Buildkite vs GitHub Actions comparison

Buildkite and GitHub are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Buildkite is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.2, while GitHub is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5. Buildkite holds a 3.1% mindshare in BA, compared to GitHub’s 8.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Buildkite users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of GitHub users who would recommend it.

Buildkite

Read 14 Buildkite reviews

846 Views
829 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

GitHub Actions

Read 23 GitHub Actions reviews

3,083 Views
3,083 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Buildkite

GitHub Actions

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GitHub Actions and Buildkite are competing in the CI/CD space. GitHub Actions has an upper hand due to its ease of integration within the GitHub ecosystem and cost-effectiveness.

Features: GitHub Actions offers seamless integration with GitHub, automates workflows, and provides an intuitive setup process. Buildkite allows extensive customization, self-hosted runners, and scalability suitable for complex CI/CD requirements.

Room for Improvement: GitHub Actions could enhance support for AI projects and improve manual intervention requirements. Buildkite might benefit from reducing its learning curve, optimizing integration with Monorepos, and enhancing documentation for setup complexities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitHub Actions simplifies deployment through its deep integration with GitHub, minimizing infrastructure management. Buildkite offers control over infrastructure with self-hosted environments and personalized support, suitable for complex needs but demands more deployment management.

Pricing and ROI: GitHub Actions uses a pay-as-you-go model, ideal for smaller teams within the GitHub ecosystem. Buildkite offers flat-rate pricing, appealing to larger organizations requiring predictable costs for complex pipelines, providing a compelling ROI despite higher upfront expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed Buildkite vs. GitHub Actions Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GitHub Actions

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,707 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Buildkite

Ranking in Build Automation

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GitHub Actions

Ranking in Build Automation

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Buildkite is 3.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitHub Actions is 8.1%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
GitHub Actions	8.1%
Buildkite	3.1%
Other	88.8%

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Raed I.Habib

Senior DevOps Engineer at a newspaper with 5,001-10,000 employees

Easy-to-use and provides good documentation for managing agents

Buildkite has been pushing a lot of effort toward the plugin marketplace and plugin users, especially with the Kubernetes plugin that supports the scalability of agents. The flexibility of some plugins is somewhat limited. In the past, I used to modify the plugins according to my needs. Now, plugins support some sort of configuration or reconfiguration. I would love to see some features added in that direction and the plugin's use. I would like to see some improvements in the hooks implementation. The hooks are amazing and give me a lot of extra flexibility in many of the pipelines, but they're still limited in some areas.

Read full review

Bharadwaj Deepak Mohapatra

DevOps Engineer at ENTERPRISE SYSTEM SOLUTIONS LIMITED

Has supported repository management and demonstrates potential in workflow flexibility

While GitHub Actions offers a range of functionalities, it is newer compared to more established tools such as Jenkins and Azure DevOps. There is still room for improvement, especially in areas concerning deeper capabilities akin to those provided by Jenkins and Azure DevOps. Given the evolving nature of technology, there are potential improvements GitHub Actions can focus on, including enhancing support and reliability to match its competitors.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"Buildkite's UI is particularly intuitive, making it simple to add steps to your pipeline. It also provides detailed logging."

"Using Buildkite, it's much easier to manage pipelines. It's straightforward to understand what each pipeline returns, making it easy to edit configurations, such as passwords. Although there is a steep learning curve initially, the overall process is still comprehensible. Additionally, Buildkite offers features like hooks and triggers; for example, an action in the app can automatically trigger a pipeline. These elements can be added to specific pipelines, ensuring the entire process is automated."

"Buildkite allows us to build automations and integration tasks effectively."

"The tool's flexibility with pipelines gave us a lot of advantages, especially when managing a huge amount of microservices."

"It is a stable solution."

"They have great plugins, scalability, UI, and pipeline options. They also offer webhooks that allow integration with custom setups to send events dynamically."

"What I like best about Buildkite is its workflow management. You define YAML files to specify what needs to be done. The jobs can run based on a schedule, like a cron job, where you set it to run every night or every week. Additionally, you can set up triggers, such as new pushes to a repository."

More Buildkite pros

"GitHub Actions helps automate the deployment process, eliminating manual copying and testing, which saves time and minimizes errors."

