Knapsack Pro

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

Github Actions

https://github.com/features/actions

Travis CI

https://travis-ci.org
Unique feature

Best GitHub integration possible

Build Matrix, ease of use, GitHub integration

Type of product

SaaS / On Premise

SaaS, Self-hosted / On Premise

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

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 plans, depending on concurrent jobs needed.

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

Available via email, or dedicated online interface for paid plans.

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

TravisCI makes it very easy to split your build into different stages which are then run in parallel (ie: run integration tests separate from the unit tests). TravisCI calls this a build matrix: https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/build-matrix/. You can also very easily split tests accross several VMs using the knapsack_pro gem.

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

TravisCI runs each build in a isolated virtual machine. Pre-build packages include a few which support specific languages (Ruby and JavaScript included) or other software (Git, various databases), but vanilla packages such as Ubuntu Trusty are also available.

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

Available by default in Travis (this is what most of the web UI consists of)

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.

Yes

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)

No

Specifically built around GitHub pull requests. Pipelines can be defined, but parts of the process need to be implemented separatelly in GitHub.

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 (partial)

No persistent storage eliminates the possibility of code coverage reports on TravisCI alone. There is support for integrated 3rd parties such as Coveralls for reporting code coverage.

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

No plugin support in TravisCI, plugins for other tools

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

TravisCI is designed to be a simple way to integrate CI/CD in your workflow so it has a couple of features aimed at specific languages, such as Ruby, starting from pre-built containers (with RVM already installed, for example) all the way to automatically running specific platform commands (such as detecting a Gemfile in the root of the project and automatically bundling dependencies). TravisCI also builds a Ruby SDK for easier use of the API.

Specific language support: JavaScript

Yes

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

Yes

TravisCI is designed to be a simple way to integrate CI/CD in your workflow so it has a couple of features aimed at specific languages, such as Javascript, starting from pre-built containers (with node already installed, for example) all the way to automatically running specific platform commands (such as detecting a package.json in the root of the project and running npm test)

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

By default, TravisCI is built to work with GitHub. Additionally, there is strong support for 3rd party tools like Coveralls, BrowserStack, etc.

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

Offers a feature-rich API that allows both reading data, as well as triggering or cancelling builds.

Auditing

N/A

N/A

Additional notes

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)

Travis CI build matrix feature how to use it for CI parallelisation

Github Actions parallelism integration

Travis CI parallelism integration

Start using Knapsack Pro with Github Actions or Travis CI

Sign up and speed up your tests.

Get started free