Travis CIhttps://travis-ci.org |
Github Actionshttps://github.com/features/actions |
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Unique feature |
Build Matrix, ease of use, GitHub integration
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Best GitHub integration possible
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Type of product |
SaaS, Self-hosted / On Premise
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SaaS / On Premise
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Offers a free plan |
Yes Free for open source projects |
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 plans, depending on concurrent jobs needed. |
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 Available via email, or dedicated online interface for paid plans. |
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 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. |
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
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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 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. |
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 Available by default in Travis (this is what most of the web UI consists of) |
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 |
N/A
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N/A Unclear from the available documentation |
Self-hosted option |
Yes
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Yes Coming soon, not available yet. |
Hosted plans / SaaS |
Yes
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Yes
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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. |
No Specifically built around GitHub pull requests. Pipelines can be defined, but parts of the process need to be implemented separatelly in GitHub. |
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 (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. |
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? |
No plugin support in TravisCI, plugins for other tools
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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 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. |
Yes Unclear how, but they mention Ruby support specifically on the homepage |
Specific language support: JavaScript |
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) |
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 By default, TravisCI is built to work with GitHub. Additionally, there is strong support for 3rd party tools like Coveralls, BrowserStack, etc. |
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 Offers a feature-rich API that allows both reading data, as well as triggering or cancelling builds. |
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 |
N/A
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N/A
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Additional notes |
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