# LaunchDarkly vs Flagsmith

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/launchdarkly-vs-flagsmith/

Every value below is read from LaunchDarkly's and Flagsmith's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | LaunchDarkly | Flagsmith |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Kind of free offer | Free tier | Free tier |
| What the free plan includes | Unlimited flags and unlimited seats, with 1,000 client-side MAU and 5 service connections a month, plus 100,000 experimentation MAU, 5,000 session replays and 5,000 errors. | 50,000 API requests a month and ONE team member, with unlimited flags, environments and segments under a fair usage policy. |
| Pricing model | Usage, explicitly not seats — the page says so in those words. $8.33 per 1,000 client-side monthly active users, where a unique user or device is one MAU, plus a charge per service connection, where one server-side SDK attached to one environment for a month is one connection. | API requests. Every call your application makes to read flags counts, so the bill tracks traffic rather than team or audience — $50 per million above the plan's allowance, decreasing with volume. Seats are capped per plan on top: one on Free, three on Start-up. |
| Users included | 1,000 client-side MAU a month on the free plan, then $8.33 per additional thousand. Experimentation carries its own separate allowance of 100,000 MAU at no extra charge. | Unlimited identities and segments under a fair usage policy. Flagsmith does not meter your audience at all — only the API requests your application makes to read flags. |

## Where they differ

### What the free plan includes

- LaunchDarkly: Unlimited flags and unlimited seats, with 1,000 client-side MAU and 5 service connections a month, plus 100,000 experimentation MAU, 5,000 session replays and 5,000 errors. ([source](https://launchdarkly.com/pricing/))
- Flagsmith: 50,000 API requests a month and ONE team member, with unlimited flags, environments and segments under a fair usage policy. ([source](https://www.flagsmith.com/pricing))

### Pricing model

- LaunchDarkly: Usage, explicitly not seats — the page says so in those words. $8.33 per 1,000 client-side monthly active users, where a unique user or device is one MAU, plus a charge per service connection, where one server-side SDK attached to one environment for a month is one connection. ([source](https://launchdarkly.com/pricing/))
- Flagsmith: API requests. Every call your application makes to read flags counts, so the bill tracks traffic rather than team or audience — $50 per million above the plan's allowance, decreasing with volume. Seats are capped per plan on top: one on Free, three on Start-up. ([source](https://www.flagsmith.com/pricing))

### Users included

- LaunchDarkly: 1,000 client-side MAU a month on the free plan, then $8.33 per additional thousand. Experimentation carries its own separate allowance of 100,000 MAU at no extra charge. ([source](https://launchdarkly.com/pricing/))
- Flagsmith: Unlimited identities and segments under a fair usage policy. Flagsmith does not meter your audience at all — only the API requests your application makes to read flags. ([source](https://www.flagsmith.com/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick LaunchDarkly if A large team shipping to a small audience. Seats are explicitly unmetered — "no per-seat pricing", in its own words — so inviting everyone costs nothing, and the bill tracks the users you serve at $8.33 per thousand MAU. The free plan is $0 forever with unlimited seats and no card.

Pick Flagsmith if Self-hosting, or a small team with modest traffic. It is open source with a documented self-hosted path, and Start-up is $40 a month billed yearly — the cheapest paid entry of the four. Identities and segments are unlimited, so your audience is never the thing that costs.

Consider something else: LaunchDarkly — Your audience is large relative to your team. MAU is the meter, so growth in users is growth in the bill, and the free plan's 1,000 client-side MAU is the tightest audience allowance of the four. There is also no published plan floor — the paid tier is usage-shaped and Enterprise is quote-only.

Consider something else: Flagsmith — Your application reads flags often. API requests are the meter, so every evaluation is on the bill at $50 per million above the allowance — and the free plan's 50,000 requests a month is roughly one user refreshing a page a few thousand times. Seats are capped too: one on free, three at $40.

## Documented by only one

- Credit card to start: LaunchDarkly: No
- When the free offer ends: Flagsmith: The paid plans carry a 14-day free trial; the $0 plan itself does not expire.
- Entry paid plan: Flagsmith: $40 a month for Start-up paid yearly, or $45 monthly. That raises the allowance to 1,000,000 requests and three team members.
- Retention window: LaunchDarkly: 30 days for AgentControl run and eval data on the free plan.
- Self-hostable: Flagsmith: Supported

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose LaunchDarkly or Flagsmith?**

Pick LaunchDarkly if A large team shipping to a small audience. Seats are explicitly unmetered — "no per-seat pricing", in its own words — so inviting everyone costs nothing, and the bill tracks the users you serve at $8.33 per thousand MAU. The free plan is $0 forever with unlimited seats and no card.
Pick Flagsmith if Self-hosting, or a small team with modest traffic. It is open source with a documented self-hosted path, and Start-up is $40 a month billed yearly — the cheapest paid entry of the four. Identities and segments are unlimited, so your audience is never the thing that costs.