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Independent guide · Updated 2026-07-25

LaunchDarkly, Answered

We build a competing feature flag service, which is an odd reason to trust a guide and a very good reason to keep it accurate. Everything here is sourced and dated. Pick the question you actually came with.

Worth knowing who wrote this: we're ShipSilently, a feature flag service that competes with LaunchDarkly. We've kept this page to things you can verify, with sources at the bottom, because a page that shades the facts is worth less to us than one you'd send to a colleague. Found something wrong or out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly is a trademark of its owner, used here to refer to their product. For official documentation see launchdarkly.com/docs.

Short answers

Question Short answer
What is it? A feature management platform: turn features on and off per user without redeploying.
What does it cost? Free tier, then usage-based: ~$12 per service connection plus ~$10 per 1,000 client-side MAU.
Where do I log in? app.launchdarkly.com, or app.launchdarkly.us on the US federal instance.
Is it down? status.launchdarkly.com is authoritative. We keep a plain-English incident history.
How do I use the API? REST v2 at app.launchdarkly.com/api/v2, token in the Authorization header, dated versions.
Is there a CLI? Yes, ldcli. Homebrew, npm or Docker, plus a local dev server for offline work.
What are the alternatives? Unleash and Flagsmith self-host, Statsig for experiments, ConfigCat and us on flat pricing.
How hard is it to leave? Concepts map almost one-to-one. Export flags via the API, recreate, swap the SDK init.

The guides

Thinking about moving?

Three pages, in the order most people need them. The head-to-head comparison lays out both products feature by feature, including the five areas where LaunchDarkly is ahead of us and the things we don't ship at all. The alternatives guide is broader and covers tools that aren't us, because for some requirements the answer is Unleash or Statsig and pretending otherwise wastes your afternoon. The migration guide is the practical one: concept mapping, SDK swap, and a parallel-run approach that most teams finish inside an hour.

If you want the number before the reading, the flag cost calculator takes your pod count and MAU and shows both bills.

FAQ

Is this an official LaunchDarkly resource?

No. It is written by ShipSilently, a competing feature flag service, and has no affiliation with or endorsement from LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly is a trademark of its owner. For official documentation go to launchdarkly.com/docs; for official status go to status.launchdarkly.com.

Why would a competitor write accurate documentation about LaunchDarkly?

Because inaccurate documentation is worthless to everyone including us. These pages exist to be found by people with a LaunchDarkly question, and the only version of that which works twice is one where the answer is right. Every page cites its sources and dates them so you can check.

Is LaunchDarkly a good product?

Yes, and we say so on every page. It is the most mature feature management platform in the category, with the best experimentation engine and the deepest enterprise governance. Our argument is not that it is bad, it is that a lot of teams are paying platform pricing while using boolean flags and a kill switch.

Flat pricing, and an SDK that reconnects on its own

ShipSilently is a $49/month flat-priced feature flag service that runs on any runtime. We are smaller than LaunchDarkly and we do not ship experimentation, SCIM or custom RBAC yet, our comparison page says exactly where each of us wins.

$49/month is the 2026 price. List goes to $89/month on January 1, 2027, and subscriptions started before December 31, 2026 stay at $49.

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Sources

Checked against the linked sources on 2026-07-25. LaunchDarkly changes its docs and pricing without notice, so treat their pages as authoritative over ours and email us when we drift.