Depot
Grafana
| Feature | Depot | Grafana |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $20/mo | Free / from $29/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.5 / 5 | 4.6 / 5 |
| Best For | engineering-teams, ci-cd-pipelines, monorepo-teams, docker-heavy-teams | devops-teams, sre-teams, data-engineers, iot-monitoring |
| Founded | 2022 | 2014 |
| Fast Builds | ✓ | ✗ |
| Remote Caching | ✓ | ✗ |
| Github Actions | ✓ | ✗ |
| Multi Platform Builds | ✓ | ✗ |
| Buildkit Compatible | ✓ | ✗ |
| Build Analytics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dashboards | ✗ | ✓ |
| Data Sources | ✗ | ✓ |
| Alerting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Annotations | ✗ | ✓ |
| Plugins | ✗ | ✓ |
| Loki Logs | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tempo Traces | ✗ | ✓ |
| Mimir Metrics | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Depot Pros
- Dramatically faster Docker builds
- Drop-in replacement for docker build
- Native layer caching
- GitHub Actions integration
✗ Depot Cons
- Only for container builds
- Costs scale with usage
- Newer platform
✓ Grafana Pros
- Connects to virtually any data source
- Beautiful and highly customizable dashboards
- Open-source with massive community
- Grafana Cloud includes Loki, Tempo, and Mimir
- Alerting across all data sources
✗ Grafana Cons
- Self-hosting requires DevOps expertise
- Dashboard creation has a learning curve
- Plugin quality varies
The Verdict
Depot is built for engineering teams and ci cd pipelines, with a focus on fast-builds and remote-caching. Grafana targets devops teams and sre teams and leads with dashboards and data-sources.
On pricing, Depot is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $20/mo compared to $29/mo for Grafana. That $9/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Feature-wise, Grafana offers broader built-in capabilities (8 features vs 6), while Depot takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.