Side by side
Gremlin vs khaos-monkey
Both stand on chaos engineering platforms. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.
Free trial APILinuxSelf-hosted+2
Gremlin combines controlled fault injection with experiment planning and reliability analysis. The 30-day trial has clear terms, while ongoing platform pricing depends on a customer-specific quote and sizing.
Visit Gremlin Paid LinuxSelf-hosted
khaos-monkey offers several ways to target and schedule pod termination experiments. Its stated focus is smaller experimental clusters, and its installation permissions merit review before deployment.
Visit khaos-monkeyThe facts
| Gremlin | khaos-monkey | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | A free trial | Not published |
| Open source | No | Not published |
| Runs on | API, Linux, Self-hosted, Web, Windows | Linux, Self-hosted |
| Lowest paid plan | Gremlin Reliability Management Platform on AWS Marketplace: $45,000 a year | Not published |
| Plans published | 8 | None |
| Maker | Not published | Not published |
| Website | gremlin.com | github.com |
| On chaos engineering platforms | #18 of 25 | #22 of 25 |
Gremlin: what it does well
- Fault injection covers services, hosts, containers, and serverless workloads.
- Experiments have blast-radius controls and automatic rollback.
- GameDay Manager supports preparation, analysis, and results storage.
- Private Edition supports self-hosted deployment.
- Trial lasts 30 days and does not auto-convert.
What to know first
- Platform pricing requires a custom quote.
- Agents, targets, and test volume are sized with the customer.
- No free plan is listed.
- Standalone fault injection suite pricing requires a quote.
khaos-monkey: what it does well
- Free and open source
- Supports percentage, fixed-count, and fixed-number-left modes
- Randomizes attack intervals and kill counts
- Can exclude pods and blacklist namespaces
- Can run locally or as a Kubernetes Deployment
What to know first
- Installation example grants pod and namespace list and delete permissions
- Positioned for smaller experimental clusters
- No support plan or response commitment is stated
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