What is Dagger used for?

Dagger is an open-source automation engine for building, testing and shipping code that runs the same locally, in CI or in the cloud. It is a good fit for replacing fragile CI shell scripts, and running identical pipelines locally and in CI.

Is Dagger open source?

Yes. Dagger is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at dagger/dagger and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Dagger is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $50 per month.

What are some alternatives to Dagger?

Similar open-source tools in the CI/CD & DevOps category include Concourse CI, Woodpecker CI and pypyr. SaaS products in the same category include Buddy, CircleCI and GitHub Actions.

Is Dagger actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Dagger was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.21.10, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 16k stars on GitHub.

Dagger: open-source CI/CD & DevOps

About Dagger

Dagger is a platform for automating software delivery that can build, test and ship any codebase. Its pipelines run locally, on a CI server or directly in the cloud, and the only dependency is a container runtime such as Docker. It is written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 license.

The project positions itself as an alternative to shell scripts and proprietary YAML. It provides an execution engine with a typed system API for orchestrating containers, filesystems, secrets, git repositories and network tunnels, plus native SDKs for Go, Python, TypeScript, PHP, Java, .NET, Elixir and Rust, an interactive REPL and a library of reusable modules.

Tools run in containers orchestrated by sandboxed functions, and operations are incremental by default with cache control, which makes results repeatable. Every operation emits an OpenTelemetry trace with logs and metrics that can be viewed in the terminal or a web view, which helps with debugging complex workflows. Repository topics also mention AI agents and workflow automation.

Key features

Typed system API for containers and secrets
SDKs for eight programming languages
Runs locally, in CI or in the cloud
Incremental execution with cache control
OpenTelemetry traces for every operation
Reusable modules and interactive REPL

Good fit for

→Replacing fragile CI shell scripts
→Running identical pipelines locally and in CI

Built with: Go; Docker; GraphQL
Tags: ci-cd; automation; containers; devops; workflows; docker; golang; pipelines

Dagger: questions and answers

What is Dagger used for?: Dagger is an open-source automation engine for building, testing and shipping code that runs the same locally, in CI or in the cloud. It is a good fit for replacing fragile CI shell scripts, and running identical pipelines locally and in CI.
Is Dagger open source?: Yes. Dagger is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at dagger/dagger and is written mainly in Go.
Is Dagger free?: Yes. Dagger is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $50 per month.
What are some alternatives to Dagger?: Similar open-source tools in the CI/CD & DevOps category include Concourse CI, Woodpecker CI and pypyr. SaaS products in the same category include Buddy, CircleCI and GitHub Actions.
Is Dagger actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Dagger was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.21.10, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 16k stars on GitHub.