Feature flags let you deploy code safely, test in production, and roll back instantly when things go wrong. They're non-negotiable for modern development workflows, but they don’t have to come with an enterprise price tag.
LaunchDarkly offers a free forever tier that gives you production-ready feature flags with little ops overhead. You get unlimited seats, multiple environments, built-in experimentation, and unmatched reliability (all without managing servers or worrying about 3 AM outages).
There are also open-source alternatives like Unleash, PostHog, and GrowthBook. These tools provide flexibility and no vendor lock-in, but they come with hidden costs: infrastructure management, security gaps, and ongoing maintenance.
Below, we’ll compare options and show you why hosted solutions tend to beat self-hosted tools for production applications.
LaunchDarkly free tier: production-ready feature flags
The LaunchDarkly Developer tier gives you everything needed to implement feature flags in production applications:
- Unlimited team members (no per-seat charges)
- 1 project with three environments (dev, staging, prod)
- 5 service connections per month
- 1,000 client-side monthly active users
- 5,000 session replays and errors
- 100,000 Experimentation monthly active users
- Full SDK support for 30 idiomatic SDKs
Oh, and it’s called the “Free forever” plan for a reason. As long as you don’t exceed the allocated connections or monthly active users (MAU), you don’t pay a thing. Ever.
You're not managing servers, databases, or SSL certificates (like you would with open-source tools). LaunchDarkly handles the infrastructure, monitoring, and security updates. Your flags are evaluated in milliseconds.
The free tier includes built-in experimentation capabilities. Run A/B tests, measure conversion rates, and get statistical analysis without integrating separate analytics tools. You can target users by attributes, roll out features gradually, and instantly disable problematic features with kill switches.
Security is enterprise-grade from day one: SOC 2 Type II compliance, data encryption in transit and at rest, and comprehensive audit logs. No additional configuration necessary.
LaunchDarkly connects with your existing CI/CD pipelines, monitoring systems, and communication platforms. Code references show you exactly where flags are used across your codebase.
When you outgrow the free tier, upgrading is instant and easy. No data migration, no infrastructure changes, no downtime. You simply add more service connections or environments as needed.
For most development teams, the LaunchDarkly free tier provides more capabilities than they'll use in the first year without any of the operational burden that comes with self-hosted solutions.
Open-source free feature flagging services
A few open-source projects provide feature flagging functionality. These tools offer complete control over your infrastructure and no vendor dependencies:
- Unleash supports 25+ SDKs, advanced targeting rules, and gradual rollouts. Unleash provides a web UI for flag management and integrates with popular development tools.
- PostHog combines feature flags with product analytics, session replay, and A/B testing in one platform. It's warehouse-native, meaning you can analyze flag performance alongside your existing data.
- GrowthBook focuses on experimentation and is designed around your data warehouse. It includes a visual experiment editor and supports statistical analysis without requiring data science expertise.
- Flagsmith offers cross-platform remote configuration, letting you modify app behavior without app store approvals. It includes scheduling and supports local evaluation for performance.
- Flipt stores flags in Git (eliminating the need for a database) and supports percentage-based rollouts and user segmentation.
- OpenFeature provides a unified API and SDKs that work with multiple flag management tools, allowing you to switch providers (or run your own) without rewriting your application code.
These tools handle basic feature flag operations: boolean toggles, user targeting, percentage rollouts, and simple experiments. They're actively maintained with regular updates and have communities providing support and additional integrations.
They ultimately deliver full source code access, no licensing fees, and complete control over your feature flagging infrastructure.
The not-so-free costs of “free” open-source tools
Control and source code access sound great, but open-source feature flags aren't all clean commits and passing tests. The real costs show up after implementation, and often in ways that catch teams off guard.
Criteria | LaunchDarkly Free Tier | Open Source (e.g. Unleash, GrowthBook) |
|---|---|---|
Setup time | Minutes (hosted) | Days to weeks (self-managed) |
Maintenance | None | Ongoing effort |
Audience targeting & A/B testing | Built-in | Often DIY or add-on |
SDK coverage | 25+ official SDKs | Varies by project |
Use cases supported | Core toggles, rollouts, migrations, targeting, kill switches | Core toggles, limited extras |
1. Infrastructure and operations overhead
You're responsible for the entire stack. That means provisioning servers, configuring databases, setting up load balancers, and managing SSL certificates. A basic production setup typically runs $50-200 per month on AWS or GCP, plus additional costs for backups, monitoring, and CDN services.
You'll also need redundancy across multiple availability zones, which doubles infrastructure costs. Don't forget about staging and development environments (each needs its own resources). Now, what started as "free" quickly becomes a major monthly expense before you've written a single line of application code.
