6 Best DX Alternatives in 2026
DX is a measurement company and a good one, so the search is usually about fit rather than quality. The most common reason is that there is no published price and the only route in is a demo.
The second is that surveys need a programme behind them. Without someone to run it, the data arrives and nothing changes.
The third is that measuring how the work feels does not tell you whether the work is actually done.
Every price and capability here was read from that vendor’s own pricing page, and each entry below carries the date it was last checked. The oldest on this page is October 2026. We re-check every 90 days. We do not use third-party pricing aggregators: they contradicted each other and some were years out of date. Products change. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
The short version
| Product | Best for | Starting price | The difference that matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fastpace GroundTruth | Teams whose tracker is wrong, and anyone who has to prove why a ticket moved. | $44 per developer, per month | Reads source control, checks each acceptance criterion against the merged code, and corrects the tracker. |
| Swarmia | Teams that want to improve their own habits, with the data to see whether it worked. | $45 per developer, per month | Engineering effectiveness platform built around team insight and working agreements. |
| Jellyfish | Leaders who must show the board how engineering investment maps to the roadmap. | Not published | Engineering management platform. Reports where engineering time and money go. |
| LinearB | Teams whose review process is slow and who want to fix the flow. | $29 per user, per month | Engineering metrics and workflow automation, focused on the pull request. |
| Faros AI | Teams whose first question is what the AI tooling costs and what it returned. | Not published | Ties AI coding spend to the results it produces, with model selection and usage policy. |
| Waydev | Teams who want analytics priced per active contributor rather than per seat. | Quote only | Engineering analytics across delivery, AI tool adoption and cost. |
| DX (the one you have) | Organisations running a developer productivity programme that needs a defensible baseline. | Not published | Developer experience measurement, joining survey data to system signals. |
“Not published” means the vendor shows no price on its own pricing page, so the first step is a sales conversation.
Fastpace GroundTruth
Reads source control, checks each acceptance criterion against the merged code, and corrects the tracker.
Best for: Teams whose tracker is wrong, and anyone who has to prove why a ticket moved.
Why it is a real alternative to DX
- A published price, and a trial you can start without a call.
- Something that changes the state of the work rather than reporting on it.
- Evidence an auditor can read, tied to each automated change.
- No survey programme to run.
What you give up by switching
- Survey data joined to system data. Nothing here replaces it.
- A research-backed developer experience baseline.
- Cross-company benchmarks.
Pricing
Standard $44 and Pro $79 per active developer monitored, per month. Enterprise is custom. Viewer and leadership seats are free. 14-day trial.
Free tier: No free tier. 14-day trial of the full Pro feature set.
See the full pricingWhat we can show you, and what we cannot
You can open the product before you talk to anyone. The live demo runs the real interface on demonstration data, with no signup, and the proof chain walks one ticket from the requirement to the signed record. Our accuracy numbers are written into the agreement, with a make-good first and money back as the backstop.
What we cannot show you is a wall of customer logos or a published case study, because we are newer than the other products on this page. We would rather say that here than have you find out on the third call.
The alternatives, one by one
Each entry below covers who it suits, what it does well, where it falls short and what it costs. Strengths and weaknesses are both written from the vendor’s own material and from what the product does not claim to do.
Swarmia
Engineering effectiveness platform built around team insight and working agreements.
Best for: Teams that want to improve their own habits, with the data to see whether it worked.
- Genuinely free for companies with fewer than ten developers.
- Working agreements that nudge a team in chat, which teams tend to accept.
- Developer surveys sit next to system data.
- Published per-developer pricing, and modules you can buy on their own.
- It nudges. It does not enforce, and it will not hold a ticket.
- Standard and Enterprise are demo-first, so the full suite still starts with a sales conversation.
- No view on whether the work satisfies its acceptance criteria.
Standard $45 and Enterprise $55 per developer per month, billed annually. Single modules start at $5 per developer per month. Standard and Enterprise are demo-first.
Free tier: Free for companies with up to 9 developers, with all Standard features except HRIS integrations and their AI features.
Checked October 2026.
Jellyfish
Engineering management platform. Reports where engineering time and money go.
Best for: Leaders who must show the board how engineering investment maps to the roadmap.
- Deep allocation and investment reporting, mapped to products and epics.
- Benchmarks your numbers against an industry set.
- Established product with a large customer base.
- Modules for AI impact, developer productivity and R&D financial reporting.
- It describes the record. It does not correct it, and it does not act on a ticket.
- No public pricing, so the first step is a sales call.
- If your tracker data is wrong, the reports inherit the error.
No prices on the pricing page. It says pricing is based on the number of seats and the modules selected, and asks you to talk to a salesperson for a quote.
