Overview

Buildkite

Stacks210

Followers231

Votes115

GitLab CI

Stacks2.3K

Followers1.6K

Votes75

GitHub Stars0

Forks0

Buildkite vs GitLab CI: What are the differences?

Introduction

Here, we will discuss the key differences between Buildkite and GitLab CI. Buildkite and GitLab CI are both popular continuous integration (CI) tools used in software development. While they share some similarities, there are several important differences that set them apart.

Integration with GitLab repositories: Buildkite can integrate with GitLab repositories, but it is not limited to GitLab. It can also integrate with other version control systems like GitHub or Bitbucket. GitLab CI, on the other hand, is tightly integrated with GitLab, making it a seamless choice for GitLab users who want to keep their development process within the GitLab ecosystem.
Pipeline Configuration: Buildkite uses a YAML-based configuration file called "pipeline.yml" to define the CI/CD pipelines. The configuration allows a flexible and customizable approach. GitLab CI also uses a YAML-based configuration file called ".gitlab-ci.yml". However, GitLab CI provides a set of predefined keywords and configurations that make it easier to set up CI/CD pipelines without requiring extensive YAML knowledge.
Scalability and Parallelism: Buildkite offers excellent scalability and parallelism capabilities. It allows users to split their jobs across multiple agents and run them in parallel, making it suitable for large-scale CI/CD workflows. GitLab CI also supports parallelism but may have limitations depending on the GitLab instance and licensing.
User Interface and Usability: GitLab CI is tightly integrated into the GitLab platform, providing a unified user interface (UI) for managing repositories, issues, merge requests, and CI/CD pipelines. On the other hand, Buildkite provides a separate web interface dedicated solely to managing CI/CD pipelines. This separation allows Buildkite to have a more focused and streamlined UI for CI/CD workflows.
Community Support: GitLab CI has a large and active community behind it due to the popularity of the GitLab platform. Users can find extensive documentation, forums, and resources for troubleshooting and getting help with GitLab CI. Buildkite also has a supportive community, but it may not have the same breadth and depth of resources as GitLab CI.
Pricing and Deployment: Buildkite offers a hosted SaaS solution, as well as self-hosted options for on-premise deployment. It has a pricing model based on the number of concurrent build agents used. GitLab CI, on the other hand, is part of the GitLab platform, which offers a variety of deployment options, including a free self-hosted Community Edition and a paid self-hosted Enterprise Edition. The pricing for GitLab CI is typically based on the GitLab license chosen.

In summary, Buildkite and GitLab CI differ in their integration capabilities, pipeline configuration approaches, scalability, user interfaces, community support, and pricing/deployment options. The choice between the two will depend on specific requirements and preferences of the development team.

🔥 Trending in Continuous Integration on StackShare

Everdone Continuous Integration

Everdone

Try it View Docs Alternatives

Try

0

1

Advice on Buildkite, GitLab CI

Stratos

Jan 13, 2020

Needs advice

We are a mid-size startup running Scala apps. Moving from Jenkins/EC2 to Spinnaker/EKS and looking for a tool to cover our CI/CD needs. Our code lives on GitHub, artifacts in nexus, images in ECR.

Drone is out, GitHub actions are being considered along with Circle CI and GitLab CI.

We primarily need:

Fast SBT builds (caching)
Low maintenance overhead (ideally serverless)
Everything as code

Ease of use

181k views181k

Comments

Anonymous

Feb 14, 2020

Decided

Buddy is one of the most easy-to-use tools for CI I ever met. When I needed to set up the pipeline I was really impressed with how easy it is to create it with Buddy with only a few moments. It's literally like:

Add repo
Click - Click - Click
You're done and your app is on prod :D The top feature that I've found is a simple integration with different notification channels - not only Slack (which is the one by default), but Telegram and Discord. The support is also neat - guys respond pretty quickly on even a small issue.

157k views157k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Buildkite	GitLab CI
CI and build automation tool that combines the power of your own build infrastructure with the convenience of a managed, centralized web UI. Used by Shopify, Basecamp, Digital Ocean, Venmo, Cochlear, Bugsnag and more.	GitLab offers a continuous integration service. If you add a .gitlab-ci.yml file to the root directory of your repository, and configure your GitLab project to use a Runner, then each merge request or push triggers your CI pipeline.
Fast and stable builds; Open source agent runs on almost any machine and architecture; Freedom to use your own internal or pre-release tools and services; Powerful distributed build tools; Key/value targeting of agents; Dynamic job allocation allows adding and removing build machines; Shared key/value and binary artifact stores for easily distributing build jobs regardless of machine or network; Integration with pull requests, deployments and releases; GitHub, Github Enterprise, Bitbucket, Gitlab or your own SCM; Slack, Hipchat, Webhooks, and LIFX notifications; Extensible per-project with agent hooks, webhooks and the rest API; GitHub Enterprise is supported standard; SSO	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 0
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 0
Stacks 210	Stacks 2.3K
Followers 231	Followers 1.6K
Votes 115	Votes 75
Pros & Cons
Pros 18 Great customer support 17 Github integration 16 Easy to use 16 Easy setup 12 Simplicity	Pros 22 Robust CI with awesome Docker support 13 Simple configuration 9 All in one solution 7 Source Control and CI in one place 5 Integrated with VCS on commit Cons 2 Works best with GitLab repositories
Integrations
Slack GitHub Docker GitLab Heroku HipChat Bitbucket Git GitHub Enterprise TestFlight	GitLab

What are some alternatives to Buildkite, GitLab CI?

Jenkins

In a nutshell Jenkins CI is the leading open-source continuous integration server. Built with Java, it provides over 300 plugins to support building and testing virtually any project.

Travis CI

Free for open source projects, our CI environment provides multiple runtimes (e.g. Node.js or PHP versions), data stores and so on. Because of this, hosting your project on travis-ci.com means you can effortlessly test your library or applications against multiple runtimes and data stores without even having all of them installed locally.

Codeship

Codeship runs your automated tests and configured deployment when you push to your repository. It takes care of managing and scaling the infrastructure so that you are able to test and release more frequently and get faster feedback for building the product your users need.

CircleCI

Continuous integration and delivery platform helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Offers a modern software development platform that lets teams ramp.

TeamCity

TeamCity is a user-friendly continuous integration (CI) server for professional developers, build engineers, and DevOps. It is trivial to setup and absolutely free for small teams and open source projects.

Drone.io

Drone is a hosted continuous integration service. It enables you to conveniently set up projects to automatically build, test, and deploy as you make changes to your code. Drone integrates seamlessly with Github, Bitbucket and Google Code as well as third party services such as Heroku, Dotcloud, Google AppEngine and more.

wercker

Wercker is a CI/CD developer automation platform designed for Microservices & Container Architecture.

GoCD

GoCD is an open source continuous delivery server created by ThoughtWorks. GoCD offers business a first-class build and deployment engine for complete control and visibility.

Shippable

Shippable is a SaaS platform that lets you easily add Continuous Integration/Deployment to your Github and BitBucket repositories. It is lightweight, super simple to setup, and runs your builds and tests faster than any other service.

Snap CI

Snap CI is a cloud-based continuous integration & continuous deployment tool with powerful deployment pipelines. Integrates seamlessly with GitHub and provides fast feedback so you can deploy with ease.