Github Actions vs Buildkite comparison of Continuous Integration servers

	Github Actions https://github.com/features/actions	Buildkite https://buildkite.com
Unique feature	Best GitHub integration possible	Runs on own infrastructure, API
Type of product	SaaS / On Premise	SaaS
Offers a free plan	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.	Yes Free for open source projects and selected organizations
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. 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)	Yes Clearly defined monthly and annual plans
Support / SLA	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.	Yes Depending on the plan, ranging from community support, all the way to an assigned Technical Manager, SLAs and live chat 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 Matrix builds allow concurrent jobs, even multi-platform.	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.
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 No specific mention, but given the fact that tasks can be run on multiple platforms, it's likely that distributed builds are also available.	Yes Run an unlimited number of concurrent agents, and an unlimited number of concurrent jobs
Containers support / Build environment	Yes Linux, macOS, Windows, and containers, or run directly in a VM.	Yes Since the agents run on your own infra, you're free to do whatever
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 Minimal status overview definitely available, with live logs and GitHub integration. Unclear how far it goes.	Yes The Buildkite UI features great vizualisations that feature build times, error rates, and more.
Management support How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on	N/A Unclear from the available documentation	Yes
Self-hosted option	Yes Coming soon, not available yet.	No
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 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)	Yes Pipelines are defined using an Yaml config file and allow for great flexibility in defining what each step of the process does.
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.	N/A Unclear from the available documentation	Yes
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 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	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
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 Unclear how, but they mention Ruby support specifically on the homepage	Yes You can find useful plugins like https://github.com/sj26/rspec-buildkite https://github.com/ticky/simplecov-buildkite etc
Specific language support: JavaScript	Yes Unclear how, but they mention Javascript (Node.js) support specifically on the homepage	No
Integrations 1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc)	Yes Integrations made possible via the shared third party workflows available (AWS, Azure, Zeit, Kubernetes and many more)	Yes Integrations for GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket as well as SSO support (Google Suite, SAML, GraphQL API)
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	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)	Yes Great GraphQL API, allows building your own dashboard with ease
Auditing	N/A	Yes
Additional notes

Programming Language	Supported test runners	Installation guide	Knapsack Pro Library README / Source
Ruby	RSpec, Cucumber, Minitest, test-unit, Spinach, Turnip	Install	knapsack_pro gem
JavaScript	Cypress.io	Install	@knapsack-pro/cypress
JavaScript	Jest	Install	@knapsack-pro/jest
JavaScript / TypeScript	Any test runner in JavaScript	How to build native integration with Knapsack Pro API to run tests in parallel for any test runner	@knapsack-pro/core
Any programming language	Any test runner	How to build a custom Knapsack Pro API client from scratch in any programming language	-

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

Github Actions

Buildkite

Best GitHub integration possible

Runs on own infrastructure, API

SaaS / On Premise

SaaS

Yes

Yes

Yes (partial)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

N/A

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

N/A

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

N/A

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

N/A

Yes

N/A

Yes

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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 parallel agents and how to use them for CI parallelisation

Github Actions parallelism integration

Buildkite parallelism integration

Introduction to CI parallelisation with Knapsack Pro

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

How to run parallel tests on Github Actions and Buildkite
to execute 1-hour test suite in 2 minutes?

How much can you save with faster tests
on Github Actions and Buildkite?