2. Security and compliance gaps
Open-source tools don't come with SOC 2 compliance, penetration testing reports, or security certifications. You're responsible for hardening the system, applying security patches, and maintaining audit logs that meet compliance requirements.
If your application handles sensitive data or operates in regulated industries, you'll need additional security tooling, regular vulnerability scans, and potentially expensive compliance audits. Teams sometimes underestimate this, but security compliance can easily cost more than a feature flag service subscription.
3. Development and maintenance time
Initial setup takes 1-2 weeks of engineering time, including server configuration, database schema setup, and integration testing. Ongoing maintenance consumes 10-20% of a developer's time dealing with updates, troubleshooting, and scaling issues.
Custom integrations with your existing CI/CD pipeline, monitoring tools, and notification systems require additional development work. When bugs appear (and they will), your team debugs them instead of building features that generate revenue.
That engineering time has a real opportunity cost, especially if you’re already getting scrappy for resources.
4. Missing production features
Open-source tools typically lack advanced production capabilities like automatic rollbacks, circuit breakers, and sophisticated analytics. There's no built-in experimentation with statistical analysis, either. You'll need separate A/B testing tools and complex data pipelines.
Workflow automation, approval processes, and audit trails need custom development. Advanced targeting based on user behavior, geographic location, or device characteristics often needs additional infrastructure. These "missing" features require significant development to match what hosted services provide out of the box.
5. Middle-of-the-night emergencies
When your feature flag service goes down at 2 AM, you're the one getting paged. There's no enterprise support, no SLA guarantees, and no automatic failover systems. You troubleshoot database connection issues, investigate memory leaks, and handle traffic spikes during off-hours.
Unlike hosted services with dedicated operations teams, you become the on-call engineer for the infrastructure you didn't want to manage in the first place.
When open source does make sense
These are real issues with open-source feature flagging services, but that doesn’t necessarily make them wrong for every team. There are specific scenarios where the trade-offs might actually work in your favor:
- Air-gapped or highly regulated environments often require complete control over infrastructure. If you're working in government, defense, or financial services with strict data residency requirements, self-hosted solutions may be your only option. Some compliance frameworks explicitly require source code access for security audits.
- Teams with dedicated DevOps resources can handle the operational overhead. If you already have platform engineers managing Kubernetes clusters, monitoring infrastructure, and handling on-call rotations, adding feature flag services to their responsibilities makes sense. The marginal cost is lower when expertise already exists.
- Learning environments and side projects benefit from open-source tools. If you're experimenting with feature flags, building internal tools, or working on low-stakes applications, the operational complexity is acceptable. The learning experience of running your own infrastructure does have value.
Large-scale operations with existing infrastructure can absorb the costs more easily. Companies already running their own databases, load balancers, and monitoring systems have the expertise and tooling to add feature flagging services. The incremental complexity is manageable at scale.
Why the LaunchDarkly free tier wins for most teams
The LaunchDarkly free tier eliminates the problems that make open-source tools expensive while providing capabilities that rival enterprise solutions.
LaunchDarkly handles all infrastructure management. There’s no server provisioning, database maintenance, or SSL certificate renewals. No monitoring setup or alerting configuration. Your team focuses on building features instead of maintaining infrastructure.
Updates happen automatically without downtime. There's no on-call rotation for feature flag infrastructure because it's not your responsibility.
And then all the targeting features let you roll out releases based on user attributes, geographic location, or custom properties:
- Percentage rollouts can be adjusted in real time without code deployments.
- Kill switches disable problematic features instantly (necessary for production applications.
- Integration with 25+ SDKs means your entire tech stack can use feature flags consistently.
- Code references show exactly where flags are implemented across your codebase.
Get started with the LaunchDarkly free tier
"Free" open-source tools are never free when you factor in infrastructure costs, maintenance time, and the opportunity cost of building flag management instead of product features. LaunchDarkly helps eliminate operational overhead while providing production-ready capabilities from day one.
You get security, advanced targeting, and built-in experimentation without managing a single server. No hidden costs, no surprise bills, and no 3 am Slack pings when something breaks.
Setting up your first feature flag takes less than five minutes. Create an account, grab an SDK key, and start wrapping risky code deployments in reliable flags. Your first gradual rollout or instant rollback will pay for itself in avoided incidents and faster iteration cycles.
You can scale from prototype to enterprise without changing your implementation. As your team and usage grow, LaunchDarkly grows with you.
Stop managing infrastructure you don't want to own. Start your free LaunchDarkly account and ship your next feature with confidence.
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