"The level of automation achievable is really good. So, the custom workflow creation and Marketplace Actions improved our project's efficiency."

"It is user-friendly, with clear and organized processes, making it easy to navigate and work with."

"The most valuable feature of GitHub Actions is the ability to automate various tasks, such as backups and deployments, to ease the development workflow."

"Creating workflows in YAML format is straightforward and easy to comprehend. This includes both understanding and writing workflows. Additionally, the downloading aspect for third-party instances can also be easily done. It's worth noting that vulnerability analysis and similar tasks should be part of our automation through data workflows. Furthermore, we can break down our processes step by step, starting from building, then moving on to analysis, testing, and finally deploying in production and the clear environment. All of these tasks can be efficiently managed within this platform."

"We can trigger files manually or automate processes."

"The most valuable features of GitHub Actions include its seamless integration within GitHub, which simplifies the CI/CD pipeline setup. The scalability of using different types of runners—both public and private runners—enhances deployment flexibility."

"The main benefit is collaboration. It allows us to easily collaborate with other developers, regardless of location. For example, we can collaborate with both our African and German colleagues seamlessly. It's platform-agnostic, so it is flexible and not tied to any OS, so we can work on Linux, Windows, web, and even Oracle applications. It's flexible, reliable, and overall an excellent tool for our needs."

More GitHub Actions pros

Cons

"It gets very complex if you want the tool to scale automatically."

"I would like to see some improvements in the hooks implementation."

"Compared to market leaders like Azure DevOps and Jenkins, Buildkite's community is smaller, but they do have some documentation."

"The way Buildkite represents workflows can be challenging. It uses Directed Acyclic Graphs, and there's a trade-off between abstraction and understanding what goes wrong when something fails. When a layer of jobs breaks down, it can be difficult to identify the issue at first glance. Additionally, logging can be cumbersome. I prefer GitHub Workflows."

"The solution should offer more options for installing an agent and give users the option of having a separate self-hosted or provisioned agent."

"Most of our projects involve both front-end and back-end development. We write the code and then create a file to set up our process, including specifying the tests we want to run. Before deploying to production, we need to install and configure certain things. We need something like Docker Pro, but I'm unsure about that. I'm familiar with the steps for using Buildkite for this process. We start by defining which tests to run."

"Based on the load, the agents can be scaled up and scaled down, and while they are scaling up, sometimes they just get stuck."

"There is a need for rework occasionally, and issues like syntax errors can occur multiple times, especially when manual changes are made in AWS or Amazon Connect that are not captured in the code."

More Buildkite cons

"We still use Jenkins for some tasks, which suggests there may be areas for improvement in GitHub Actions."

"There is a part that detects outdated libraries. If that feature could be more intuitive and informative, that would be nice."

"GitHub sometimes makes it difficult to debug actions."

"The main challenge I've experienced is with integration, particularly uploading to OneDrive, which was more complex compared to Google Drive or AWS S3 bucket."

"The primary area for improvement I see is in artifact management, especially for saving screenshots or videos from failed tests or data-driven actions. Currently, the configuration for saving these artifacts is complex."

"The solution's integration capabilities and UI are areas of concern where improvement is required to make the product more user-friendly."

"The main improvement would be to add support for more programming languages and frameworks."

"My company would want to see some AI features in the tool as it can add value to the product."

More GitHub Actions cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find Buildkite cost-effective as it has definitely increased my productivity, especially on the deployment side. It saved a lot of my time and improved data management because I can handle different environments myself now."

"For a business plan, it was 19 USD per month per user."

"We used the solution’s free version."

"Buildkite is known to be cheaper than GitHub Workflows, which is considered a standard in the industry. It can be cost-effective, especially for organizations that heavily utilize Docker and containerization, because every code change triggers a new build. Its integration with AWS, particularly with ECR, and its caching capabilities with layers are powerful features."

"The self-hosted option is pretty cheap."

"I don't think the tool is expensive."

"The solution's per-user pricing model suits huge enterprises but is expensive for small to medium businesses."

"The tool's price is okay and reasonable."

"Price-wise, GitHub Actions is okay. If I want to use the product's advanced features, then I need to pay the licensing charges for the solution."

