Buddy vs Cleavr
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Buddy and Cleavr.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
Buddy
0 reviews
3.8/5
Cleavr
0 reviews
Buddy is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.8). Buddy is a DevOps automation platform with 150+ actions for building, testing, and deploying to any server or cloud. Visual pipeline builder, Docker support, and good free tier. Cleavr is a server management and deployment tool for deploying Laravel, Node.js, and static sites to your own VPS. Manages Nginx, databases, SSL, and deployments through a UI.
Buddy DevOps automation with 150+ deployment actions | Cleavr Deploy Laravel and Node.js apps via UI | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.8 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | paid |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $5.5/mo |
| Best for | Small-to-mid teams, especially in Europe, that want visual CI/CD with mixed Linux/Windows/macOS runners and prefer per-minute metering over YAML maintenance | Solo developers and small teams running PHP, Laravel, WordPress, or Node apps who want Forge-style deployment workflows on their own VPS at half the price |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierapi accessteam features | managed option |
| Visit Buddy → | Visit Cleavr → | |
Buddy
Pros
- + Visual pipeline builder with YAML pipelines as an escape hatch — editable by both terminal and non-terminal users
- + Transparent usage metering with worked cost examples on the pricing page
- + Free plan includes all features except SSO and advanced permissions, with $1/month usage credit
- + Linux, Windows, and macOS VM runners on Intel and ARM cover desktop and mobile builds in one tool
- + Sandbox previews with custom domains, plus Terraform, tunnels, CLI, and API across all plans
Cons
- - Free workspaces are frozen after 60 days of inactivity and permanently terminated 30 days later
- - SSO and advanced permissions gated behind the $299/month Team plan
- - Seats, concurrency slots, and compute usage are three separate meters that stack on busy teams
- - Smaller action ecosystem than GitHub Actions; no self-hosted runners on your own hardware
- - macOS VM usage is billed at 6x the memory rate — iOS builds get expensive quickly
Cleavr
Pros
- + Cheap and honest: Lite $5.50/mo for one server with unlimited apps, Pro $15/mo for unlimited servers with backups and monitoring
- + Production deployment features — zero-downtime releases, rollback, canary with health checks, push-to-deploy
- + Works with all the usual VPS providers plus a custom BYO-server connector; servers remain fully yours
- + Complete stack management from the UI: Nginx/PHP, MySQL/PostgreSQL/MariaDB, SSL, Fail2Ban/UFW, cron, PM2
- + Real free trial (5 days, Pro features, no card) and 7-day refunds; 50% discounts for students and non-profits
Cons
- - Bootstrapped two-person company with no published uptime SLA and email-only support
- - API access is locked to trial and Business ($30/mo); team features are Business-only
- - Agent plus panel components reportedly consume ~200-500 MB RAM on each managed server
- - Published prices are yearly-billing rates; the monthly-billing rate is not shown on the pricing page
- - Younger areas (Next.js, newer app types) are thinner than the mature Laravel/PHP core
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