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 8.3. Buildkite holds a 2.2% mindshare in BA, compared to GitLab’s 12.2% 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

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514 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

GitLab

Read 86 GitLab reviews

18,203 Views
4,187 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Buildkite

GitLab

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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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GitLab

September 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

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

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (11th), 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 (3rd), DevSecOps (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Buildkite is 2.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 12.2%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
GitLab	12.2%
Buildkite	2.2%
Other	85.6%

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Zhi Fei Lee

Senior Software Engineer at Seek

A flexible and easy-to-use solution with documentation for CI/CD

I haven't used any other CI/CD platform before this, except for GitLab CI/CD, which I only used at a surface level. We would write some build steps and deploy them as soon as the tests were done. I'm unsure if GitLab has the same capabilities as Buildkite, particularly the step configuration feature that allows you to customize and control the move from one stage to the next (dev to staging, staging to production). I find this feature in Buildkite very easy to integrate and use. If you're considering using the solution for the first time, I suggest starting with GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions. Buildkite might be overkill for smaller projects or individual use. It's usually more expensive for new users but can be cost-effective for large-scale organizations. I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.

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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.

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"It is a stable solution."

"Buildkite makes it easier to conduct deployment. When I merge a PR in Buildkite, it automatically starts the deployment process. It used to be challenging to shift code from the development branch to the testing branch because I had to follow up with multiple developers. Previously, I was dependent on the DevOps team and developers to handle deployments, but now it allows me to deploy the solutions myself.This has made it much easier for me to handle both non-production and production environments."

More Buildkite pros

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

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

"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."

"It is very flexible and easy because you can store data on cloud."

"The merging feature makes it easy later on for the deployment."

"The most valuable features of GitLab are the review, patch repo, and plans are in YAML."

"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."

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

More GitLab pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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 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."

More Buildkite cons

"It has fewer options, and its UI is not so user-friendly."

"We would like to generate document pages from the sources."

"It would be better if there weren't any outages. There are occasions where we usually see a lot of outages using GitLab. It happens at least once a week or something like that. Whatever pipelines you're running, to check the logs, you need to have a different set of tools like Argus or something like that. If you have pipelines running on GitLab, you need a separate service deployed to view the logs, which is kind of a pain. If the logs can be used conveniently on GitLab, that would be definitely helpful. I'm not talking about the CI/CD pipelines but the back-end services and microservices deployed over GitLab. To view the logs for those microservices, you need to have separate log viewers, which is kind of a pain."

"In the next release, I would like to see GitLab expand its integration capabilities to include platforms like DigitalOcean, which developers widely use for cloud infrastructure. Enhancing CI/CD automation features specifically tailored for DigitalOcean would be beneficial."

"It would be really good if they integrated more features in application security."

"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."

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

"The pricing has been substantially increased, which is a major concern."

More GitLab cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We used the solution’s free version."

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

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

"The self-hosted option is pretty cheap."

"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 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."

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."

"Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value."

"The solution's pricing is acceptable."

"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."

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

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

"The solution is free."

"The price of GitLab could be better, it is 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

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	35
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	42

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?

We are currently using general GitLab, not GitLab Premium.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

GitLab needs to improve the CI/CD functionality because it is not compatible with Jenkins and other tools, as it is not that efficient. Security-wise, we have security features enabled in GitLab fo...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 36% of the time

Harness vs Buildkite

Compared 15% of the time

Tekton vs Buildkite

Compared 14% of the time

Nx vs Buildkite

Compared 12% of the time

JFrog Pipeline vs Buildkite

Compared 10% of the time

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Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 38% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 12% of the time

TeamCity vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

GitLab

September 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

September 2025

Free Report: Buildkite vs. GitLab

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