LaunchDarkly
A weekend of work, and real gaps remain.
Feature flags as a service. Code checks a flag, and the dashboard decides who sees the feature: a percentage of users, a named segment, one customer. It also carries experiments, gradual rollouts and an audit trail of who changed what.
Build me a feature flag service that can never take my application down. STACK - Node with Fastify, SQLite via better-sqlite3 - Server-rendered admin, no frontend framework FLAGS - Key, description, a default value, and typed variations: boolean, string, number, JSON TARGETING - Rules evaluated in order: individual user keys, attribute matches, then a percentage rollout - Bucketed by a stable hash of flag key plus user key, so a user's bucket never moves when an unrelated flag changes THE RULE THAT MATTERS MOST - One endpoint returns every flag for a user context in a single call - The client caches the payload in memory and refreshes on an interval - When the service is unreachable it falls back to a compiled-in default — the flag service must never be able to take the application down AUDIT - Every change appended with previous value, new value, actor and UTC timestamp OPERATIONS - A kill-switch view listing every enabled flag with a one-click disable - An SSE stream so a change propagates in seconds rather than at the next poll TESTS - Prove the same user lands in the same bucket across restarts - Prove the client keeps serving defaults when the service is stopped mid-request Include a README on the hashing scheme, the cache interval and the fallback behaviour.
What you lose
- Flag evaluation that stays correct and fast when your own flag service is unreachable
- Streaming updates, so a kill switch takes effect in seconds rather than at the next poll
- Percentage rollouts with sticky bucketing that survives a user changing device
- Audit trails and approval workflows that a regulated team actually needs
- Maintained SDKs across every language and platform you ship on
If you would rather not build
- GrowthBook — flags plus experimentation
The escape hatch
open source · no votes, no paid placement
Unleash
$0Feature flag server with gradual rollouts, segments and SDKs for most languages.
Unleash/unleashfree · open source
Flagsmith
$0Feature flags and remote config with per-environment values.
Flagsmith/flagsmithfree · open source
Why this verdict
our own opinion · changed only by a person
46/100
Verdict kinda at 46: a flag table with percentage rollouts is a day of work, and for one team on one stack that is often enough. What you are really buying from LaunchDarkly is the guarantee that flag evaluation never becomes your outage, plus SDKs everywhere.
History
tracked since 6 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten
Nothing recorded yet. This chart fills in once the page has visitors, votes or prompt copies — it will not draw a flat line to look busy.
Questions about LaunchDarkly
answered from the record above
Is LaunchDarkly free?
No headline monthly price: Foundation is pay-as-you-go at $10 per service connection per month plus $8.33 per 1,000 client-side monthly active users.
Can you replace LaunchDarkly by building your own?
ALMOST. A weekend of work, and real gaps remain. Replacement score 46 out of 100, build time a weekend. Read what you lose before you decide.
How much does LaunchDarkly cost?
LaunchDarkly has no public headline price. The tier we track is Foundation.
What do you lose by replacing LaunchDarkly?
Flag evaluation that stays correct and fast when your own flag service is unreachable; Streaming updates, so a kill switch takes effect in seconds rather than at the next poll; Percentage rollouts with sticky bucketing that survives a user changing device; Audit trails and approval workflows that a regulated team actually needs; Maintained SDKs across every language and platform you ship on. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to LaunchDarkly?
Yes: Unleash, Flagsmith. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.
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