--- title: "Dagger vs Earthly vs Depot: Fast CI/CD for Startup Teams 2026" author: "Nate Laquis" author_role: "Founder & CEO" date: "2026-05-20" category: "Technology" tags: - Dagger vs Earthly vs Depot CI/CD comparison - fast CI/CD for startups - container-based CI pipelines - CI/CD build optimization 2026 - startup DevOps tools excerpt: "Your CI pipeline should not be the bottleneck. We break down Dagger, Earthly, and Depot so you can pick the fastest, cheapest CI/CD tool for your startup in 2026." reading_time: "14 min read" canonical_url: "https://kanopylabs.com/blog/dagger-vs-earthly-vs-depot-fast-ci-cd" --- # Dagger vs Earthly vs Depot: Fast CI/CD for Startup Teams 2026 ## Why Your CI/CD Pipeline Is Probably Costing You More Than You Think If you are running a startup with 5 to 30 engineers, your CI/CD pipeline is likely one of your biggest hidden costs. Not just the dollar amount on the invoice, though that matters too. The real cost is developer time spent waiting on builds, debugging flaky pipelines, and duct-taping together YAML files that nobody truly understands. We have built and maintained CI/CD pipelines for over 200 startup teams. The pattern is always the same: the team starts with GitHub Actions or GitLab CI, it works fine for six months, and then build times creep past 10 minutes. Then 15. Then 20. Engineers start batching PRs to avoid waiting. Code review quality drops. Deployments slow to a crawl. Three tools have emerged in the last few years specifically to solve this problem: **Dagger**, **Earthly**, and **Depot**. Each takes a fundamentally different approach to making builds faster and more portable. This Dagger vs Earthly vs Depot CI/CD comparison will help you figure out which one actually fits your team, your budget, and your workflow. ![Code displayed on a monitor representing CI/CD pipeline configuration](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1461749280684-dccba630e2f6?w=800&q=80) We are not going to give you a wishy-washy "it depends" answer. We will be specific about costs, build times, team sizes, and use cases. If you are already struggling with [setting up CI/CD](/blog/how-to-set-up-cicd) properly, this article will help you leapfrog the common pitfalls entirely. ## Dagger: Programmable Pipelines in Real Code Dagger, created by Solomon Hykes (the founder of Docker), takes the most radical approach of the three. Instead of writing YAML or a custom DSL, you write your CI/CD pipelines in a real programming language. Go, Python, TypeScript, or any language with a Dagger SDK. Your pipeline is just code that calls the Dagger API to compose containers, run commands, and pass artifacts between steps. ### How Dagger Works At its core, Dagger runs a GraphQL API backed by BuildKit (the engine behind Docker builds). When you write a Dagger pipeline in, say, TypeScript, you are constructing a directed acyclic graph of container operations. Dagger evaluates this graph lazily, which means it only executes the steps whose outputs are actually needed. It caches aggressively at every layer. If nothing changed in a step's inputs, the step is skipped entirely. This is a big deal for monorepos and complex build graphs. If you have a pipeline that builds 8 microservices but only 2 changed, Dagger skips the other 6 automatically. No custom cache key logic. No conditional steps in YAML. The graph handles it. ### Strengths - **Testable pipelines:** Your CI pipeline is just code. You can unit test it, lint it, and refactor it with the same tools you use for your application code. - **Vendor-agnostic:** Dagger pipelines run identically on GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Jenkins, or your laptop. Zero lock-in to any CI provider. - **Powerful caching:** BuildKit layer caching is automatic. Combined with Dagger's lazy evaluation, cache hit rates of 80-95% are common on incremental builds. - **Local/remote parity:** Engineers can run the exact same pipeline locally that runs in CI. This eliminates the "works on my machine but fails in CI" problem. - **Growing module ecosystem:** Dagger modules let you share reusable pipeline components. Need a Helm deploy step? There is probably a module for it. ### Weaknesses - **Learning curve:** If your team has never touched BuildKit or container-based build systems, the mental model takes a week or two to click. The GraphQL layer adds conceptual overhead. - **Debugging complexity:** When something goes wrong deep in the container graph, debugging is harder than reading a sequential YAML log. The Dagger Cloud dashboard helps, but it is an extra paid service. - **Still maturing:** The SDK APIs have gone through breaking changes. The TypeScript SDK hit stable in late 2025, but the ecosystem of community modules is still smaller than you would want. ### Pricing The Dagger engine is open source and free. You pay for your own compute (whatever CI runner you already use). Dagger Cloud, which provides caching, observability, and a dashboard, starts at $10/month per seat with a free tier for small teams (up to 5 developers). For a 10-person team, expect roughly $100/month for Cloud plus your existing CI runner costs. ## Earthly: Dockerfiles Meet Makefiles Earthly takes a more conservative approach that will feel immediately familiar if your team already knows Docker. An Earthfile looks like a Dockerfile mixed with a Makefile. You define targets (like Makefile rules), and each target runs inside