side-by-side review, and encrypted spec storage. Pro costs $100/month and adds approval workflow, audit trail, merge gate, and up to five reviewers across five repositories. Free review links expire after seven days; Enterprise can load specs from GitHub without uploading or storing them.

Pact Broker shares consumer-driven contracts and verification results so teams can check compatibility between consumer and provider versions before deployment. It is designed for Pact contracts and also accepts contracts that can be represented as JSON. In a CI workflow, consumer builds publish contracts, provider builds retrieve and verify them, and consumers can use the can-i-deploy command to check whether deployment is safe. The broker includes a REST API, embedded API browser, generated documentation, service network diagrams, verification results and status badges. Webhooks can respond to contract changes by triggering actions such as a provider build or Slack notification. Deployment options documented include Docker and Terraform on AWS; PostgreSQL and SQLite are listed, though SQLite is not supported for long-term operation. Docker images support linux/amd64 and linux/arm64. The open-source self-hosted broker is free, with users responsible for hosting, operation, security, maintenance and upgrades. PactFlow plans are also listed: Starter is free, while Team costs $115.42 a month billed yearly or $127 a month billed monthly.