In a quest to improve CI/CD tooling, Earthly set out to create a build system that was consistent, reliable, and distributed. However, despite the amazing promises of faster builds and better integration, the reality was different. Customers were skeptical and hesitant to migrate to Earthly CI, citing the cost of migration and lack of proven benefits. The traditional sales approach didn’t work, and it became clear that developers prefer to explore and adopt tools on their own terms. Earthly had more success in converting existing Earthly users into Earthly CI users, but even that had limitations. Ultimately, the company had to reevaluate its messaging and focus on the value proposition of simplicity and build consistency to garner more interest and adoption.
https://earthly.dev/blog/shutting-down-earthly-ci/