Knapsack Pro

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

Buildkite

https://buildkite.com

Github Actions

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

Runs on own infrastructure, API

Best GitHub integration possible

Type of product

SaaS

SaaS / On Premise

Offers a free plan

Yes

Free for open source projects and selected organizations

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

Clearly defined monthly and annual plans

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

Depending on the plan, ranging from community support, all the way to an assigned Technical Manager, SLAs and live chat support.

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

Yes

Run an unlimited number of concurrent agents, and an unlimited number of concurrent jobs. You can run your tests in isolated Docker container per agent.

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

Yes

Run an unlimited number of concurrent agents, and an unlimited number of concurrent jobs

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

Since the agents run on your own infra, you're free to do whatever

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

The Buildkite UI features great vizualisations that feature build times, error rates, and more.

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

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

Pipelines are defined using an Yaml config file and allow for great flexibility in defining what each step of the process does.

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

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?

Yes

Integrations for GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket as well as SSO support (Google Suite, SAML, GraphQL API). Growing number of community plugins: https://buildkite.com/plugins

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.

Yes

You can find useful plugins like https://github.com/sj26/rspec-buildkite https://github.com/ticky/simplecov-buildkite etc

Yes

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

Specific language support: JavaScript

No

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

Integrations for GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket as well as SSO support (Google Suite, SAML, GraphQL API)

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

Great GraphQL API, allows building your own dashboard with ease

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

Buildkite parallel agents and how to use them for CI parallelisation

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)

Buildkite parallelism integration

Github Actions parallelism integration

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