Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Cycle.io VS Encore.dev

Compare Cycle.io VS Encore.dev and see what are their differences

Cycle.io logo Cycle.io

The developer-friendly container platform. Chose your infrastructure, upload your containers, and scale with ease.

Encore.dev logo Encore.dev

Encore Cloud helps you scale your engineering, not your DevOps.
  • Cycle.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-08

Cycle is a developer-friendly container orchestration platform. By simplifying the processes around container and infrastructure deployments, Cycle enables developers to spend more time building and less time managing. With automatic platform updates, standardized deployments, a powerful API, and bottleneck crushing automation—the platform empowers organizations to have the capabilities of an elite DevOps team at one-tenth the cost.

  • Encore.dev Encore Cloud Dashboard
    Encore Cloud Dashboard //
    2025-02-12

Encore Cloud automates infrastructure and DevOps, letting you ship 3x faster with 90% less DevOps work, using your own cloud on AWS & GCP. ✓ Get enterprise-grade infrastructure without the complexity and DevOps overhead ✓ Enable safe AI-assisted development with built-in guardrails ✓ Gain full visibility across your stack with built-in Service Catalog, API documentation, and tracing

Key Features:

Production-Ready AI Assisted Development: Encore's parser validates all generated code to ensure it correctly implements service and API definitions, infrastructure integrations, etc.

No boilerplate: Encore drastically reduces the boilerplate needed to set up a production ready backend application. Define backend services, API endpoints, and call APIs with a single line of Go code.

Distributed Tracing: Encore instruments your application for excellent observability. Automatically captures information about API calls, goroutines, HTTP requests, database queries, and more. Automatically works for local development as well as in production.

Infrastructure Automation: Encore automatically provisions and manages your cloud infrastructure. Works with all the major cloud providers and you deploy to your own account (AWS/Azure/GCP).

Simple Secrets: Easily store and securely use secrets and API keys. Never worry about how to store and get access to secret values again.

Service Catalog and Automatic API Documentation: Encore parses your source code to understand the schemas for all your APIs and automatically generate interactive API Documentation.

Cycle.io

Website
cycle.io
$ Details
-
Platforms
-
Release Date
2015 January

Encore.dev

Website
encore.dev
$ Details
freemium $99.0 / Monthly (Pro, per user)
Platforms
AWS Cloud Web Browser Google Cloud Platform GCP CLI
Release Date
2021 May

Cycle.io features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Cycle.io provides a user-friendly interface that simplifies the deployment and management of applications, making it accessible for developers with various expertise levels.
  • Automation Features
    It includes automation tools to handle tasks like scaling and updating applications, reducing manual intervention and saving time for developers.
  • Infrastructure Abstraction
    Cycle.io abstracts the underlying infrastructure, allowing developers to focus more on code and less on managing servers, which can streamline development processes.
  • Multi-cloud Deployment
    The platform supports multi-cloud environments, enabling users to deploy applications across various cloud providers seamlessly, enhancing flexibility and redundancy.

Possible disadvantages of Cycle.io

  • Limited Customization
    Due to its infrastructure abstraction, developers might face limitations in customizing the environment compared to traditional infrastructure management.
  • Learning Curve
    While it is user-friendly, there is still a learning curve associated with understanding its unique platform and features, especially for those new to containerization.
  • Vendor Lock-in Concerns
    Relying heavily on Cycle.io's ecosystem could create challenges if users decide to switch to a different service, potentially leading to difficulties in migration.
  • Cost Considerations
    Depending on usage, the cost of using Cycle.io can become significant, and users need to evaluate whether its benefits justify the expense for their specific cases.

Encore.dev features and specs

  • Infrastructure Automation
    Encore Cloud automates infrastructure provisioning and deployment in your cloud on AWS and GCP.
  • Automatic API Documentation
    Encore Cloud automatically provides API documentation and a complete Service Catalog for your entire system.
  • Observability
    Encore Cloud provides distributed tracing, metrics, and logs, without requiring any manual instrumentation.
  • AI Enablement
    The Open Source Encore framework extends the capabilities of AI coding tools like Cursor and Copilot, enabling them to create both application and infrastructure.
  • Preview Environments
    Encore Cloud sets up dedicated Preview Environments for each pull request.