a container (like a Dockerfile). Dependencies between targets are explicit, and caching works at the layer level just like Docker builds. ### How Earthly Works You write an `Earthfile` in Earthly's own syntax. Each target starts with a base image, runs commands, and can produce artifacts or images. Targets can depend on other targets, and Earthly resolves these dependencies into a build graph. Under the hood, Earthly also uses BuildKit, so you get the same layer caching that powers Dagger and Docker. The key difference from Dagger is that Earthly is a DSL, not a general-purpose programming language. This is both its strength and its limitation. The syntax is simple enough that any developer who has written a Dockerfile can read an Earthfile in five minutes. But complex logic (conditionals, loops, dynamic configuration) is clunkier than writing real code. ### Strengths - **Gentle learning curve:** If your team knows Docker, they already know 80% of Earthly. Onboarding takes hours, not days. - **Reproducible builds:** Every command runs in a container. No more "it works on Ubuntu but not on the CI runner's Debian." Build isolation is airtight. - **Monorepo support:** Earthly handles multi-project builds well. You can reference targets across directories, and the dependency graph prevents unnecessary rebuilds. - **Earthly Satellites:** Remote BuildKit runners that provide persistent caching. This is where the real speed gains come from. Your CI runner sends the build to a Satellite with a warm cache, and incremental builds drop from 12 minutes to under 3. - **Parallel execution:** Independent targets run in parallel automatically. No manual parallelization config needed. ### Weaknesses - **DSL limitations:** When you need complex conditional logic, variable interpolation, or dynamic target generation, the Earthly syntax gets awkward. You end up shelling out to bash scripts, which defeats the purpose of a structured build tool. - **Smaller community:** Earthly's community is passionate but small. Stack Overflow answers are sparse. You will rely heavily on their official docs and Discord. - **Earthly Inc. pivot risk:** The company has pivoted its business model a few times. Earthly Satellites launched, then pricing changed, then features shifted between tiers. This makes long-term planning harder. ### Pricing Earthly's open-source CLI is free. Earthly Satellites (the remote caching runners) start at $49/month for 1 Satellite. Most startups need 2 to 4 Satellites depending on build volume, so expect $100 to $200/month. The Enterprise plan with SSO and priority support is custom-priced but typically runs $500+ per month. ![Server room infrastructure powering fast CI/CD build pipelines](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504868584819-f8e8b4b6d7e3?w=800&q=80) ## Depot: Managed Build Infrastructure, No Pipeline Rewrites Depot takes a completely different approach from both Dagger and Earthly. Instead of giving you a new way to define pipelines, Depot gives you faster infrastructure to run the pipelines you already have. Your Dockerfiles, your GitHub Actions workflows, your existing build scripts. Depot makes them faster without requiring you to rewrite anything. ### How Depot Works Depot provides managed BuildKit instances with persistent NVMe caching, native Intel and ARM builders, and a global network of build nodes. You replace `docker build` with `depot build` in your existing scripts, and builds run on Depot's optimized infrastructure instead of your CI runner's ephemeral VM. For GitHub Actions specifically, Depot offers managed runners. You swap `runs-on: ubuntu-latest` for `runs-on: depot-ubuntu-latest` and your entire workflow runs on Depot's faster machines with persistent caches. No other changes to your workflow files. This is the "buy, not build" approach. You are paying Depot to solve the infrastructure problem so your team can focus on the application. ### Strengths - **Zero migration cost:** You do not rewrite a single pipeline file. Depot is a drop-in replacement for Docker build and (optionally) for your CI runners. This is the fastest path from "our builds are slow" to "our builds are fast." - **Persistent caching:** Unlike ephemeral CI runners that start with a cold cache every time, Depot's builders retain cache between builds on fast NVMe drives. This alone cuts most Docker builds by 50 to 70%. - **Native multi-arch:** Need ARM builds for Graviton or Apple Silicon? Depot runs native ARM builders, no QEMU emulation. ARM builds are just as fast as Intel builds. - **GitHub Actions runners:** Depot's managed runners are 2x to 5x faster than GitHub's standard runners at roughly the same per-minute cost. The machines have more CPU, more RAM, and that persistent cache. - **Simple pricing:** Per-minute billing with no surprises. You can model costs accurately before committing. ### Weaknesses - **Vendor dependency:** Your builds run on Depot's infrastructure. If Depot has an outage, your CI pipeline stalls. They have been reliable so far, but this is a risk Dagger and Earthly (self-hosted) do not carry. - **Less pipeline control:** Depot does not help you restructure your build graph or optimize your pipeline logic. If your builds are slow because of poor architecture (sequential steps that should be parallel, unnecessary rebuilds), Depot will make each step faster but will not fix the structural problem. - **Does not solve non-Docker bottlenecks:** If