LaunchDarkly vs Flagsmith
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of LaunchDarkly and Flagsmith built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
3 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
LaunchDarkly 0
Flagsmith 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | LaunchDarkly | Flagsmith |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| Auth | ||
| 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.
- Flagsmith
- 50,000 API requests a month and ONE team member, with unlimited flags, environments and segments under a fair usage policy.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- LaunchDarkly Pricing ↗
“unlimited feature flags 30 idiomatic sdks 13 client-side, 13 server-side, and 4 edge sdks. 5 service connections and 1k client-side mau /mo”
Read 2026-09-16 · official pricing
- Flagsmith Pricing ↗
“up to 50,000 requests per month* additional api calls start at $50 per million per month and decrease with volume 1 team member unlimited feature flags fair usage policy applies unlimited environments”
Read 2026-09-16 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- LaunchDarkly Pricing ↗
“unlimited seats no per-seat pricing. invite your whole team; pricing is based on usage. [...] $8.33 per 1k client-side mau / mo each unique client-side user or device counts as one monthly active user.”
Read 2026-09-16 · official pricing
- Flagsmith Pricing ↗
“up to 50,000 requests per month* additional api calls start at $50 per million per month and decrease with volume 1 team member unlimited feature flags”
Read 2026-09-16 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- LaunchDarkly Pricing ↗
“5 service connections and 1k client-side mau /mo [...] includes 100k experimentation mau per month at no additional charge.”
Read 2026-09-16 · official pricing
- Flagsmith Pricing ↗
“1 team member unlimited feature flags fair usage policy applies unlimited environments unlimited identities and segments fair usage policy applies”
Read 2026-09-16 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.