
Renovate
Renovate finds outdated software packages and opens pull requests with updates, helping developers spend less time maintaining dependencies.
What Renovate is
Renovate finds outdated software packages and opens pull requests with updates, helping developers spend less time maintaining dependencies. It supports more than 90 package managers across multiple languages and containers, including npm, Maven, NuGet, Python, Go, Docker, Terraform, and GitHub Actions. Pull requests can show package age, adoption, passing rates, and changelogs. Repository scans can run at configurable intervals, and webhooks can start jobs after repository events. Developers set options such as which dependencies to update, scheduling, and grouping in a renovate.json file at the repository root. Merge Confidence workflows help group and filter updates and can support automatic merging of updates rated high confidence. Pull requests trigger CI/CD workflows so changes can be checked before merging. Renovate works with several repository platforms, though availability varies by edition. Free Community and CLI plans are listed, along with Enterprise at $250 a year, billed per developer per year. Enterprise includes dedicated support.
Good
- Supports more than 90 package managers
- Pull requests include package and changelog details
- Configurable repository scans and event-triggered jobs
- Pull requests trigger CI/CD workflows
- Offers free plans and self-hosted deployment
Watch out
- Repository platform support varies by edition
- Enterprise costs $250 a year per developer
- Dedicated support is listed for Enterprise
Who it suits
The free CLI is suited to individual developers and small teams. Enterprise is intended for larger organizations with complex dependency management needs.
Verdict
Renovate automates dependency updates while providing information developers can use to review changes. The free plans cover individual and smaller-team use, while Enterprise adds workflows and support for larger organizations.
Plans and prices
From Renovate's own pricing page, checked 15 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Mend Renovate CLI | Free | self-hosted · open source · basic dependency management |
| Mend Renovate Community | Free | Cloud or self-hosted · job scheduling · API access · no support listed |
| Mend Renovate Community Cloud | Free | unlimited public and private repositories · 1 concurrent job · jobs every 4 hours · 3GB memory · 15GB disk · 30-minute timeout |
| Mend Renovate Enterprise | $250 a year | cloud or self-hosted · enterprise scale · Merge Confidence workflows · support · per contributing developer per year; up to $250 |
The facts
Each one read from Renovate's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- API access
- Community includes APIs for actions and basic information such as running jobs, listing jobs and viewing the job queue.checked 15 Oct 2026
- CI/CD
- Each Renovate pull request can trigger the repository's CI/CD workflow for testing before merge.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Community documentation complaint
- A January 2026 GitHub discussion reported that a documented default for allowedUnsafeExecutions did not match the current release and caused confusion.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Community edition
- Mend Renovate Community is a free stateful application with an embedded scheduler, webhook listener, priority queue and stored job history.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Configuration
- Repository behavior is configured with a renovate.json file that can define update rules, schedules and grouping.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Data protection
- Mend says customer data is encrypted in transit and at rest and developer email addresses are pseudonymized.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Dependency coverage
- The product supports more than 90 package managers, including npm, Maven, NuGet, pip, Poetry, Go modules, Docker, Terraform and GitHub Actions.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Documentation depth
- The project publishes extensive configuration, platform, dashboard and self-hosting documentation on docs.renovatebot.com.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Enterprise capabilities
- Enterprise adds advanced security checks, effort insight, granular controls, Merge Confidence workflows and enterprise support.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Enterprise pricing basis
- Mend Renovate Enterprise is listed at up to $250 per developer per year.checked 2 Oct 2026
- Enterprise support
- The pricing page lists dedicated support from Mend’s team of experts as an Enterprise feature.checked 2 Oct 2026
- Independent API profile
- API Evangelist describes Renovate as an open-source Mend-maintained bot covering more than 100 package managers.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Intended users
- Mend describes the free CLI as suited to individual developers and small teams, and Enterprise as suited to larger organizations with complex dependency management needs.checked 2 Oct 2026
- Latest release observed
- GitHub lists Renovate 44.82.4, released September 12, 2026, with dashboard and documentation fixes.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: API changes
- A Gartner review says changes to APIs can force unwanted changes for customers consuming them.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: documentation
- Gartner reviewers report that documentation can be difficult to follow or out of date.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: transitive scanning
- Gartner reviewers say transitive dependency scanning can require substantial manual effort.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Merge Confidence
- Merge Confidence lets teams group, filter and merge updates according to signals about error-free merges.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Notifications
- The product can notify users through email and chat integrations such as Slack.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Open-source licence
- The Renovate repository is published under the AGPL-3.0 licence.checked 15 Oct 2026
The company
- Company facts
- Gartner lists Mend.io as a private company founded in 2011, headquartered in Boston, with 201–500 employees.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Founded
- 2017checked 23 Sep 2026
- Headquarters
- Givatayim, Israelchecked 23 Sep 2026
Where it runs
- Monorepos
- Renovate detects and updates dependencies across multiple projects in a monorepository.checked 15 Oct 2026
Alternatives to Renovate
- 1

GitHub CodeQL
Free planWebExtensionLinuxmacOS7.5From $30 a month - 2

Endor Labs
Free planWebAPIExtensionLinux7.4Free plan - 3

Snyk Open Source
Free planWebAPILinuxmacOS7.3From $25 a month - 4

ActiveState Platform
Free planWebAPILinuxmacOS7.2Free plan - 5

Socket
Free planWebAPIExtensionLinux7.2From $25 a month - 6

Mend SCA
WebAPILinuxmacOS7.0From $250 a year
