Keeping dependencies patched used to mean a developer periodically running an audit command and opening pull requests by hand. In 2026, that job is increasingly handled by an autonomous agent that watches your manifests, opens its own pull requests, and — in the more advanced tools — uses AI to explain or even help resolve the breaking changes a version bump introduces. Renovate, Dependabot, and Mend are the three names that come up most often, but they’re not quite the same kind of product: Renovate is an open-source automation engine, Dependabot is GitHub’s native built-in bot, and Mend is a commercial AppSec vendor that now owns and sells a hosted version of Renovate alongside its own scanning platform. We checked each vendor’s current pricing and documentation before writing this comparison.
At a Glance
| Tool | Starting Price | Free Plan | Best For | Key Specs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Renovate | Free (open source, self-hosted or via the Mend-hosted app) | Yes — the entire open-source project, AGPL-3.0 licensed | Teams on any Git host wanting highly configurable, automated dependency PRs | JSON/JSON5 config, 90+ package manager support, grouping/scheduling rules, self-hosted or Mend-hosted GitHub App |
| Dependabot | Free on every GitHub plan | Yes — security and version updates included free on Free, Team, and Enterprise | GitHub-native teams wanting zero-setup, built-in dependency PRs | Native GitHub integration, security updates triggered by the dependency graph, version updates via a repo config file |
| Mend (AppSec / Renovate Enterprise) | Mend Renovate Enterprise up to $250/developer/year standalone; Mend AppSec up to $1,000/developer/year | No free self-serve tier for the commercial platform (demo-only) | Enterprises wanting Renovate’s automation plus AI-assisted triage, SCA, and SAST in one vendor | Hosted Renovate at scale, Mend SCA/SAST, AI-generated fix suggestions, AI-aware code scanning for AI-assistant output |
Short Verdict
Dependabot is the easiest starting point for any team already on GitHub — it’s free, requires almost no setup, and now groups updates and lets you write auto-triage rules on paid GitHub plans. Renovate is the more powerful, more configurable option, especially if you’re not on GitHub or want fine-grained control over scheduling, grouping, and which ecosystems get updated how — and it’s free whether you self-host it or run the community GitHub App. Mend is the one to reach for when you want dependency updates bundled with a full AppSec platform (SCA, SAST, AI-aware scanning) under a single enterprise contract, at real recurring cost.
What Each One Is and How It Works
Renovate is an open-source automation bot (AGPL-3.0) that scans your manifests (package.json, go.mod, requirements.txt, Dockerfile, and dozens more) and opens pull requests when a newer version is available, following rules you define in a JSON/JSON5 config file committed to the repo. It supports more than 90 package managers and lets you group updates (e.g., “bundle all patch-level updates into one weekly PR”), schedule when PRs are opened, and set automerge rules for low-risk updates. You can self-host the OSS version on any CI runner, or run it via the Mend-hosted “Mend Renovate” GitHub App, which is free for public repos and available through GitHub Marketplace for private ones.
Dependabot is built directly into GitHub. Its security updates trigger automatically from GitHub’s dependency graph and Dependabot alerts — when a known vulnerability is published for a dependency you use, Dependabot opens a PR bumping to a patched version, with no configuration required beyond enabling alerts. Its separate version-update feature (configured via a dependabot.yml file) handles routine non-security upgrades on a schedule you set. Both are included free on every GitHub plan; the main things gated to paid Team/Enterprise plans are custom auto-triage rules for alerts and the dependency review GitHub Action.
Mend sells two relevant things here: a hosted, enterprise-scale version of Renovate (Mend Renovate Enterprise), and its own software composition analysis (SCA) engine as part of the broader Mend AppSec platform. The pitch for pairing them is that Renovate handles the mechanical “open a PR to bump this version” work, while Mend’s AI-powered layer adds context — flagging which updates actually close an exploitable vulnerability versus which are routine, and in Mend’s AppSec tier, extending AI-aware scanning to catch issues in code generated by AI coding assistants like Cursor, Windsurf, or Copilot.
