Infisical is $6/user/mo (Pro). Bandolier is a self-hosted alternative at $0.99/mo. Here's when each makes sense.
| Bandolier | Infisical | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Self-hosted, your infra | Open source, self-hostable with Docker, Postgres, and Redis |
| Data location | Your server, your disk | Your server (if self-hosted) |
| Free tier | 2 environments, 20 vars | Paid only |
| Pro pricing | $0.99/mo | $6/user/mo (Pro) |
| Dependencies | None (single binary + SQLite) | Docker, Postgres, etc. |
| Setup time | ~30 seconds | 15-30 minutes (self-host) |
| Dashboard | Built-in at /ui | Web UI |
| License | BSL 1.1 | Open source |
Bandolier is a single Go binary with embedded SQLite. Install it with one command, and you are running in under a minute. Your data stays on your server.
curl -fsSL https://stockyard.dev/bandolier/install.sh | sh
Teams evaluating Infisical alongside Bandolier tend to split on two axes: feature depth and data residency. Infisical wins on feature depth — it is a mature product with integrations, mobile apps, and a dedicated support team. Bandolier wins on residency — your environment variable manager data lives on your server in a SQLite file you can inspect, back up, and migrate without asking anyone for permission.
Architecturally, Bandolier and Infisical could not be more different. Infisical runs on distributed cloud infrastructure with load balancers, managed databases, CDNs, and redundancy across availability zones. Bandolier is a single process writing to a single file on a single disk. That sounds fragile until you realize that SQLite handles more concurrent readers than most web applications will ever need, and WAL mode means reads never block writes.
Infisical can be self-hosted, but the experience differs significantly from Bandolier. Open source, self-hostable with Docker, Postgres, and Redis With Bandolier, self-hosting means downloading one file and running it. The gap in operational complexity matters most for small teams without dedicated DevOps staff.
Moving from Infisical does not have to be all-or-nothing. Some teams run Bandolier for new data while keeping Infisical as a read-only archive of historical records. The API makes it straightforward to build a sync script if you need both systems to reflect the same data during a transition period.
Single binary. Free to start. $0.99/mo for Pro.