Overview

Earthly Lunar is a platform for applying engineering policies across software development workflows, including AI-assisted coding. It is best suited to teams that want shared guardrails around existing repositories and CI/CD pipelines without replacing their current setup. Its strongest case is the breadth of enforcement stages; teams looking for a conventional build tool should compare its distinct build-focused alternatives.

Lunar collects structured metadata from source repositories and CI/CD pipelines, then evaluates it against policies an organization defines. Guardrails can move from draft and scoring to pull-request comments, blocking pull requests, or blocking deployments, letting teams choose how forcefully to apply a policy. That range supports gradual adoption, though the policies themselves still need to reflect the organization’s engineering standards.

Earthly also maintains Earthfiles, an open-source build syntax for self-contained, consistent, portable, language-agnostic builds across monorepos and polyrepos. Earthfiles remains available and actively used, while Earthly’s focus has shifted to Lunar. Earthly was founded in 2020; Lunar launched in 2026, and the company identifies Vlad A. Ionescu as its founder and CEO.

Key features

Guardrails at multiple stages

Lunar describes checks during code authoring, on pull requests, and at deployment gates. Teams can start with scoring and move toward blocking actions as policies mature. That flexibility is useful where enforcement needs to be introduced carefully, but organizations seeking only a build definition or image-building workflow may find a dedicated build tool a closer fit.

Prebuilt checks and integrations

More than 200 prebuilt guardrails cover testing, security, compliance, and operational readiness, giving teams a starting point across common engineering concerns. The integrations page lists 66 integrations, including collectors and catalogers for tools and software ecosystems. Custom collectors and catalogers can also be built with Bash scripts to connect tools or APIs, which gives teams a way to bridge gaps but requires them to create and maintain that code.

Existing pipelines and developer workflows

Lunar instruments existing CI/CD pipelines without requiring YAML changes, and Earthly says teams can adopt its policies without wholesale pipeline rewrites. The CI agent can run on self-hosted runners by adding it to the runner entrypoint; Earthly describes it as compatible with all major CI vendors. Lunar also works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and pull requests, extending its scope to AI coding workflows rather than limiting checks to CI.

Engineering data and security

A SQL API lets teams query and analyze engineering data. Earthly says it has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance and undergoes independent third-party security assessments. Its services and databases are hosted on AWS, with databases in the United States; databases are encrypted at rest, and applications encrypt data in transit using TLS/SSL.

Earthfiles builds

Earthfiles provides an open-source syntax for portable builds, with multi-architecture builds, multiple build-cache backends, and build-secret handling. It is relevant to teams that want consistent builds across repositories and languages, but it is a separate build-focused part of Earthly’s offering from Lunar’s policy enforcement.

Pricing

Earthly’s pricing model is free, and a free plan is available. The free plan is the entry point for teams evaluating Lunar’s policy and pipeline approach; no paid tiers, seat allowances, quotas, or trial terms are provided, so this pricing information alone does not establish whether it will cover a larger team’s ongoing usage. Earthfiles is open source and remains available, but no separate Earthfiles pricing terms are given.

Platforms

Earthly lists API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, web, and Windows platforms. Self-hosted runner support is particularly relevant to teams that want to instrument their own CI infrastructure. The broad platform list does not change Lunar’s core role as a metadata and policy platform.

Who it's for

Lunar is a good fit for engineering organizations that want to define shared practices, collect delivery metadata, and apply controls at more than one stage without rebuilding their CI/CD pipelines. Its prebuilt guardrails and integrations offer a starting point, while custom Bash collectors can connect additional tools. Teams that only need a build system, or do not want to define and maintain engineering policies, should look elsewhere.

Pros and cons

Pros: More than 200 guardrails span testing, security, compliance, and operational readiness, reducing the need to start every policy from scratch.
Pros: Draft, scoring, comment, pull-request blocking, and deployment blocking stages allow teams to ratchet enforcement up gradually.
Pros: Existing-pipeline instrumentation without YAML changes, plus self-hosted runner support, can limit disruption to established CI/CD setups.
Pros: A SQL API and 66 listed integrations support collection and analysis across engineering tools.
Cons: Organizations must define the policies they want Lunar to evaluate; prebuilt checks do not remove that responsibility.
Cons: Teams may need Bash work to build custom collectors or catalogers when a needed connection is not covered.
Cons: Lunar focuses on lifecycle guardrails rather than serving as a direct substitute for a dedicated container or application build tool.

Alternatives

For a free, Apache License 2.0 build tool, choose BuildKit; it is a better match when the requirement is building rather than governing engineering practices.

Dagger is worth considering for a build-focused option with a free Individual plan capped at one user, 1,000,000 monthly events, and one month of run history; its Team plan is 50.00 US. Choose it when those build-oriented plan terms matter more than Lunar’s lifecycle policy controls.

Garden offers a free tier with limited build minutes, cache hits, and cache retention, while its Enterprise plan includes secrets management, RBAC, and self-hosting. It may suit teams prioritizing those build and enterprise capabilities.

werf is a free alternative when a build-focused tool is the priority.

Cloud Native Buildpacks Pack is a free CLI and Go library with no paid plans, making it a relevant choice for teams seeking that buildpack tooling.

Google Cloud Build is a pay-as-you-go build service with a monthly charge after a free allowance of 2,500 build-minutes per billing account; consider it when that usage-based build model fits better than Lunar’s policy focus.

Kaniko is a free, Linux and self-hosted option for building container images from Dockerfiles, distributed as container images.

Docker Buildx is another free alternative for teams seeking a build tool.

Browse Container Build Tools or Game Build Automation Software for related categories.

Verdict

Choose Earthly Lunar if your engineering team wants to turn defined practices into staged guardrails across repositories, CI/CD, pull requests, deployments, and AI coding workflows without wholesale pipeline changes. Its prebuilt checks and gradual enforcement are the main reasons to choose it. Look elsewhere if the job is primarily building containers or applications rather than collecting development metadata and enforcing policy.

	Dagger	Earthly
Free plan	Yes	No
Free trial	Yes	No
Paid from	$50/mo	—
Open source	No	No
Platforms	Linux, macOS, self-hosted, Web, Windows	api, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, Web, Windows
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Paid from	50 /mo	—

Dagger vs Earthly

Dagger

Earthly