Garden vs Quay.io
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Garden and Quay.io.
Quick Verdict
3.5/5
Garden
0 reviews
3.7/5
Quay.io
0 reviews
Quay.io is rated higher (3.7 vs 3.5). Garden streamlines Kubernetes development by syncing code changes instantly, running tests in containers, and deploying to local or remote clusters. Built for teams developing microservices. Red Hat's hosted container image registry: unlimited free public repos, per-private-repository pricing from $15/month, automatic Clair v4 CVE scanning, robot accounts, teams, and exportable audit logs.
Garden Kubernetes development platform with local testing and remote deployment | Quay.io Hosted container registry from Red Hat: free public repos, CVE scanning, per-private-repo pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.5 (0 reviews) | 3.7 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Platform teams running multi-service Kubernetes stacks who lose hours to rebuild-and-retest cycles and want one workflow from laptop to production-like clusters. | Open-source projects needing free public image hosting, and Red Hat-centric enterprises wanting managed registries with SSO, robot accounts and audit logging |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierapi accesskubernetes support | free tierteam featuresssoapi access |
| Visit Garden → | Visit Quay.io → | |
Garden
Pros
- + Dependency-aware action graph skips unchanged builds and tests — real time savings in CI
- + Same config drives local dev, staging, and production-like environments
- + Open-source Apache 2.0 CLI with a genuine free community tier (up to 3 seats)
- + Falls back to local builds and local cache when the cloud quota or login lapses
- + Hot reload syncs code into running containers without rebuild cycles
Cons
- - Own config language and action model — steeper learning curve than Docker Compose
- - Commercial pricing unclear since the Incredibuild acquisition (Nov 2024)
- - Value concentrates in multi-service Kubernetes projects; overhead for small stacks
- - Cross-cluster caching and remote builds want a Garden Cloud account
Quay.io
Pros
- + Unlimited free public repositories with automatic CVE scanning on every push
- + Public, predictable per-repository pricing from $15/month for 5 private repos
- + Robot accounts, team permissions, SSO and exportable audit logs aimed at compliance teams
- + Decade-plus production track record (launched 2013) with a supported upgrade path to self-managed Red Hat Quay
- + Full API, image rollback, zero-downtime garbage collection and Git build triggers
Cons
- - Per-repository billing punishes micro-repo layouts; large tiers get expensive fast
- - No published uptime SLA for the hosted service
- - Clair does not cover every language ecosystem, and remediation is entirely on the customer
- - Free tier fair-use caps (100 GB storage, 1 TB egress) are enforceable quotas
- - Overlapping product lineup (Quay.io vs Red Hat Quay vs OpenShift Platform Plus) complicates buying
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