Feature Flag Solutions

What are Feature Flags?

Feature Flags are a technique in software development that allows to modify runtime behavior without changing code. It decouples the releasing of functionality to the end users from the roll-out of the binaries. Feature Flags work like a switch or toggle and are therefore often called Feature Toggles or Feature Switches because of there Boolean nature. But Feature Flags can have many different use cases and can be more complex than a toggle. That’s why the tern Feature Flag is more suitable.

Available Feature Flag Solutions

There are many solutions out there. I’m first focusing on all the available products - and not on individual frammeworks. Maybe I add this later. This is the criteria I will look for:

These are the solutions I found so far. Feel free to contact ne if I missed anything:

  1. LaunchDarkly
  2. Unleash
  3. Switchover
  4. VWO
  5. Split
  6. Flagship

LaunchDarkly

LaunchDarkly is one of the oldest players in the field of Feature Flags and a very mature solution with the most SDKs and certifications available.

LaunchDarkly Pricing

See Pricing. LaunchDarkly is purchachsed on a monthly basis but can be payed anualy.

These plans are available:

  Starter Pro Enterprise
Price payed monthly: $10 $20 ?
Price payed anualy: $8.33 $16.67 ?
Seats minimum 1 5 25
MAU* 1k 10k ?
SSO / SAML $10/seat/month $10/seat/month included
SLA ? 99.9% 99.9%

*Monthly active unique client-side users

A seat is a team member that logs into the portal using a unique email address. The MAUs are the active unique users - so every user only counts once - even if they evaluate flags from multiple devices.

LaunchDarkly Available SDKs (26)

       
Android Apex C/C++** C#
Electron Erlang Flutter Gatsby
Go Haskell iOS Java
JavaScript Lua .NET Node.JS**
PHP Python React React Native
Roku Ruby Swift Xamarin

**client and server

LaunchDarkly Hosting options

LaunchDarkly is a SaaS service. But at least a few years ago it was possible to install it on-premises if you asked for an enterprise plan. I have to validate if this is still the case.

LaunchDarkly Compliance

Unleash

Unleash is a product that has an Open Core but is also offered as a SaaS service. Unleash is the solution that is used by GitLab.

Unleash Pricing

The open core can be self-hosted using Docker, Node.js, or Helm and is free of charge.

Unleash Enterprise comes with two additional plans: Pro and Enterprise. Enterprise can be hosted or a self.hosted solution.

  Pro Enterprise
Price payed monthly: $16 (first 5 than 15) ?
Price payed anualy: $16.67 ?
Seats min - max 5 - 20 ?
MAU* ? ?
SLA 99.9% 99.9%

*Monthly active unique client-side users ***host

Unleash Hosting options

Self-hosted or SaaS

Unleash Available SDKs (11)

Official Server SDKs:

Official Frontend SDKs:

The frontend SDKs connects via the Unleash Proxy in order to ensure Privacy, scalability and security.

Unleash Compliance

Self-hosted: you have full control. Service: unknown

Switchover

Switchover is a product of the German company Takso GmbH with a strong focus on compliance in the automotive industry.

Switchover Pricing

  Free. Starter Professional Enterprise
Price / month 0 EUR 39 EUR 89 EUR 199 EUR
Seats 1 5 50 unlimited
Requests 5 mio 15 mio 90 mio unlimited
Projects 1 3 10 unlimited
SLA 98% 98.5% 99.5% 99.5%

Switchover Hosting options

SaaS. I had contact with Switchover and they said they support self hosting. But I can’t find anything on the website.

Switchover Available SDKs (8)

Switchover Compliance

unknown (probably through self hosting)

VWO

VWO is mkore than just Feature Flags - they provide analytics and testing solutions and services. Unfortunatley they don’t have apricing on their website. I’ll skipp them therefor for now.

Split

Split is a feature feature management and experimentation platform that pairs feature flagging with data to automatically attribute system performance and user behavior to each feature. They serve over 1 trillion flags per month according to their website. Split is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

Split Pricing

Split has four pricing tiers, starting with a free-forever Developer tier. Beyond the Developer tier, pricing is based primarily on seats, with additional costs if monthly tracked keys (MTKs) exceed 50,000. One MTK = one unique user or account or device evaluated by SDK. Developer tier accounts begin with a 30-day Enterprise trial. See summary below and details on their website.

  Developer Team Business Enterprise
Price/seat/month. $ 0 $ 33 $ 60 Custom
Max Feature Flags Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Max Workspaces 1 1 Unlimited Unlimited
Max Environments 2 2 Unlimited Unlimited
Treatments per flag 2 2 Unlimited Unlimited
SLA - 99.9% 99.9% 99.9%
Standard MTKs 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000
Additional MTKs Not available Not available Custom Custom

Split Available SDKs (16 + Evaluator)

Split Hosting Options

SaaS only. Split provides an on-premise Split Proxy if limiting outbound traffic to a single connection is desired

Split Compliance

Split is CCPA, GDPR, ISO 20001, Privacy Shield and SOC 2 certified. More detail and access to pentest reports, etc is available on the Split Security Portal

Flagship

Flagship is a French company with headquaters in Paris and offices around the world (New York, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Berlin, Cologne, Madrid).

Flagship Pricing

Pricing

  Premium Enterprise
Price / month $175 ?
Seats unlimited unlimited
Environments 2 Custom
Projects / Environment 2 Unlimited
MAU* 15k 300k
SLA - 99.99%

Flagship Available SDKs (12)

Flagship Hosting Options

???

Flagship Compliance

???

Summary

This analysis is still work in progress. Let me know if you miss anything. Contact me or directly create a pull request.