Buildkite vs GitLab comparison

Buildkite and GitLab are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Buildkite is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2, while GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Buildkite holds a 1.6% mindshare in BA, compared to GitLab’s 14.5% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Buildkite users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of GitLab users who would recommend it.

Buildkite

Read 14 Buildkite reviews

394 Views
394 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

GitLab

Read 85 GitLab reviews

19,768 Views
4,547 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Buildkite

GitLab

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GitLab and Buildkite both compete in the continuous integration and deployment category. GitLab seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive dashboard and all-in-one solution that integrates well with Kubernetes.

Features: GitLab offers robust CI/CD pipeline management with features integrated for code review, deployment, and continuous integration. Its high levels of control make it ideal for managing code repositories efficiently. Buildkite excels in deployment workflows, utilizing YAML for job scheduling and emphasizing private builds and Docker layer caching, which is attractive for those using containerization.

Room for Improvement: GitLab needs better AWS and third-party integrations, enhanced project management capabilities, and improved documentation. Outages and high pricing are also user concerns. Buildkite requires better scalability and workflow representation, with challenges in debugging its DAG-based design. Improved third-party integrations and documentation would help new users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab's deployment is versatile, supporting a range of cloud and on-premises environments, but specific technical support can lag. Buildkite targets public cloud deployment with simplified setup, especially for AWS users, yet has a smaller support community.

Pricing and ROI: Both platforms offer free versions with different cost structures as they scale. GitLab is known for higher pricing, particularly impacting small teams, despite offering premium features. Buildkite provides a competitive pricing model, especially beneficial for Docker-focused operations, though potentially costly for smaller setups. Each platform displays evident ROI in their respective strengths.

To learn more, read our detailed Buildkite vs. GitLab Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GitLab

July 2025

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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

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GitLab

Ranking in Build Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (11th), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Buildkite is 1.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 14.5%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Prabin Silwal

Senior Engineering Consultant at ASSURANCE IQ, INC.

Has an easy setup phase while also offering good documentation

The problem we are facing sometimes is that we have lots of unit testers, and we have to wait about ten minutes to complete all of those because we want to run or find a way. It's not directly due to the limitation of the tool as well, but when we are running the spec, we want to run those parallelly and decrease the downtime so that our deployment can be faster. I think that one is not possible only due to the it also depends upon the unit test framework as well we are using. When we tried with the multiple test cases in a parallel manner, there were some dependencies, and one over another kept failing. We make those sequential calls. The aforementioned area consists of the issues my company faced while using Buildkite.

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Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements

The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab are highly valuable. Another important feature is the single source of repository, allowing efficient repository management and source code management. GitLab provides manageability by allowing us to manage source code effectively through separate repositories. Additionally, GitLab enables the creation of individual CI/CD pipelines for each repository, making software more agile. By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

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

"The tool is simple and has no learning curve. If you know YAML, you can master it. It is simple to learn."

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

"You don't have to set up an agent in Buildkite like in Jenkins."

"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."

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

"The solution can be considered as a very well-polished platform with a really great UI."

More Buildkite pros

"When a developer checks in code, it is automatically built and deployed, and automated test cases are also run. We have extensive integration with GitLab, which helps us with source code management. We run the static code analysis using SonarQube."

"I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently."

"The most valuable features of GitLab are ease of use and highly intuitive UI and performance."

"We use GitLab in the new project for CI/CD, integration, and deployment."

"The solution makes the CI/CD pipelines easy to execute."

"Of all available products, it was the easiest to use and easy to install."

"Key features allow creation of well-presented Wiki that includes ideas, development, and domains."

"We have seen a couple of merge requests or pull requests raised in GitLab. I see the interface, the way it shows the difference between the two source codes, that it is easy for anyone to do the review and then accept the request; the pull request is the valuable feature."

More GitLab pros

Cons

"Since we were using Buildkite for the first time, we had a lot of difficulty understanding how it worked. We didn't find any documentation from third parties; only Buildkite provided documentation. As a result, we faced a steep learning curve. After some time, it became much easier to use. Initially, understanding certain features, like the R integration, was challenging."

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

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

"BuildKite should follow some providers like GitHub Actions. They can offer a shared agent or cloud agent."

"Buildkite has issues while creating or extending branches as only the first five builds in the user-interface can be accessed and post that one has to access the next builds by remembering branch names without pagination which can be inconvenient."

