Buildkite vs GitLab comparison

Buildkite and GitLab are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Buildkite is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.2, while GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Buildkite holds a 1.4% mindshare in BA, compared to GitLab’s 15.0% 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

344 Views
135 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

GitLab

Read 85 GitLab reviews

5,016 Views
4,048 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Buildkite

GitLab

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GitLab

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 860,592 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

GitLab

Ranking in Build Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Buildkite is 1.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 15.0%, down from 18.0% 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.

Read full review

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements

The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab ( /products/gitlab-reviews ) 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.

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

"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."

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

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

"It is a stable solution."

"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 product's initial setup phase was easy."

"The documentation is quite helpful."

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

More Buildkite pros

"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."

"The important feature is the entire process of versioning source code maintenance and easy deployment. It is a necessity for the CI/CD pipeline."

"GitLab's best features are maintenance, branch integration, and development infrastructure."

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

"We like that we can create branches and then the branches can be reviewed and you can mesh those branches back. You can independently work with your own branch, you don't need to really control the core of other people."

"The solution's service delivery model is fantastic."

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

"The solution's most valuable features are pipelines."

More GitLab pros

Cons

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

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

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

"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."

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

"The product must provide better integration with other tools."

"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

"I would like configuration of a YML file to be done via UI rather than a code file."

"The only thing our company is really waiting on in terms of features is the development of metrics."

"I rate the support from GitLab a four out of five."

"The integration and storage capabilities could be better."

"The solution should be more cloud-native and have more cloud-native capabilities and features."

"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."

"As GitLab is not perfect, what needs improvement in the solution is the Wiki feature of the groups or the repertories because currently, it's not searchable by default. You'll need an indexing service such as Elasticsearch to make it searchable, and that requires too much work, so for me, it's the main feature that should be improved in GitLab. In the next version of the solution, from the top of my head, the documentation could be improved. Besides the Wiki, it would be good if there's documentation that would be automatically generated based on the code repository. In other words, there should be some tutorials from GitLab for developers in the next release."

"It should be used by a larger number of people. They should raise awareness."

More GitLab cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We used the solution’s free version."

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

"The self-hosted option is pretty cheap."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."

"In terms of the pricing for GitLab, on a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being cheap, I'm rating pricing for the solution a four. It could still be cheaper because right now, my company has a small team, and sometimes it's difficult to use a paid product for a small team. You'd hope the team will grow and scale, but currently, you're paying a high license fee for a small team. I'm referring to the GitLab license that has premium features and will give you all features. This can be a problem for management to approve the high price of the license for a team this small."

"This product is not very expensive but the price can be better."

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

"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."

"GitLab is an open-source solution."

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

"We are using the open-source version."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

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

860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

12%

Government

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...

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 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?

One significant feature we lack is the configuration that enforces code reviews, which simplifies the development life cycle. Unfortunately, this is available only at a higher license level than we...

See all answers

Comparisons

GitHub Actions vs Buildkite

Compared 36% of the time

Tekton vs Buildkite

Compared 16% of the time

Harness 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 24% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 16% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 6% 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

June 2025

Download Buildkite product report

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

June 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 is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

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

June 2025

Free Report: Buildkite vs. GitLab

Find out what your peers are saying about Buildkite vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Buildkite vs. GitLab 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.