"Regarding cost, as an enterprise, we negotiate our license and expenses, so I can't provide a specific rating for that."

"The cost for GitHub Actions may be around $45 dollars per user."

"For our basic usage, we didn't have to pay."

"The product is slightly more expensive than some alternatives."

"It's low-priced. Not high, but definitely low."

"It is free and open platform, so I would rate it 1 out of 10."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Newspaper

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Buildkite?

One area that needs improvement in Buildkite is the requirement for rework of the code. There can be syntax errors when running the Buildkite pipeline, especially if someone has made manual changes...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Buildkite?

I use Buildkite for deployment tasks related to building AMI images and deploying routing profile queues into Amazon Connect. This involves using Buildkite in conjunction with GitHub. We create fil...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Buildkite?

With two years of experience on Buildkite, I would recommend it to others due to its manageable pipeline and the support team available for big issues. I am satisfied with it, rating its stability ...

See all answers

What do you like most about GitHub Actions?

I have optimized job execution time by running test scripts in parallel and creating multiple pipelines; we've significantly reduced execution times. What could take 50 minutes can be cut down to j...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitHub Actions?

I would rate pricing a seven, which leans toward the expensive side. However, there is still value for money, and that's why we continue using it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitHub Actions?

See all answers

Comparisons

GitLab vs Buildkite

Compared 10% of the time

Harness vs Buildkite

Compared 10% of the time

Tekton vs Buildkite

Compared 10% of the time

CircleCI vs Buildkite

Compared 8% of the time

Nx vs Buildkite

Compared 8% of the time

More Buildkite Competitors

Tekton vs GitHub Actions

Compared 20% of the time

Harness vs GitHub Actions

Compared 13% of the time

TeamCity vs GitHub Actions

Compared 8% of the time

Bamboo vs GitHub Actions

Compared 7% of the time

Bitrise vs GitHub Actions

Compared 5% of the time

More GitHub Actions Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite

February 2026

Download Buildkite product report

Buyer's Guide

GitHub Actions

January 2026

Download GitHub Actions product report

Overview

Buildkite is a powerful CI/CD tool praised for its scalability and flexibility in automating and managing complex workflows across multiple platforms. Its integration capabilities with various systems and supports for secure, customizable environments enhance development efficiency and data privacy. The feedback highlights significant boosts in productivity and operational cost reduction, making Buildkite a strategic asset for businesses aiming to streamline development tasks and align with organizational goals.

Buildkite

GitHub Actions streamlines CI/CD processes with an intuitive YAML workflow and robust automation, enhancing efficiency and integration with third-party tools and cloud providers.

GitHub Actions automates development pipelines, supports scalable public and private runners, and manages secure secrets. This tool integrates seamlessly with platforms like AWS, Kubernetes, Google Cloud, and Databricks. It enhances DevOps workflows with reliable task automation. Users note areas for UI and deployment tool improvements, artifact management simplification, and additional programming language support. Debugging complexity and hosting agent transitions pose challenges, along with integration enhancements for tools like OneDrive.

What are GitHub Actions' key features?

YAML Workflow Creation: Simplifies configuration with intuitive YAML.
CI/CD Integration: Provides seamless integration within DevOps pipelines.
Automation Capabilities: Automates tasks with minimal manual intervention.
Third-Party Tool Compatibility: Works well with diverse tools and platforms.
Secure Secrets Management: Protects sensitive information effectively.

What benefits do users find in GitHub Actions?

Enhanced Performance: Boosts task execution speed and reliability.
Scalability: Supports growth with flexible runner options.
Improved Release Cycles: Ensures consistent updates and deployments.
Workflow Efficiency: Reduces manual tasks, increasing operational efficiency.

Companies in tech and software development frequently utilize GitHub Actions for integrating, deploying, and versioning projects. It is often employed for deploying applications to cloud environments like AWS and Kubernetes, managing extensive CI/CD workflows, and automating test and security operations, thereby streamlining production cycles across industries.

GitHub

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GitHub Actions

February 2026

Free Report: Buildkite vs. GitHub Actions

Find out what your peers are saying about Buildkite vs. GitHub Actions and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Buildkite vs. GitHub Actions report.

See our list of best Build Automation vendors.

We monitor all Build Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.