LaunchDarkly vs ConfigCat
A release platform priced on two usage meters, against a flat-priced flag service that deliberately stops at flags.
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The short answer
For most teams that just want feature flags, ConfigCat is the better buy: it is roughly 5–25× cheaper at real production scale and its bill does not move when you autoscale or grow your user base. Pick LaunchDarkly when you specifically need experimentation with a real stats engine, guarded rollouts with automatic rollback, or SOC 2 Type II plus SCIM and custom RBAC today — ConfigCat has no answer to any of those at any price.
These two tools are not really competing for the same job, which is why the price gap looks absurd until you know what you are buying. LaunchDarkly bills per server-side service connection plus per 1,000 client-side monthly active users, and that money buys a mature experimentation and governance platform. ConfigCat charges a flat tier price and ships no flag analytics and no experimentation at all. The right question is not which is cheaper — ConfigCat obviously is — but whether you need the thing the extra money buys.
Pick LaunchDarkly if…
experimentation, guarded rollouts or enterprise governance (SCIM, custom RBAC, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001) are things you need now, and the usage-based bill is worth it to get them in one platform.
Pick ConfigCat if…
you want feature flags, a predictable flat invoice, unlimited seats and 20+ native SDKs — and you are content to handle analytics and experiments with tools you already have.
At a glance
| LaunchDarkly | ConfigCat | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $0 (Developer tier, hard caps) | $0 (free forever, unlimited seats) |
| Entry paid tier | Foundation: ~$12 per service connection + ~$10 per 1k client-side MAU | Pro: ~$110/mo flat |
| Pricing model | Usage-based on two meters that both grow with success | Flat tiers, scaled by configs, environments and config-download volume |
| Flag analytics | Included | None — ConfigCat ships no flag analytics |
| Experimentation | Mature stats engine, sold as a paid add-on | Not offered |
How each one charges
LaunchDarkly
A full feature-management platform: flags plus experimentation, guarded rollouts and enterprise governance.
Usage-based: billed per server-side service connection (~$12/connection/mo) plus per 1,000 client-side monthly active contexts (MAU). Seats are unlimited on paid tiers; experimentation is a separate add-on. Enterprise & Guardian are custom/contact-sales.
Sourced from launchdarkly.com/pricing/ · verified June 23, 2026
Evaluation tier with hard usage caps.
- 3 environments
- 5 service connections
- 1,000 client-side MAU
- Core flag targeting
Public, usage-metered tier, cost scales with infra + users.
- Unlimited seats, projects & environments
- SAML SSO
- Per service-connection + per-MAU billing
- Experimentation sold as a paid add-on (~$3 / 1k MAU)
Governance + release automation; median contract ~$72k/yr (Vendr).
- Scheduled changes & approval workflows
- SAML, SCIM provisioning, custom roles (RBAC)
- Audit logs, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001
- Pricing is quote-only (opaque)
Advanced progressive delivery on top of Enterprise.
- Guarded rollouts & automatic rollback
- Failure detection / release monitoring
ConfigCat
A deliberately lightweight flag service: flat tiers, a long SDK list, and no analytics or experimentation layer.
Flat tiers, scaled by number of configs (flag sets), environments and monthly config-JSON download volume, not per seat and not per MAU. Team members are unlimited on every plan; only the limits differ.
Sourced from configcat.com/pricing/ · verified June 23, 2026
Generous free tier with unlimited seats.
- 10 flags
- 2 environments
- 5M config downloads / mo
- Unlimited team members
Higher limits + 35-day audit retention.
- 100 flags
- 3 environments
- 500M config downloads / mo
- 35-day audit log retention
Unlimited flags/environments, capped at 10 products.
- Unlimited flags & environments
- 1B config downloads / mo
- Up to 10 products
Dedicated infrastructure and higher limits.
- Dedicated infra
- Higher download limits
- Priority support
What each one actually costs
Same team profile, both bills, using the list rates above. Estimates, not quotes — model your own numbers before you commit.
Small team, one backend service, 50k client-side MAU
A single service on Kubernetes averaging ~8 pods (so ~8 billable service connections) and 50,000 monthly active users on the client side.
