Windmill
Windmill absorbed dbt, un-gated its warehouse languages, and turned AI authoring on by default.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
Depot vs Prowler
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Depot and Prowler — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Depot vs Prowler: at a glance
| Feature | Depot | Prowler |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Infra & APIs | Infra & APIs |
| Velocity score | 7.5 | 8.8 |
| Sparks · 30d | 2 | 2 |
| Top themes | ci-cd, test-analytics, source-control, infrastructure | cloud-security, agentic, mcp, rbac |
| Last editorial update | 2h ago | 2h ago |
| Website | — | Visit → |
What is Depot?
Depot is no longer a build accelerator — it is assembling the whole CI stack underneath itself.
In roughly a month Depot shipped its own source-control hosting in private beta, took test results to GA with timing-based sharding and org-wide flake analytics, moved CI and Sandboxes onto its own bare-metal compute platform, and filled in the GitHub Actions compatibility surface with stacked pull requests, three additional triggers, and Tailscale access to private networks. Sherlock's AI analysis now runs on any workflow or job, not just failed ones.
What is Prowler?
Prowler turned its assistant from a read-only explainer into something that can change your tenant.
Two months of releases trace one arc: Lighthouse AI arrived in 5.33 as a read-only agent over Prowler's own tools, gained write actions in 5.35 (connect providers, trigger and schedule scans, manage mutelists), and in 5.37 became page-aware with access to every tool family the Prowler MCP server advertises. Around it, MCP itself gained integrations, users and roles tool families on both Cloud and self-hosted servers. Between feature releases the patch cadence is heavy CVE reduction in container images.
Depot vs Prowler: editorial side-by-side
Depot
7.5INFRA · APIS
Depot is no longer a build accelerator — it is assembling the whole CI stack underneath itself.
◆ Current state
In roughly a month Depot shipped its own source-control hosting in private beta, took test results to GA with timing-based sharding and org-wide flake analytics, moved CI and Sandboxes onto its own bare-metal compute platform, and filled in the GitHub Actions compatibility surface with stacked pull requests, three additional triggers, and Tailscale access to private networks. Sherlock's AI analysis now runs on any workflow or job, not just failed ones.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern is vertical integration: storage, compute, source control and test intelligence all being pulled in-house so Depot controls every tier. Test results is the first piece with its own metered price ($1 per million passing tests) rather than being folded into build minutes, which suggests the products are being built to stand alone. GitHub compatibility work continues because migration friction is the main thing standing between Depot and its target users.
◆ Prediction
Expect Depot Code to move from private beta toward general availability with Depot CI as its primary integration point, and expect GitHub Actions runners and container builds to complete the announced move onto Depot Metal.
Prowler
8.8INFRA · APIS
Prowler turned its assistant from a read-only explainer into something that can change your tenant.
◆ Current state
Two months of releases trace one arc: Lighthouse AI arrived in 5.33 as a read-only agent over Prowler's own tools, gained write actions in 5.35 (connect providers, trigger and schedule scans, manage mutelists), and in 5.37 became page-aware with access to every tool family the Prowler MCP server advertises. Around it, MCP itself gained integrations, users and roles tool families on both Cloud and self-hosted servers. Between feature releases the patch cadence is heavy CVE reduction in container images.
◆ Where it's heading
The product is being repositioned from scanner to operator, with RBAC as the safety story — Lighthouse can only do what the asking user could do. The naming reshuffle in 5.34 made the split explicit: the open-source CLI and Local Server on one side, Cloud, Private Cloud and Lighthouse behind a subscription on the other. Every agentic capability so far has landed on the paid side.
◆ Prediction
Expect the Lighthouse tool surface to keep tracking whatever the MCP server exposes, with remediation actions — not just scan and triage management — as the next boundary to be tested.
Alternatives to Depot and Prowler
Other Infra & APIs products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Depot or Prowler.
Casdoor
Nine releases in four days, all of them small — Casdoor is grinding on tenant-level governance.
Resend
Resend spent a month making itself something agents and third-party apps can log into.
NetBox
NetBox is spending 4.6 paying down query cost, not adding models.
Buildkite
Buildkite is rebuilding its MCP server around what an agent actually does with a failed build.
Dashy
The self-hosted dashboard finally let you drag things around instead of editing YAML.
See all Depot alternatives → · See all Prowler alternatives →
Recent activity from Depot and Prowler
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8h agoProwler5.37.1 rebases the API image on Debian 13 and fixes M365 false FAILs
- 1d agoProwlerProwler 5.37.0 ⚡
- 1d agoDepotDepot CI now supports native GitHub stacked pull requests
- 6d agoProwlerProwler 5.36.0
- 6d agoDepotTest results are now generally available ⚡
- 14d agoDepotAI analysis available for all Depot CI workflows and jobs
- 18d agoProwlerProwler 5.35.0 ⚡
- 18d agoProwler5.34.0 renames the product family along the open-source line
- 20d agoDepotSplit CI test suites with historical timing data (beta)
- 21d agoProwler5.33.2 fixes Attack Paths graph retries and EC2 scan overhead
- 25d agoDepotDepot CI now supports Tailscale
- 26d agoDepotDepot Code is now available in private beta ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Depot and Prowler?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Prowler is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 8.8 vs 7.5), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 2. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Depot better than Prowler?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Prowler is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 8.8 vs 7.5), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 2. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Depot?
Top Depot alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Depot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/depot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Prowler?
Top Prowler alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Prowler alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/prowler for the full list with editorial commentary on each.