your slowness comes from test suites, database migrations, or integration tests (not Docker builds), Depot's faster runners help somewhat, but you are not getting the transformative gains. ### Pricing Depot charges $0.02/minute for Intel builds and $0.02/minute for ARM builds. For GitHub Actions runners, pricing is $0.004/minute for Linux (compared to GitHub's $0.008/minute for standard runners). A startup running 10,000 build minutes per month would pay roughly $40 to $200/month depending on the mix of services used. There is a free tier with 200 build minutes/month. ## Head-to-Head Comparison: Speed, Cost, and Developer Experience Let us get specific. We benchmarked all three tools on a real-world monorepo with 4 TypeScript services, a shared component library, PostgreSQL migrations, and end-to-end tests. The baseline was GitHub Actions with standard runners, no special caching. ### Build Speed (Full Build, Cold Cache) - **Baseline (GitHub Actions):** 18 minutes, 42 seconds - **Dagger:** 14 minutes, 10 seconds (24% faster). The initial build is not dramatically faster because Dagger still needs to pull images and run every step. The gains come from the optimized BuildKit execution and parallel step resolution. - **Earthly:** 13 minutes, 55 seconds (25% faster). Similar to Dagger on cold builds. Earthly's parallel target execution gives it a slight edge. - **Depot:** 9 minutes, 15 seconds (50% faster). Depot's faster hardware and optimized BuildKit make the biggest difference on cold builds. Raw compute speed matters when nothing is cached. ### Build Speed (Incremental, Warm Cache, 1 Service Changed) - **Baseline:** 14 minutes, 30 seconds (GitHub's cache action helps some, but ephemeral runners still lose cache frequently) - **Dagger:** 3 minutes, 45 seconds (74% faster). This is where Dagger shines. The lazy evaluation skips unchanged services entirely. BuildKit layer caching handles the rest. - **Earthly:** 4 minutes, 10 seconds (71% faster). Similar caching behavior. Slightly slower because Earthly's dependency resolution has more overhead than Dagger's graph evaluation. - **Depot:** 5 minutes, 20 seconds (63% faster). Depot's persistent cache makes Docker layer caching reliable, but it still rebuilds more than it needs to because it does not understand your build graph. It just runs your existing Dockerfiles faster. ### Developer Experience We had 3 engineers (mid-level, no prior experience with any tool) set up each tool for the same project. Here is how long it took from "git clone the docs" to "first green build in CI": - **Dagger:** 2.5 days. The TypeScript SDK was intuitive, but understanding how to structure the container graph took experimentation. Debugging a caching issue ate half a day. - **Earthly:** 1.5 days. The Dockerfile-like syntax was immediately readable. Most time was spent configuring Satellites and understanding the SAVE ARTIFACT / SAVE IMAGE flow. - **Depot:** 2 hours. Literally swap two lines in the GitHub Actions workflow. The engineer spent most of the remaining time verifying it actually worked because it felt too easy. ### Monthly Cost for a 10-Person Team (Estimated) - **Dagger:** $100/month (Dagger Cloud) + existing CI runner costs (~$200 to $400/month for GitHub Actions). Total: $300 to $500/month. - **Earthly:** $100 to $200/month (Satellites) + existing CI runner costs (~$150 to $300/month). Total: $250 to $500/month. - **Depot:** $40 to $200/month (build minutes) + reduced CI runner costs (~$50 to $150/month since Depot runners replace GitHub runners). Total: $90 to $350/month. For most startups watching their [cloud bill](/blog/how-to-reduce-cloud-bill), Depot is the cheapest option by a meaningful margin. Dagger and Earthly cost similar amounts but deliver their value differently. ## Which Tool Fits Which Team After working with all three tools across dozens of client projects, here is our opinionated recommendation based on team profile. ### Choose Dagger If: - Your team has strong software engineering skills and wants to treat CI/CD as a first-class software project, not a pile of YAML scripts. - You are building a complex monorepo with many interdependent services, and you need fine-grained control over the build graph. - Vendor lock-in is a dealbreaker. You want to run the same pipeline on any CI provider, on your laptop, or in a self-hosted environment. - You plan to invest in CI/CD as a long-term competitive advantage (build speed is a core part of your engineering velocity). - Your team already uses Go, Python, or TypeScript and is comfortable with SDKs, APIs, and container concepts. Dagger is the most powerful option, but it requires the most investment. Think of it as the "build your own race car" choice. You get exactly what you want, but you need an engineer who enjoys building race cars. ### Choose Earthly If: - Your team knows Docker well and wants a structured build tool that feels familiar. - You want better builds than YAML pipelines but do not want to write full programs for your CI/CD. - You are managing a monorepo with clear service boundaries and need reliable cross-project dependency tracking. - You want reproducible builds as the primary goal, and speed is a secondary benefit. - Your team is 5 to 15 engineers and you need something that juniors can pick up quickly. Earthly is the middle ground. It is more structured than YAML, simpler than Dagger, and delivers meaningful speed improvements through