What is Earthly used for?

Earthly is a build framework combining Dockerfile and Makefile ideas for repeatable, cached, containerized builds; the project is no longer actively maintained. It is a good fit for unified builds across laptops and CI, and monorepo build orchestration.

Is Earthly open source?

Yes. Earthly is open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at earthly/earthly and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Earthly is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is Earthly an alternative to?

Earthly is an open-source alternative to Depot and Namespace. Other open-source alternatives to Depot include NativeLink and RunsOn.

Is Earthly actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Earthly was on 23 October 2025, and the latest release is v0.8.16, published on 16 July 2025. The project has 12k stars on GitHub.

Earthly: open-source alternative to Depot, Namespace

About Earthly

Earthly is a build framework with a syntax that resembles a mix of Dockerfile and Makefile. It describes itself as Docker for builds: you write a build once and run it on a laptop, on a remote machine, or in any CI system with the same result. It is written in Go and released under the MPL-2.0 license.

Its promises are repeatable builds, simple syntax, compatibility with any language or build tool that runs on Linux, suitability for monorepos and polyrepos, fast builds through caching and parallel execution, and reuse of build logic across projects. Containers underpin the isolation.

The README notes prominently that Earthly is no longer actively maintained, so teams considering it should weigh that against alternatives and consider community forks. It remains relevant for existing users and for those who want to study a container-based build system.

Key features

Dockerfile-like syntax with Makefile targets
Repeatable containerized builds
Build caching and parallel execution
Works with any language that runs on Linux
Reusable build definitions for monorepos
Same build locally and in CI

Good fit for

→Unified builds across laptops and CI
→Monorepo build orchestration

Built with: Go
Tags: build-tool; ci; docker; containers; reproducible-builds; monorepo; go; devops

Earthly: questions and answers

What is Earthly used for?: Earthly is a build framework combining Dockerfile and Makefile ideas for repeatable, cached, containerized builds; the project is no longer actively maintained. It is a good fit for unified builds across laptops and CI, and monorepo build orchestration.
Is Earthly open source?: Yes. Earthly is open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at earthly/earthly and is written mainly in Go.
Is Earthly free?: Yes. Earthly is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is Earthly an alternative to?: Earthly is an open-source alternative to Depot and Namespace. Other open-source alternatives to Depot include NativeLink and RunsOn.
Is Earthly actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Earthly was on 23 October 2025, and the latest release is v0.8.16, published on 16 July 2025. The project has 12k stars on GitHub.