Autonomous Patching as a Security Workflow
What makes this category “agentic” rather than just “automated” is the growing amount of judgment these tools now exercise without a human in the loop at every step: deciding which updates are safe to automerge, grouping dozens of minor bumps into one reviewable PR instead of dozens of separate notifications, and — in Mend’s case — using AI to prioritize which outdated dependency actually matters because it’s both vulnerable and reachable in your code, versus one that’s outdated but never called. None of the three tools eliminates the need for a human to review a major-version bump that could break the build; what they remove is the manual effort of noticing an update exists in the first place and drafting the PR. A representative Renovate configuration for grouping low-risk updates and scheduling them off-hours looks like this:
{
"extends": ["config:recommended"],
"schedule": ["after 9pm every weekday", "before 5am every weekday"],
"packageRules": [
{
"matchUpdateTypes": ["patch", "minor"],
"groupName": "non-major dependencies",
"automerge": true
},
{
"matchUpdateTypes": ["major"],
"automerge": false,
"labels": ["needs-review"]
}
]
}
Pricing Breakdown
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Renovate OSS (self-hosted) | $0 | AGPL-3.0 license; run on your own CI/CD runners against any supported Git host. |
| Mend-hosted Renovate App (public repos) | $0 | Available via GitHub Marketplace; no cost for public repositories. |
| Dependabot on GitHub Free | $0 | Security updates and version updates included at no cost. |
| Dependabot on GitHub Team | Included in the $4/user/month Team plan | Adds custom auto-triage rules and the dependency review Action on top of the same free Dependabot updates. |
| Dependabot on GitHub Enterprise | Included in the $21/user/month Enterprise plan | Same Dependabot features as Team, plus Enterprise-tier governance and support. |
| Mend Renovate Enterprise (standalone) | Up to $250 per contributing developer, per year | Mend’s own pricing page gives this as an “up to” figure; actual price depends on scale and whether it’s bundled with AppSec. |
| Mend AppSec | Up to $1,000 per contributing developer, per year | Bundles Mend SAST, Mend SCA, AI-generated code security, AI-powered fix suggestions, and automated dependency updates (Renovate) together. |
| Mend AI | Up to $300 per contributing developer, per year | Sold as an add-on to AppSec or standalone, per Mend’s pricing page. |
Mend’s pricing page presents all three figures as “up to” ceilings rather than flat list prices, and states explicitly that hosting, services, and custom agreements can add cost — so treat these as the upper bound you’d negotiate down from, not a guaranteed quote.
Pros and Cons
Renovate
- Pros: free and open source, works across GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, and more, extremely configurable grouping/scheduling, huge package-manager coverage
- Cons: self-hosting means you own the runner/infrastructure and upgrade cadence; configuration depth is also a learning curve — the JSON config can get complex fast
Dependabot
- Pros: zero setup cost, free on every plan including private repos, tightly integrated with GitHub’s dependency graph and security alerts, no separate infrastructure to run
- Cons: GitHub-only, less configurable grouping/scheduling than Renovate out of the box, advanced triage rules require a paid GitHub plan
Mend
- Pros: pairs dependency automation with a full AppSec platform and AI-powered prioritization/fix suggestions, hosted Renovate at enterprise scale with support, AI-aware scanning extends to AI-assistant-generated code
- Cons: real recurring per-developer cost with no self-serve free tier for the commercial platform, pricing given only as “up to” ceilings rather than a fixed quote, most value realized only if you buy into the broader AppSec bundle rather than Renovate alone
Who It’s a Good Fit For
- Choose Dependabot if you’re already on GitHub and want dependency patching working with literally zero extra infrastructure.
- Choose Renovate if you need cross-platform support, more granular scheduling/grouping than Dependabot offers, or you’re not on GitHub at all.
- Choose Mend if you want dependency automation bundled into a single enterprise AppSec contract with AI-assisted prioritization and support, and you have budget for a per-developer annual license.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
Teams that need vulnerability scanning and dependency updates to be just one module inside a much broader cloud-native security platform (container scanning, IaC, runtime detection) may be better served evaluating a cloud security platform’s bundled SCA module instead of any single-purpose tool here. And teams with a very small number of repos and infrequent dependency churn may find that a simple scheduled CI job running npm audit or pip-audit and opening PRs manually is genuinely sufficient, without adopting a dedicated bot at all.
Bottom Line
For most GitHub-based teams, Dependabot’s free, zero-setup updates are the right default, with Renovate as the upgrade path once you need more control than Dependabot’s configuration allows or you’re not on GitHub. Mend makes the most sense once dependency patching is one line item inside a larger enterprise AppSec purchase rather than something you want to solve on its own.
FAQ
Is Renovate the same company as Dependabot?
No. Renovate is an independent open-source project (now stewarded with Mend’s involvement as a maintainer/sponsor of the hosted app), while Dependabot is built and owned by GitHub. They’re separate codebases solving a similar problem differently.
Is Dependabot really free on private repositories?
Yes — per GitHub’s own pricing page, Dependabot security updates and version updates are included on the Free, Team, and Enterprise plans alike; only the more advanced auto-triage rules and dependency review Action require a paid Team or Enterprise plan.
Can I run Renovate for free on private repos?
Yes, by self-hosting the open-source project yourself on your own CI infrastructure; the free Mend-hosted GitHub App is specifically for public repositories, with private-repo hosting sold through Mend’s commercial Renovate Enterprise tier.
Do these tools auto-merge updates without any human review?
Only if you configure them to. All three support automerge rules for low-risk update types (like patch-level bumps that pass CI), but none of them force automerge by default — it’s an opt-in policy decision your team makes.
Does using one of these tools replace the need for a SAST/SCA scanner?
No. Dependency-update bots patch known-outdated or known-vulnerable packages; they don’t scan your own first-party code for vulnerabilities the way a SAST tool does, and Mend’s own platform treats automated updates (Renovate) and vulnerability scanning (Mend SCA/SAST) as separate, complementary modules rather than substitutes for each other.
Sources
- Renovate — official documentation
- GitHub — plans and pricing
- GitHub Docs — About Dependabot security updates
- Mend.io — pricing page
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