Knapsack Pro

AWS CodeBuild vs Github Actions comparison of Continuous Integration servers
What are the differences between AWS CodeBuild and Github Actions?

AWS CodeBuild

https://aws.amazon.com/codebuild/

Github Actions

https://github.com/features/actions
Unique feature

AWS integration

Best GitHub integration possible

Type of product

SaaS

SaaS / On Premise

Offers a free plan

Yes

The AWS free-tier includes 100 build-minutes per month, on their smallest machine. It's unclear, but it seems like this applies only to the first year of service.

Yes

The on premise plan (not yet available) will be free, 2000 build minutes included in the free cloud plan. Completely free plan for open source projects.

Predictable pricing

Yes (partial)

While it's clear what the cost is (priced per build-minute), figuring out costs can be a hassle, especially as the price can vary quite a bit depending on commits to the project.

Yes (partial)

While it's clear what the cost is (priced per build-minute), figuring out costs can be a hassle, especially as the price can vary quite a bit depending on commits to the project. One advantage for GitHub Actions is that the tiers define a maximum amount of minutes, so it's easier to predict the final cost. You can also purchase aditional runners with pricing dependent on the platform (MacOS, Linux, Windows)

Support / SLA

Yes

Yes

Community support available for any tier, unclear at what point and if dedicated support is available. Safe to assume that eneterprise clients can access technical support.

Paralellism
Every CI servers tends to address this differently (parallel, distributed, build matrix). Some of it is just marketing, and some is just nuance. For this table, parallel means that tasks can be run concurrently on the same machine, distributed means that tasks can be scaled horizontally, on multiple machines
How to split tests in parallel in the optimal way with Knapsack Pro

N/A

Yes

Matrix builds allow concurrent jobs, even multi-platform.

Distributed builds
distributed means that tasks can be scaled horizontally, on multiple machines
How to split tests in parallel in the optimal way with Knapsack Pro

N/A

N/A

No specific mention, but given the fact that tasks can be run on multiple platforms, it's likely that distributed builds are also available.

Containers support / Build environment

Yes

Builds run in specific-to-the-project, isolated environments

Yes

Linux, macOS, Windows, and containers, or run directly in a VM.

Analytics / Status overview
Analytics and overview referrs to the ability to, at a glance, see what's breaking (be it a certain task, or the build for a specific project)

Yes

Offers minimal information built in, but allows integrations with tools such as CloudWatch (another Amazon product), or streaming build information to your own API, for more in-depth analysis.

Yes

Minimal status overview definitely available, with live logs and GitHub integration. Unclear how far it goes.

Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on

Yes

Professional user management via AWS Identity and Access Management: https://aws.amazon.com/iam/

N/A

Unclear from the available documentation

Self-hosted option

No

Yes

Coming soon, not available yet.

Hosted plans / SaaS

Yes

Yes

Build pipelines
A continuous delivery pipeline is a description of the process that the software goes through from a new code commit, through testing and other statical analysis steps all the way to the end-users of the product.

Yes

As it's usually the case with Amazon, CodeBuild simply provides the 'build' part of a true CI/CD system, while pipelines are managed via CodePipeline, another Amazon product: https://aws.amazon.com/codepipeline/pricing/?nc=sn&loc=3

Yes

Called GitHub Action Workflows, they are defined in separate Docker containers, using the YAML syntax (they used to support HCL, but they're migrating away from that)

Reports
Reports are about the abilty to see specific reports (like code coverage or custom ones), but not necesarily tied in into a larger dashboard.

Yes

Offers minimal information built in, but allows integrations with tools such as CloudWatch (another Amazon product), or streaming build information to your own API, for more in-depth analysis.

N/A

Unclear from the available documentation

Ecosystem
Besides the official documentation and software, is there a large community using this product? Are there any community-driven tools / plugins that you can use?

N/A

Yes

Thanks to the large following, GitHub Actions already enjoys a wide varierty of available pre-made workflows, which you can browse right on the homepage: https://github.com/features/actions

Specific language support: Ruby
Some CI servers have built-in support for parsing RSpec or Istanbul output for example and we mention those. Some others make it even easier by detecting Gemfiles or package.json and automate parts of the process for the developer.

No (partial)

The environments available on CodeBuilt include Ruby pre-installed: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codebuild/latest/userguide/build-env-ref-available.html, but that seems to be as far as specific support goes

Yes

Unclear how, but they mention Ruby support specifically on the homepage

Specific language support: JavaScript

No (partial)

The environments available on CodeBuilt include Node pre-installed: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codebuild/latest/userguide/build-env-ref-available.html, but that seems to be as far as specific support goes

Yes

Unclear how, but they mention Javascript (Node.js) support specifically on the homepage

Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc)

Yes

CodeBuild builds can be connected to sources such as GitHub or BitBucket, but being an Amazon Service, the deepest integrations are with other Amazon Code services (CodePipeline, CodeDeploy, and others: https://aws.amazon.com/products/developer-tools/)

Yes

Integrations made possible via the shared third party workflows available (AWS, Azure, Zeit, Kubernetes and many more)

API
Custom integreation is available, via an API or otherwise, it's mentioned separately as it allows further customization than any of the Ecosystem/Integration options

Yes

Amazon SDKs can be used to interact with CodeBuild

N/A

Unclear at the moment, but assume GitHub Actions will be integrated with the GitHub GraphQL API (one of the more mature GraphQL API implementations available)

Auditing

Yes

N/A

Additional notes

Like most things Amazon, it becomes more valuable as you acquire and integrate various Amazon solutions, not necesarily as a standalone tool.

GitHub Actions testing Ruby on Rails with RSpec and parallel jobs (matrix feature)

How to run Jest tests on GitHub Actions - JS parallel jobs with matrix feature (NodeJS YAML config)

GitHub Actions Cypress.io E2E testing parallel jobs with matrix feature (NodeJS YAML config)

Github Actions parallelism integration

Start using Knapsack Pro with AWS CodeBuild or Github Actions

Sign up and speed up your tests.

Get started free