Possible disadvantages of Encore.dev

  • Learning Curve
    New users may face a steep learning curve due to the unique concepts and abstractions introduced by Encore.dev.
  • Limited Language Support
    Encore.dev may have limited support for programming languages compared to more established platforms, which could be a drawback for developers using unsupported languages.
  • Opinionated Framework
    The framework is opinionated, which means it imposes specific ways of accomplishing tasks that may not align with all developers' preferences or existing workflows.
  • Dependency on Platform
    Relying on Encore.dev for backend development may lead to platform lock-in, making it difficult to switch to other solutions in the future.
  • Customization Limitations
    The abstraction layers, while simplifying development, may limit customization and flexibility for developers who need more control over the infrastructure and configuration.

Cycle.io videos

Introducing Cycle.io

More videos:

  • Review - Cycle.io an Container as a Service platform

Encore.dev videos

Encore.ts is 9x faster than Express.js

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to build and event-driven application with Encore
  • Demo - Encore Framework introduction

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Cycle.io and Encore.dev)
Cloud Computing
56 56%
44% 44
Backend Framework
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
32 32%
68% 68
Cloud Hosting
54 54%
46% 46

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Cycle.io and Encore.dev

Cycle.io Reviews

Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023
What sets Cycle.io apart is its focus on automation and streamlined workflows. It offers built-in integrations with popular CI/CD tools, version control systems, and other development platforms, enabling seamless deployment and continuous integration processes.
Source: humalect.com

Encore.dev Reviews

10 Top Firebase Alternatives to Ignite Your Development in 2024
Encore is designed for startups building ambitious, event-driven, and distributed systems. If you’re a team that values speed, productivity, and code quality, Encore’s purpose-built tooling and streamlined workflows will help you move faster and build better backends.
Source: genezio.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Encore.dev should be more popular than Cycle.io. It has been mentiond 79 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Cycle.io mentions (9)

  • Resigning from a role of being "the guy"
    Sorry for the shameless plug but maybe my company https://cycle.io could help? I’ve seen so many people with this same problem and it’s why I started building this platform. Happy to chat just DM me. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Monthly 'Shameless Self Promotion' thread - 2022/11
    I'm a founder at Cycle, a full devops platform and alternative to Kubernetes, with a focus on simplicity without any sacrifice. It's fully multi/hybrid cloud (including on-prem) where you bring your own infrastructure. Source: over 2 years ago
  • DevOps Starter Stack
    You can use the free tier over at cycle.io as a deployment target - I actually just wrote (I work at Cycle) a blog post on basic Github Actions and Cycle. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Can I use docker container with gui?
    It is possible - I've actually set this up to solve a very weird QA issue while testing some platform change during my work at cycle.io - heres a link to the DockerHub - I can tell you, you'll have to work at it a bit to get it to do what you want but its exactly what you're talking about. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Best way to manage containers on different servers
    Im partial, given that I work for the company, but what you're looking for exactly is cycle.io - feel free to DM me if you have questions. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

Encore.dev mentions (79)

  • How to use Logto for your Encore application
    Encore is a backend development platform that makes it easy to build production-ready APIs and microservices. - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • How to build a Polling System with Node / TypeScript using Encore.ts
    Encore is an open-source backend framework for building scalable, distributed systems. It’s a dev-friendly tool that makes building robust, type-safe applications easy with it’s high-performance API framework. Whether you like TypeScript or Go, Encore supports both. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Rails for Everything
    I could really recommend Encore https://encore.dev/ that works best when you use their PaaS offering https://encore.cloud/ (think of NextJS & Vercel combo). One can argue it goes against some of the Go principles, but it's a really nice stack for solos or small teams without dedicated SREs. And as you grow you can BYOC & deploy it yourself or completely rewrite your API layer using Go stdlib. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Next.js vs Encore.ts — When should you NOT use Next.js for Backend?
    In this article I will compare Next.js with Encore. I will show you how they differ and how they compliment each other. If you have a Next.js app and want to expand the backend functionality of that app then this article is for you! - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Launch Week Day 3: Open Source Independence
    Refocused encore.dev solely on the open source project, making navigation easier. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Cycle.io and Encore.dev, you can also consider the following products

OpenShift - OpenShift gives you all the tools you need to develop, host and scale your apps in the public or private cloud. Get started today.

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

CloudStack - Apache's CloudStack is a Project backed by Citrix and designed to be a direct competitor to...

Cast.ai - CAST AI is an AI-driven platform designed to optimize cloud usage and reduce costs by over 60%. It is an all-in-one solution for Kubernetes monitoring, automation, optimization, and security.

AlwaysData - Simple, fast and managed hosting.User-friendly and full-featured administration panel SSD disks.Praised by developers.Many languages and database systems: SSH, API, IPv6.

Docker Compose - Define and run multi-container applications with Docker