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Comparison · Infra & APIs
Windmill vs Depot
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Windmill and Depot — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Windmill vs Depot: at a glance
| Feature | Windmill | Depot |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Infra & APIs | Infra & APIs |
| Velocity score | 6.3 | 7.5 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 2 |
| Top themes | ducklake, data-engineering, open-core, gitops | ci-acceleration, test-analytics, source-control, ai-diagnostics |
| Last editorial update | 5d ago | 1h ago |
| Website | Visit → | — |
What is Windmill?
Windmill is building a DuckLake data-engineering stack on top of its workflow engine
Windmill has shifted much of its recent output into a DuckLake lakehouse layer — schema contracts, fork-isolated data environments, partition backfills, scheduled maintenance, and freshness watchdogs — while also ungating warehouse runtimes and adding reasoning controls to its AI agent steps. It's a high-cadence open-core product where the substance now sits in data engineering.
What is Depot?
Depot now owns every tier from bare metal to git — build acceleration became a full CI platform.
Depot has expanded well past remote build acceleration. In the last month it moved its CI and Sandboxes onto its own bare-metal compute platform, took test results to general availability with org-wide flaky and slow-test analytics, opened a private beta of its own git hosting, and made its Sherlock AI analysis available on any run rather than only failed ones. The integration surface kept widening in parallel — Tailscale for CI jobs, GitLab OIDC, Datadog CI Visibility, and three more GitHub Actions triggers.
Windmill vs Depot: editorial side-by-side
Windmill
6.3INFRA · APIS
Windmill is building a DuckLake data-engineering stack on top of its workflow engine
◆ Current state
Windmill has shifted much of its recent output into a DuckLake lakehouse layer — schema contracts, fork-isolated data environments, partition backfills, scheduled maintenance, and freshness watchdogs — while also ungating warehouse runtimes and adding reasoning controls to its AI agent steps. It's a high-cadence open-core product where the substance now sits in data engineering.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is a full data-engineering stack inside Windmill: reproducible pipelines, environment isolation, and observability around DuckLake, with the open-core line steadily loosening as BigQuery and Snowflake move into Community Edition. Expect continued DuckLake maturation and more Community/Enterprise runtime parity, with the heavier automation kept Enterprise.
◆ Prediction
Next likely moves are more DuckLake operational tooling — lineage, alerting, richer backfills — and additional AI-agent-step controls, keeping heavy automation like the freshness watchdog Enterprise-gated.
Depot
7.5INFRA · APIS
Depot now owns every tier from bare metal to git — build acceleration became a full CI platform.
◆ Current state
Depot has expanded well past remote build acceleration. In the last month it moved its CI and Sandboxes onto its own bare-metal compute platform, took test results to general availability with org-wide flaky and slow-test analytics, opened a private beta of its own git hosting, and made its Sherlock AI analysis available on any run rather than only failed ones. The integration surface kept widening in parallel — Tailscale for CI jobs, GitLab OIDC, Datadog CI Visibility, and three more GitHub Actions triggers.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern is vertical integration. Depot Metal gives it control of the hypervisor and storage tiers, test results give it the data layer above the job, and Depot Code moves storage of the source itself in-house. Each layer feeds the next: timing data from test reports drives shard splitting, and Depot Code plugs straight into Depot CI. What began as a faster Docker builder is turning into a full replacement for the GitHub Actions stack, with GitHub kept as a mirror rather than the system of record.
◆ Prediction
The Depot Metal post states that GitHub Actions runners and container builds move onto it over the coming months, so expect that migration to finish and the performance claims to be restated against the full product line. Depot Code is the piece to watch next: it is private beta with plain git working today, and the obvious follow-on is CI triggering natively off Depot-hosted repositories instead of GitHub-delivered events.
Alternatives to Windmill and Depot
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 Windmill or Depot.
SigNoz
SigNoz rebuilt its dashboards on an open spec so agents, not just people, can drive them.
Retool
Retool is fitting its app-building agent into a real git workflow, not around it.
Daytona
Ten releases in a month turning agent sandboxes into something you can meter, pause and fork
Auth0
Auth0 is turning B2B workarounds into product, and staking a claim on agent authorization.
Pressable
Pressable is building bulk operations and MCP governance for agencies that manage sites at scale
See all Windmill alternatives → · See all Depot alternatives →
Recent activity from Windmill and Depot
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoDepotTest results are now generally available ⚡
- 5d agoWindmillBigQuery and Snowflake available in the community edition
- 8d agoWindmillAI sessions (beta)
- 9d agoWindmillAttach text files to AI chat messages
- 9d agoDepotAI analysis available for all Depot CI workflows and jobs
- 10d agoWindmillWeb search sources in AI chat
- 14d agoWindmillAutomatic git-to-Windmill sync
- 15d agoDepotSplit CI test suites with historical timing data (beta)
- 20d agoDepotDepot CI now supports Tailscale
- 21d agoDepotDepot Code is now available in private beta ⚡
- 23d agoDepotDepot CI and Sandboxes now run on Depot Metal
- 25d agoWindmillSchema contracts for pipeline consumers
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Windmill and Depot?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Depot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Windmill better than Depot?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Depot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 2 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Windmill?
Top Windmill alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Windmill alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/windmill for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
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.