CI/CD platform comparison 2026
./compare --side-by-side
Six major CI/CD platforms, three team sizes, one honest comparison. We're not selling any of them, so the numbers and recommendations follow the use case rather than the highest-margin product.
Pricing matrix / per-minute Linux
| Platform | Free tier | Seat | Linux rate | macOS | Self-host | Best at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | 2K mins / 500 MB | $4-21 | $0.010/min | $0.082/min | Free | GitHub repos |
| GitLab CI | 400 mins | $29-99 | $0.010/min | ~$0.08/min | Free | All-in-one stack |
| CircleCI | 6K credits | $15 | $0.006/min med | $0.030/min | Free | Flexible resources |
| Bitbucket Pipelines | 3.5K mins | $6 | $0.010/min | n/a hosted | Free | Atlassian shops |
| Buildkite | 5 users / 3 agents | $15 | BYO compute | BYO compute | Native | High-volume / GPU |
| Jenkins | Unlimited (self-hosted) | $0 | BYO compute | BYO Mac | Native | Compliance / scale |
Total monthly cost / three team sizes
Numbers below assume Linux-only builds, 21 working days, average 8 minute build time, and consistent throughput. Self-hosted estimates include cloud compute and a typical operator-time allowance.
| Platform | 5 devs / 30 builds-day | 20 devs / 120 builds-day | 50 devs / 350 builds-day |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions Team | ~$40 | ~$255 | ~$905 |
| GitLab Premium | ~$145 | ~$580 | ~$1,450 |
| CircleCI Performance | ~$75 | ~$300 | ~$750 |
| Bitbucket Premium | ~$30 | ~$300 | ~$1,000 |
| Buildkite Pro | ~$165 | ~$860 | ~$2,150 |
| Jenkins (self-hosted) | ~$430 | ~$830 | ~$1,800 |
# Green = best in row. Numbers are guides, not quotes; run your actual figures through the calculator.
Recommendations by use case
Solo dev / OSS
GitHub Actions Free
2,000 Linux mins is plenty for most personal projects. Free GitHub seats, no contract.
5-person startup, GitHub repos
GitHub Actions Team
Cheapest seat fee, included minutes cover early-stage volume, easiest setup.
Atlassian-stack team (Jira, Confluence)
Bitbucket Pipelines Premium
$6/user is hard to beat when you're already paying for Jira. Tight integration.
Mid-size product team, polyglot stack
GitLab Premium
10K included mins per user often makes it cheaper than rivals once usage is real. Source control + CI/CD in one.
iOS / macOS heavy team
Self-hosted Buildkite or CircleCI
Owning the Mac fleet beats per-minute macOS rates fast. Buildkite's BYO model fits naturally.
Regulated / on-prem only
Self-hosted Jenkins or GitLab CE
Full control of where code runs and where artifacts live. Higher operator cost in exchange.
High-volume (>50K mins / mo)
Buildkite Pro or self-hosted
Per-minute pricing breaks down at this scale. Per-user models or self-hosted infra win.
Enterprise (200+ devs)
Custom contract with anyone
Prepaid minute pools, multi-year discounts, and SAML SSO all on the table. Don't pay list.
Run your own numbers
The interactive calculator on the homepage takes your team size, builds per day, average build minutes, parallelism, and runner OS, and returns a side-by-side cost across all six platforms in real time.
Frequently Asked Questions
# click any question to expand
Which CI/CD platform is cheapest for a 5-person team?>
GitHub Actions Team plan at around $20-100/month is usually cheapest for 5-person teams. The free 3,000 Linux minutes per month covers most small-team workloads, and the seat fee is just $4 per user. Bitbucket Pipelines Premium ($6/user) is comparable for Atlassian-stack shops. Skip GitLab Premium and CircleCI Performance unless you have specific feature needs at this scale.
Which is cheapest for 50+ developers?>
Buildkite Pro or self-hosted Jenkins typically wins at 50+ devs because per-minute pricing on hosted platforms compounds. Buildkite at $15 per user with your own compute lands around $2,000/month all-in for 50 devs. GitHub Actions or GitLab CI at the same scale usually hit $1,500-3,000 just in build minutes once macOS or large runners are in the mix.
What's the most full-featured CI/CD platform?>
GitLab Ultimate is the most feature-complete out of the box: SAST, DAST, dependency scanning, license compliance, value-stream analytics, and merge approvals all built in. The trade-off is the per-user price. GitHub Actions plus GitHub Advanced Security gets you to feature parity but Advanced Security is sold separately at significant cost.
Which platform has the best macOS support?>
Pure macOS pricing is similar everywhere ($0.08/min on GitHub Actions, equivalent on GitLab and CircleCI). For self-hosted Mac fleets, Buildkite is the most popular choice because the agent model fits running a Mac mini cluster naturally. CircleCI has decent self-hosted Mac support too. Avoid Bitbucket Pipelines for iOS-heavy work; it doesn't offer native macOS runners.
Should I prefer hosted or self-hosted?>
Hosted CI/CD is the right default for teams under 20 developers because the engineering time to operate self-hosted exceeds the per-minute fees. Above 50 developers or 50,000 monthly build minutes, self-hosted (or a hybrid model) almost always wins on cost. Between 20 and 50 developers it's situational. Hybrid (hosted for PR checks, self-hosted for big nightly jobs) is often the sweet spot.
How does enterprise pricing actually work?>
All major CI/CD platforms negotiate at scale. Typical enterprise discounts range from 10-30% off list price at six-figure ARR commitments. Volume seats, multi-year terms, and prepaid minute pools are the most common levers. Free trial credits and dedicated solution-architect access are standard at these scales. Don't pay list price if you're spending more than $50K/year.