Octopus Deploy vs Portainer Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Octopus Deploy | Portainer | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $4330/mo | $12/mo |
| Number of plans | 3 | 6 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | ||
| Pricing model | hybrid | hybrid |
Free
- All core features
- 10 projects
- 10 tenants
Professional
- All core features
Enterprise
- All core features
Starter
- Community support
- Max of 16 vCPUs per node
Scale
- 9x5 next business day support
- Max of 24 vCPUs per node
- Vendor onboarding
- Purchases via Resellers
Enterprise
- Prioritized 9x5 next business day support
- Choose from 32 vCPUs - Unlimited vCPUs per node
- Production and Non-Production Node Options
- Customizable License Agreement
- Assigned Support Engineer
- Security Assessment Report
- TAA Compliance Certificate
- Managed Platform Services Option
- 24/7 Support Option
IIoT Professional
- All Business Edition features
- Onboarding assistance included
- 9×5 support
- Click-through license agreement
- Professional Services available (add-on)
- Async edge agent: offline-safe operation
- Fleet grouping and staged rollouts
IIoT Enterprise
- Industrial App Portal ; included
- Prioritized 9×5 support
- Assigned support engineer
- Customizable license agreement
- Vendor onboarding available
- Multi-instance (prod, dev, test)
- Security assessment report
- Professional Services available (add-on)
Home & Student
- All Portainer Business Edition features
- Up to 15 nodes
- Docker, Swarm, and Kubernetes support
- Full RBAC and access control
- GitOps and app templates
- Community support via GitHub Discussions
Octopus Deploy vs Portainer FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Portainer is the cheaper option, starting at $12/mo vs $4330/mo for Octopus Deploy.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a hybrid model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Octopus Deploy: At over $4K/month for the paid entry tier, Octopus Cloud is priced like a premium, ops-critical tool rather than a scrappy CI/CD add-on — this isn't competing with cheap pipeline plugins, it's going after teams already spending real money on release management. They're clearly chasing mid-market to enterprise DevOps teams who've outgrown janky in-house scripts, not hobbyists. Portainer: Portainer sits mid-market — not the cheapest way to slap a UI on Docker, but far more affordable than heavyweight platforms like Rancher or OpenShift once you factor in the free-forever 3-node tier. They're clearly courting small ops teams and homelabbers first, then trying to convert them into paying customers as node count grows organically.
Still deciding? See the best Octopus Deploy alternatives or the best Portainer alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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