ConfigCat is roughly 5× cheaper, and almost the entire gap is LaunchDarkly’s client-side MAU meter rather than anything about flags.
Scaling SaaS, microservices, 250k client-side MAU
Autoscaling microservices averaging ~30 service connections, with 250,000 client-side monthly active users.
Roughly 9–26× cheaper on ConfigCat. Both LaunchDarkly meters climb with success, so the bill grows on days nobody made a decision.
A team that actually needs experiments
The same 250k-MAU SaaS, but running A/B tests as a normal part of shipping.
This is the one profile where LaunchDarkly’s bill is buying something real. Compare it against ConfigCat plus a dedicated experimentation tool, not against ConfigCat alone.
Cost verdict: ConfigCat is cheaper at every size, and the gap widens as you grow because LaunchDarkly meters two things that both scale with success — server-side connections and client-side monthly active users. LaunchDarkly Foundation passes ConfigCat Pro (~$110/mo) at roughly 9 service connections on its own, before a single client-side user is counted. The comparison only tightens if you would otherwise buy a separate experimentation platform alongside ConfigCat.
Full feature comparison
| Feature | LaunchDarkly | ConfigCat |
|---|---|---|
| Core flagging | ||
| Boolean flags | ||
| Multivariate flags | ||
| Percentage rollouts | Sticky | |
| Attribute / segment targeting | Very advanced | |
| Instant kill switch | ||
| Real-time updates | Streaming | Polling / webhook by default |
| Runtime & SDKs | ||
| Runs on any runtime | Edge SDKs are Cloudflare/Vercel-specific | CDN-based local evaluation |
| Global edge delivery | CDN + edge integrations | Global CDN |
| Breadth of SDKs | 25–30+ SDKs | 20+ incl. Workers, Deno, Bun |
| Public API | REST API | Public API + Terraform provider |
| Workflow & lifecycle | ||
| Evaluation analytics | No flag analytics | |
| Audit log | Full | 35-day retention on Pro |
| Scheduled changes | Enterprise | |
| Experimentation | ||
| Built-in A/B experiments | Mature, paid add-on | Not offered |
| Stats engine (CUPED / sequential) | ||
| Enterprise & security | ||
| SAML SSO | Foundation+ | Paid tiers |
| SCIM provisioning | Enterprise | |
| RBAC | Custom roles, Enterprise | |
| SOC 2 | Type II + ISO 27001 | Security framework; cert status unverified |
| Self-host / on-prem | Relay Proxy only | Cloud / CDN only |
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Tight caps | Generous |
| Flat, predictable price | Usage-metered | |
| No per-seat fee | Seats free; meters elsewhere | Unlimited seats |
| No per-connection / per-MAU metering | Both metered | |
| Public pricing for all tiers | Enterprise/Guardian quote-only | Enterprise/Dedicated quote-only |
✅ supported · ~ partial / limited · ❌ not available.
Where each one wins
LaunchDarkly is better at…
- Experimentation depth — the most mature stats engine in the category (CUPED variance reduction, sequential testing, SRM detection). ConfigCat offers nothing here.
- Guarded rollouts with automatic rollback and failure detection, on the Guardian tier.
- Evaluation analytics, so you can see which flags are actually being hit and clean up dead ones.
- Scheduled changes and approval workflows on Enterprise.
- SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, with a FedRAMP path — ConfigCat publishes a security framework but we could not verify a current certification.
- 25–30+ SDKs, the broadest coverage of the two.
- Streaming updates by default, where ConfigCat polls unless you wire up webhooks.
ConfigCat is better at…
- Dramatically cheaper at any real production scale — roughly 5–25× in the worked examples above.
- A flat invoice you can actually budget: no per-connection charge, so autoscaling does not raise the bill.
- No client-side MAU meter, so user growth does not raise the bill either.
- Unlimited team members on every plan, including the free one.
- 20+ official SDKs including Cloudflare Workers, Deno and Bun, with local evaluation from a CDN.
- A public Management API with a Terraform provider.
