LaunchDarkly
Feature-flag and experimentation platform for controlled releases, kill-switches and A/B tests with SDKs, governance and modern DevOps integrations.
Overview
LaunchDarkly lets teams ship features safely using flags, targeting and gradual rollouts. Engineers decouple deploy from release, run canary or percentage rollouts and kill features instantly if metrics regress. Experimentation measures impact on key events while governance provides roles, audit trails and approval workflows.
SDKs cover major languages and mobile; relay proxies help at scale. Integrations connect CI/CD, observability and incident tools. A free Developer tier serves small projects; paid plans add higher limits, environments and advanced experimentation.
Enterprises standardize on LaunchDarkly to reduce incident risk, move faster and prove impact with data.
Key features
- Percentage rollouts and canaries to decouple deploy and release
- Targeting by attributes segments and environments for safe exposure
- Instant kill-switches to disable a flag globally on regressions
- Experiment analysis on metrics for evidence-based decisions
- SDKs for backend frontend and mobile plus relay proxy
- Policy roles approvals and audits for compliance
- Integrations with CI/CD observability and chatops
- Flag insights to clean up stale flags and debt
Best for
- Gradual rollouts to reduce blast radius on risky changes
- Operational kill-switches for third-party outages or limits
- Experiments on onboarding flows or pricing screens
- Regional or customer cohort gating for beta programs
- Mobile feature delivery without app store waits
- Dark launches to test performance under real traffic
- Emergency config toggles during incidents
- Sunsetting features with measurable impact and cleanup
Capabilities
Progressive Delivery
Ramp features by percentage region or cohort while watching metrics to cut risk on every deploy.
Experiments
Run A/B tests and read impact on events so product choices are backed by data not hunches.
Governance and Audit
Apply roles approvals and logs to satisfy compliance and scale usage across many teams.
SDKs and Tooling
Use language SDKs proxies and CI/CD hooks so flags fit your stack and observability.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a free tier?
Yes, a Developer tier is available for small projects to start safely.
What do paid plans start at?
Public listings indicate paid plans starting around $12 per month, with enterprise pricing by quote.
Does LaunchDarkly support mobile apps?
Yes, SDKs cover iOS and Android so flags can change behavior without new releases.
Can I run server-side and client-side flags?
Yes, SDKs support both and proxies help with scale and network limits.
How do we prevent flag sprawl?
Insights and policies surface stale flags and require cleanup as part of release reviews.
Can flags gate infrastructure configs?
Yes, teams use flags for operational configs and emergency switches.
Does it integrate with our observability stack?
Integrations exist for major APM, logging and incident tools.
Will flags add latency?
SDKs and streaming modes are optimized to minimize request overhead in prod.
