Knapsack Pro

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

Github Actions

https://github.com/features/actions

Solano CI

https://xebialabs.com/technology/solano-ci/
Unique feature

Best GitHub integration possible

N/A

Type of product

SaaS / On Premise

N/A

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.

No

Their website only mentions a free trial

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)

No

Very hard to get any information on pricing. It seems like they target enterprise clients only.

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.

N/A

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.

N/A

They mention that by paralellizing tests they get a huge performance boost (10x to 80x) but details are severly lacking.

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.

N/A

Containers support / Build environment

Yes

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

Yes

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 wording they use implies that this is possible.

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

N/A

Unclear from the available documentation

N/A

Self-hosted option

Yes

Coming soon, not available yet.

N/A

Hosted plans / SaaS

Yes

N/A

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

The wording they use suggests that this is possible.

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

N/A

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

N/A

Probably not, considering how non-transparent this product is.

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

N/A

Specific language support: JavaScript

Yes

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

N/A

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)

N/A

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)

N/A

Auditing

N/A

N/A

Additional notes

It seems like Solano CI has been retired, and the new solution is the XebiaLabs DevOps Platform, but which integrates Jenkins and Travis, among others: https://xebialabs.com/products/devops-platform-overview/

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

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