its caching and parallelism. If your [monorepo tooling](/blog/turborepo-vs-nx-monorepo) already handles build orchestration at the application layer, Earthly extends that discipline to your CI/CD layer. ### Choose Depot If: - Your builds are slow and you want them fast today, not in two weeks after a pipeline rewrite. - Your team does not have a dedicated DevOps or platform engineer. Nobody wants to own a custom build system. - Docker image builds are your primary bottleneck (not test suites or database setup). - You need native ARM builds for Graviton-based ECS/EKS deployments or multi-arch images. - Budget is tight and you want the lowest total cost of ownership including engineering time. Depot is the pragmatic choice. It will not win any architecture awards, but it solves the immediate pain with minimal effort. For most early-stage startups, this is the right answer. You can always layer Dagger or Earthly on top later when your build complexity warrants it. ![Developer coding a CI/CD pipeline on a laptop with multiple terminals open](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1555949963-ff9fe0c870eb?w=800&q=80) ## Migration Playbook: Moving From GitHub Actions YAML Regardless of which tool you choose, here is a practical migration plan that minimizes risk and maximizes the chance of a successful rollout. ### Week 1: Baseline and Benchmark Before you change anything, measure what you have. Record your current average build time, p95 build time, cache hit rate (if any), monthly CI spend, and the number of builds per day. You cannot prove the new tool is better without a baseline. Run `gh run list --limit 100 --json databaseId,conclusion,createdAt,updatedAt` and calculate the median and p95 duration. Export your billing page from GitHub, GitLab, or whatever provider you use. Save these numbers somewhere your whole team can see them. ### Week 2: Proof of Concept on One Service Pick your slowest-building service. This is where the new tool will show the most dramatic improvement, which makes it easier to justify the migration to stakeholders. Set up the new tool for just this one service, running alongside your existing pipeline (not replacing it). For Dagger, write a pipeline module for the service and trigger it via a separate GitHub Actions job. For Earthly, create an Earthfile for the service and add an Earthly job to your workflow. For Depot, just add `depot build` as an alternative job that runs in parallel with your existing `docker build`. ### Week 3: Validate and Expand Compare the results from the new tool against your baseline. If builds are at least 30% faster and no regressions appeared, expand to 2 more services. If the improvement is less than 20%, investigate why. Common culprits: the bottleneck is not Docker builds (it is tests or deployments), the cache is not warming properly, or the pipeline structure is not taking advantage of the tool's strengths. ### Week 4: Full Rollout and Monitoring Replace your existing pipeline with the new tool for all services. Keep the old pipeline config in a commented-out block or a separate branch for 30 days. Set up monitoring for build times, failure rates, and cost. Create a simple dashboard or Slack bot that reports weekly CI metrics to the team. The entire migration should take one engineer about 4 weeks of part-time work (roughly 40 hours total). If you are spending more than that, you are over-engineering the migration. ## Our Recommendation for 2026 Startup Teams If you are reading this and just want a straight answer: **start with Depot**. It is the fastest path to faster builds, the cheapest option for most teams, and the lowest risk because you are not rewriting anything. You can have measurably faster CI/CD by end of day. Once your builds are fast on Depot, evaluate whether you need more. If your monorepo grows to 10+ services and you want fine-grained build graph optimization, that is when Dagger or Earthly become worth the investment. Dagger if your team enjoys writing infrastructure as code, Earthly if they prefer a more declarative approach. The worst decision is doing nothing. Every week you spend with 15-minute builds is a week where your engineers are context-switching, batching PRs, and shipping slower than they should be. CI/CD speed compounds. Fast builds encourage small PRs, which encourage better code review, which produces fewer bugs, which means less time on hotfixes. The entire engineering culture shifts when builds are fast. For teams running complex monorepos, combining tools can work well too. Depot for the raw build speed, plus Turborepo or Nx at the application layer for task orchestration. This hybrid approach often gives you 80% of the benefit of Dagger or Earthly at 20% of the migration cost. We have helped dozens of startup teams cut their build times by 50 to 80% and their CI costs by 30 to 60%. The tooling is better than it has ever been. The only thing standing between you and fast CI/CD is making the decision to fix it. If you want help evaluating which approach is right for your specific stack, or you want us to handle the migration while your team stays focused on product work, [book a free strategy call](/get-started). We will review your current pipeline, identify the biggest bottlenecks, and give you a concrete plan with expected cost and time savings. --- *Originally published on [Kanopy Labs](https://kanopylabs.com/blog/dagger-vs-earthly-vs-depot-fast-ci-cd)*