- Public pricing on every tier except Dedicated — LaunchDarkly puts both Enterprise and Guardian behind sales.
If neither quite fits
Neither of these gives you flat pricing and flag analytics at a low entry price. ConfigCat is flat but ships no analytics at all; LaunchDarkly has the analytics but charges you on two meters to get them.
ShipSilently — our product, which is why this page exists — is $49/mo flat with evaluation analytics included. That is roughly half ConfigCat Pro and an order of magnitude under a realistic LaunchDarkly Foundation bill.
- Flat $49/mo with unlimited seats. No per-connection, per-MAU or per-seat meter.
- 10M evaluations/month included, overage at $0.01 per 10k.
- Evaluation analytics on Pro — the thing ConfigCat does not ship.
- Real-time SSE updates rather than polling.
- Runs on any runtime, with no provider-specific edge SDK.
When we are the wrong answer. If you are comparing these two because you need experimentation, guarded rollouts, SCIM, custom RBAC or SOC 2, stay with LaunchDarkly — we ship none of those today and will not pretend otherwise. If you need 20+ native SDKs, ConfigCat beats us; we ship JavaScript/TypeScript and Go. And neither we nor ConfigCat can be self-hosted, so if that is the requirement, look at Unleash or Flagsmith instead.
FAQ
Is ConfigCat cheaper than LaunchDarkly?
Substantially, at any production scale. A team with ~8 service connections and 50,000 client-side MAU pays roughly $596/mo on LaunchDarkly Foundation versus about $110/mo on ConfigCat Pro. At ~30 connections and 250,000 MAU the LaunchDarkly figure is around $2,860/mo while ConfigCat stays flat at $110–325/mo. LaunchDarkly Foundation passes ConfigCat Pro on service connections alone, at roughly 9 connections, before any client-side users are billed.
What does LaunchDarkly do that ConfigCat cannot?
Four things, and they are the reason for the price difference: built-in experimentation with a mature stats engine, guarded rollouts with automatic rollback, evaluation analytics, and scheduled changes plus approval workflows. ConfigCat is deliberately a flag service and does not attempt any of them.
Does ConfigCat have flag analytics or A/B testing?
No, to both. ConfigCat ships no flag-evaluation analytics and no experimentation. That is a design choice rather than an oversight, but it does mean you cannot see which flags are being hit, which makes flag cleanup harder.
Which has more SDKs, LaunchDarkly or ConfigCat?
LaunchDarkly, with roughly 25–30+ official SDKs against ConfigCat’s 20+. Both cover the mainstream languages; ConfigCat notably includes Cloudflare Workers, Deno and Bun. For most teams the list is long enough on either side, and this is rarely the deciding factor.
Why does the LaunchDarkly bill go up when nothing changed?
Because both of its meters move on their own. Service connections track SDK connections rather than applications, so each pod, container or VM that connects counts — autoscaling raises the bill with no decision made. Client-side monthly active contexts rise as your user base grows. ConfigCat does not meter either of these; its tiers scale on configs, environments and config-download volume.
Can either LaunchDarkly or ConfigCat be self-hosted?
Neither, genuinely. ConfigCat is cloud and CDN only. LaunchDarkly offers a Relay Proxy for caching inside your network, which is not the same thing as running the platform on-premise. If self-hosting is a hard requirement, Unleash and Flagsmith are the tools to look at.
Which should a small startup pick?
ConfigCat, in most cases. Both have free tiers that will carry an early team, but ConfigCat’s is more generous (unlimited seats, 10 flags, 5M config downloads) where LaunchDarkly’s Developer tier caps you at 5 service connections — a single autoscaling deployment passes that on its own. The exception is a startup whose product strategy is genuinely experiment-driven from day one.
Is there a middle option between the two?
That is the gap we built ShipSilently for, so treat this answer as interested rather than neutral: $49/mo flat with evaluation analytics included, which is roughly half ConfigCat Pro and well under a realistic LaunchDarkly bill. We do not ship experimentation, SCIM, custom RBAC or SOC 2 today, so if any of those is why you are looking at LaunchDarkly, it remains the right answer.