"My company has had problems with the tool's parallel running and execution time. The testing framework also has some limitations. The tool cannot do everything."

"As a newbie, I think BuildKite has several issues. For example, it can't get the status of a PR once it's closed. The syntax is easy to use, but updating a pipeline requires administrator settings, and viewing pipelines for others isn't straightforward."

"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."

More Buildkite cons

"Some of the scripts that we encountered in GitLab were not fully functional and threw up errors."

"As a partner, sometimes it's difficult to get support. They have a really complicated procedure for their support."

"The solution should again offer an on-premises deployment option."

"I believe there's room for improvement in the advanced features, particularly in enhancing the pipeline functionalities."

"Based on what I know so far, its integration with Kubernetes is not so good. We have to develop many things to make it work. We have to acquire third-party components to work with Kubernetes."

"I have encountered issues with the deployment of CI/CD pipelines, especially dealing with variable environments."

"The documentation could be improved to help newcomers better understand things like creating new branches."

"GitLab's UI could be improved."

More GitLab cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"The self-hosted option is pretty cheap."

"We used the solution’s free version."

"The solution is free."

"The price is okay."

"GitLab is a free solution to use."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"We are currently using the open-source version."

"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."

"The solution is based on a licensing model that includes technical support and is paid annually."

"We are using its free version, and we are evaluating its Premium version. Its Ultimate version is very expensive."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about GitLab?

I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?

The pricing and cost are on par with other tools and are neither too expensive nor cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

Regarding improvements, making task management is something that GitLab can potentially make easier, similar to what DevOps or Jira does.

See all answers

Comparisons

GitHub Actions vs Buildkite

Compared 34% of the time

Harness vs Buildkite

Compared 16% of the time

Tekton vs Buildkite

Compared 15% of the time

Nx vs Buildkite

Compared 12% of the time

JFrog Pipeline vs Buildkite

Compared 10% of the time

More Buildkite Competitors

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 31% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 14% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

TeamCity vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite

August 2025

Download Buildkite product report

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

August 2025

Download GitLab product report

Also Known As

No data available

Fuzzit

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

GitLab offers a secure and user-friendly platform for CI/CD pipeline management, code repository control, and collaboration, enhancing development speed and efficiency. It facilitates automation with extensive customization and tool integration, ideal for DevOps processes.

GitLab supports source code management, version control, and collaborative development. It's frequently used in CI/CD processes to automate builds and deployments while integrating DevOps practices. GitLab allows companies to manage repositories, automate pipelines, conduct code reviews, and maintain development lifecycles. The platform supports infrastructure and configuration management, enabling efficient code collaboration, deployment automation, and comprehensive repository handling. Many organizations commit and deploy developed code using GitLab's capabilities.

What are GitLab's most valuable features?

CI/CD Pipeline Management: Streamlines development through automated testing and deployment.
User-Friendly Interface: Ensures ease of collaboration and task automation.
Code Merging and Branching: Facilitates smooth code integration and version control.
Security Platform: Provides strong security features for safe development.
Tool Integration: Enhances functionality with diverse tool integration.

What benefits should users evaluate?

Development Speed: Accelerates processes through automation.
Collaboration Ease: Simplifies team interactions and workflow.
Customization Options: Offers extensive personalization for specific needs.
Comprehensive Documentation: Provides detailed guidance for users.
Secure Platform: Maintains integrity with robust security features.

In specific industries, GitLab serves as a backbone for source code management and CI/CD implementation. Companies leverage its capabilities for infrastructure management and deployment automation, thus streamlining project delivery timelines. Its ability to handle configuration management and code repositories effectively aids in maintaining development lifecycles, making it a preferred choice for organizations committed to enhancing their DevOps practices.

GitLab

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

1. NASA 2. IBM 3. Sony 4. Alibaba 5. CERN 6. Siemens 7. Volkswagen 8. ING 9. Ticketmaster 10. SpaceX 11. Adobe 12. Intuit 13. Autodesk 14. Rakuten 15. Unity Technologies 16. Pandora 17. Electronic Arts 18. Nordstrom 19. Verizon 20. Comcast 21. Philips 22. Deutsche Telekom 23. Orange 24. Fujitsu 25. Ericsson 26. Nokia 27. General Electric 28. Cisco 29. Accenture 30. Deloitte 31. PwC 32. KPMG

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GitLab

July 2025

Free Report: Buildkite vs. GitLab

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