The best Earthly alternatives, compared honestly
Earthly gave teams repeatable, containerized builds with an instantly familiar Earthfile, but its commercial layer is gone: Earthly Cloud and Satellites stopped working on July 16, 2025, and the open-source project is now frozen to critical bug fixes only.
The best Earthly alternative depends on what you actually lost. In short:
- You lost managed cloud caching (Satellites) → nothing replaces it one-for-one: use Dagger Cloud's cache, the remote caching in Bazel or Nx/Turborepo, or self-host BuildKit with a shared cache.
- You want a maintained build framework → Dagger: the official Earthly migration path, same BuildKit DNA, pipelines as code.
- You want to stay native → Docker Bake: Earthly is built on BuildKit anyway; no new vendor.
- You have a large polyglot monorepo → Bazel; for a JS/TS monorepo, Nx or Turborepo.
Why teams look elsewhere
What pushes teams off Earthly
These aren't nitpicks; the paid product shut down and the open-source project is no longer actively developed. That forces a decision.
Cloud & Satellites shut down
Earthly Cloud, including all Satellites, stopped working on July 16, 2025, taking the managed remote build cache, auto-sleep, mTLS, shared secrets and logs with it.
Open source is frozen
The company said it will "no longer be contributing actively to the Earthly open-source project other than critical bug fixes," and stopped reviewing PRs and accepting contributions.
The company moved on
Earthly Technologies has repositioned entirely around Earthly Lunar and software governance/compliance. Builds and CI/CD are no longer its business; Earthfiles are now a community-maintained footnote.
No commercial support or SLA
With the commercial offering wound down, there's no vendor to call and no roadmap commitment for the build tool your CI depends on.
Twice shuttered
This is the second shutdown: Earthly CI was already closed on October 1, 2023. Two failed commercial pivots make a shaky foundation for critical build infra.
You'll migrate anyway
The official path points to Dagger, which is "not a drop-in replacement." Whichever way you go, expect to rewrite build definitions, so it's worth choosing well.
The shortlist
4 Earthly alternatives worth trying
Ranked for the two things Earthly did: a build framework, and a managed place to run it. None of them covers both on its own, so each pick lists its weakness.
Shares Earthly's BuildKit DNA; pipelines are code in Go, Python or TypeScript, run locally or in any CI. Earthly users get 1 year of Dagger Cloud Team free. Weakness: code-first, a learning curve, and not the Earthfile format.
docker buildx bake orchestrates multi-target BuildKit builds from HCL/JSON. Earthly is built on BuildKit, so you keep the engine and drop the extra vendor. Weakness: build-only, no test or deploy orchestration, less ergonomic than an Earthfile.
Google's hermetic build system: fast incremental builds and strong correctness for large, polyglot monorepos, with remote caching and execution. Weakness: steep learning curve and heavy setup, overkill for small teams.
Task-graph runners with fast local and remote caching, ideal for JavaScript/TypeScript monorepos. Weakness: ecosystem-centric and task-oriented, not general containerized builds the way Earthly was.
Side by side
Earthly alternatives compared
The columns that matter after a shutdown: does it run your builds for you (the Satellites job), does it cache, and does it deploy.
| Platform | Type | Reproducible container builds | Remote / build cache | Runs builds for you | Free tier | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earthly | Build framework (frozen) | ✓ | Satellites: discontinued | ✗ Cloud closed 2025 | OSS free | Existing local CLI users |
| Dagger | Programmable pipelines | ✓ | ✓ Dagger Cloud | partial: orchestrates, no runners | Free for individuals | Maintained Earthly successor |
| Docker Bake | BuildKit build tool | ✓ | ✓ registry / local | ✗ | Free | Staying native, build-only |
| Bazel | Hermetic build system | partial: via rules_docker/oci | ✓ remote cache + exec | ✗ DIY infra | Free (OSS) | Large polyglot monorepos |
| Nx / Turborepo | Monorepo task runner | ✗ task cache, not containers | ✓ remote cache | partial: Nx Cloud agents | Free tier | JS/TS monorepos |
Pricing models and free tiers change often; check each vendor for current terms. Compiled July 2026 from each vendor's official pages.
Official pages: Earthly shutdown notice · Dagger · Docker Bake · Bazel · Nx
A fair call
When staying on (or near) Earthly still makes sense
No single tool is a like-for-like replacement. Here's the honest split.
The OSS Earthly CLI is fine if…
- You only ever ran
earthlylocally or in your own CI, never touched Cloud or Satellites - Your Earthfiles work today and you can live with a frozen, critical-fix-only tool
- You're a small team that doesn't need a vendor SLA or roadmap
- You value the Dockerfile-plus-Makefile syntax and no alternative feels worth the rewrite yet
Move to an alternative if…
- You relied on Cloud or Satellites for remote cache and speed: that's gone; Dagger Cloud, Bazel remote caching or Nx Cloud cover the cache part
- You need commercial support, an SLA, or a maintained roadmap
- You want a maintained build framework with the same DNA → Dagger (official path)
- You run a large monorepo and want remote cache and execution → Bazel (or Nx/Turborepo for JS/TS)
Common questions
Earthly alternatives: common questions
Is Earthly shutting down?
The commercial product is gone. Earthly Cloud, including all Satellites, stopped working on July 16, 2025, and Earthly CI was shut down earlier, on October 1, 2023. The open-source Earthly CLI still runs, but the company stated it will no longer contribute actively to the project beyond critical bug fixes, and it has pivoted to a separate product, Earthly Lunar. Treat the build tool as frozen. See the official shutdown notice.
What is the best Earthly alternative?
It depends on what you actually lost. If you need a maintained build framework close to Earthfile, Dagger is the official migration path. If what you lost was the managed remote build cache and a place to run CI (Earthly Cloud and Satellites), pair your CI with a remote cache: Dagger Cloud for Dagger pipelines, or the remote caching built into Bazel and Nx/Turborepo. Bazel fits large monorepos; Docker Bake keeps you native on BuildKit.
Is the open-source Earthly still usable in 2026?
Yes, the open-source earthly CLI still builds locally, but the project is effectively frozen: Earthly Technologies said it will only make critical bug fixes and has stopped reviewing pull requests and accepting contributions. That makes it a risky foundation for long-lived, business-critical build infrastructure.
What does Dagger offer Earthly users?
Dagger, which shares Earthly's BuildKit DNA, is the migration path Earthly recommended. It offers Earthly users one year of Dagger Cloud Team for free, a hands-on migration workshop run by Dagger engineers and community Earthly experts, and a dedicated Discord forum. Dagger is explicitly not a drop-in replacement; pipelines are written as code in Go, Python, or TypeScript.
How do I replace Earthly Satellites?
Satellites were managed remote build runners with a persistent cache. That is a platform decision, not a file-format one. You either self-host BuildKit with a shared remote cache, or move to a managed CI/CD platform that runs builds for you with Docker-layer and build caching and fast runners.