Free tier: None published.
Checked October 2026.
LinearB
Engineering metrics and workflow automation, focused on the pull request.
Best for: Teams whose review process is slow and who want to fix the flow.
- Strong pull request flow metrics: review time, pickup time, work in progress.
- Policy automation in the review, including reviewer routing and chat alerts.
- Benchmarks and team goals against an industry set.
- Published per-user pricing, which is rare in this category.
- Measures how fast a change moved, not whether it satisfied the criterion it was written for.
- Minimum billable users: 50 on Essentials, 100 on Enterprise. Small teams are priced out.
- No free tier.
Essentials $29 and Enterprise $59 per user per month, billed annually. Essentials requires 50 billable users and Enterprise requires 100. A 45-day trial, no credit card.
Free tier: None. 45-day free trial instead.
Checked October 2026.
Faros AI
Ties AI coding spend to the results it produces, with model selection and usage policy.
Best for: Teams whose first question is what the AI tooling costs and what it returned.
- Free desktop version that keeps everything on your machine.
- A self-service preview you can explore without a sales call.
- Aimed squarely at AI spend and return, which is the live budget question.
- Policy enforcement on AI usage as adoption grows.
- Paid pricing is not published, so the commercial step is still a conversation.
- Focused on AI spend and adoption rather than on the state of the work.
- Does not verify acceptance criteria or write the ticket state.
No figures on the pricing page. It offers a free desktop build and a free self-service preview, with a demo or sales contact for anything beyond that.
Free tier: Free desktop version, plus a free self-service preview.
Checked October 2026.
Waydev
Engineering analytics across delivery, AI tool adoption and cost.
Best for: Teams who want analytics priced per active contributor rather than per seat.
- Priced per active contributor, so quiet months cost less.
- Managers and executives are free, which keeps leadership reporting cheap.
- Free trial and a free proof of concept before you commit.
- Covers AI adoption alongside the usual delivery metrics.
- Every paid plan is quote-only, including the entry tier.
- Reporting, not enforcement: it does not act on a ticket.
- No free tier.
Pro and Premium are per active contributor per month, billed annually, both shown as "ask for quote". Enterprise is a custom quote. Operational users such as managers and executives are free.
Free tier: None. Free trial and a free proof of concept.
Checked October 2026.
DX
Developer experience measurement, joining survey data to system signals.
Best for: Organisations running a developer productivity programme that needs a defensible baseline.
- Built on published developer productivity research, and the measurement design shows it.
- Survey data joined to telemetry, which few others do well.
- Executive reporting on friction across many teams.
- Benchmarks across a wide data set.
- It reports. It does not change the state of any work.
- No public pricing: the only route is a demo.
- Answers how the work feels, which is a different question from whether it is done.
No prices and no tiers on the pricing page. The only buying path offered is a demo.
Free tier: None published.
Checked October 2026.
How we evaluated these
- Every price and plan was read from the vendor’s own pricing page, not from a review site.
- Each entry carries the date it was checked, and a script fails our build when one goes 180 days without a re-check.
- Capabilities are taken from what each vendor says it does, and from what it does not claim to do.
- We have not run a controlled trial of each competitor, and we do not pretend to have done so.
- We publish no testimonial, customer logo or statistic we cannot name and source.
- Where another product is the better answer, the page says so by name.
Questions buyers ask
What does DX cost?
DX does not publish prices or tiers. The only buying path on its pricing page is a demo. Checked in October 2026.
Is there a DX alternative with surveys?
Swarmia sells developer surveys as a module at $9 per developer per month, billed annually. It is not the same research design, but it is survey data next to system data, with a published price.
Does GroundTruth replace DX?
No. DX measures developer experience. GroundTruth verifies the work and corrects the record. Buying one does not answer the other question.
Which should we buy first?
Buy the one that answers your loudest question. If leaders distrust the status data, that is GroundTruth. If they distrust the productivity story, that is DX.
Do we need a programme to get value?
For survey-based tools, yes: somebody has to run it and act on it. GroundTruth needs no programme. It connects to source control and the tracker and starts reporting disagreements in shadow mode.
So which one should you pick?
| You are running a productivity programme | Stay with DX. |
| You want survey data with a published price | Swarmia. |
| Finance needs the investment picture | Jellyfish. |
| Review latency is the problem | LinearB. |
| Your delivery data itself is wrong | GroundTruth. |
If the honest answer is us, start without talking to anyone.
Connect one repository and one project in shadow mode. GroundTruth reads them and shows you every change it would make. It writes nothing until you say so.
Start the 14-day trial Open the live demo