Github Actions vs Semaphore

Overview

Semaphore

Stacks190

Followers187

Votes83

GitHub Actions

Stacks48.2K

Followers3.1K

Votes27

Github Actions vs Semaphore: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Github Actions and Semaphore

Github Actions and Semaphore are both popular continuous integration and delivery platforms used for automating software workflows. While they share similarities in terms of providing automated workflows for software development, there are several key differences between the two platforms.

Integration with GitHub vs. Multi-platform support: One major difference between Github Actions and Semaphore is their integration capabilities. Github Actions is tightly integrated with GitHub and is primarily designed to work with repositories hosted on GitHub. On the other hand, Semaphore offers multi-platform support and can be used with repositories hosted on various version control systems, including GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab.
Configuration files: In terms of configuration, Github Actions uses a declarative YAML-based syntax for defining workflows and actions. This allows for easy and intuitive configuration, making it beginner-friendly. On the other hand, Semaphore uses a more traditional imperative approach, allowing users to configure their workflows using shell scripts and commands. This provides more flexibility and control, but may involve a steeper learning curve for beginners.
Environment and language support: Github Actions offers a wide range of pre-built environments and language support, including popular programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, and Java. It also allows users to define custom environments using Docker containers. Semaphore also provides a good range of pre-defined environments, but the options may not be as extensive as Github Actions. However, Semaphore allows users to create custom environments using VM images, which can be useful for specific project requirements.
Pricing and plans: When it comes to pricing, Github Actions provides a certain amount of free workflow minutes per month for public repositories, with additional minutes available for purchase. For private repositories, there is a separate pricing model based on the number of concurrent jobs. Semaphore offers a free tier for small projects with limited resources, and additional pricing plans based on the number of concurrent jobs and additional features.
Community and ecosystem: Github Actions has a large and active community, thanks to its integration with GitHub, which is one of the most widely used version control systems. This means that there are plenty of open-source actions and workflows available for developers to use and contribute to. Semaphore also has a community and ecosystem, but it may not be as extensive as Github Actions due to its multi-platform nature.
UI and user experience: Github Actions has a user-friendly interface, tightly integrated with the GitHub repository, which allows users to easily configure and visualize their workflows. It provides a visually intuitive way to set up and manage workflows, making it easier for users to understand and debug their pipelines. Semaphore also has a user-friendly UI, but since it supports multiple platforms, the interface may have a slightly different design and user experience.

In summary, Github Actions is tightly integrated with GitHub, uses a declarative configuration syntax, and has a wide-ranging community and pre-built environments. Semaphore, on the other hand, offers multi-platform support, uses an imperative configuration approach, provides flexibility in environment creation, and has pricing plans tailored to different project needs.

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Advice on Semaphore, GitHub Actions

Somnath

Engineering Leader at Altimetrik Corp.

Jun 25, 2020

Needs adviceon

CircleCI

Drone.io

GitHub Actions

I am in the process of evaluating CircleCI, Drone.io, and GitHub Actions to cover my #CI/ #CD needs. I would appreciate your advice on comparative study w.r.t. attributes like language-Inclusive support, code-base integration, performance, cost, maintenance, support, ease of use, ability to deal with big projects, etc. based on actual industry experience.

Thanks in advance!

1.82M views1.82M

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Detailed Comparison

Semaphore	GitHub Actions
Semaphore is the fastest continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) platform on the market, powering the world’s best engineering teams.	It makes it easy to automate all your software workflows, now with world-class CI/CD. Build, test, and deploy your code right from GitHub. Make code reviews, branch management, and issue triaging work the way you want.
Docker, Kubernetes, iOS support & 100+ preinstalled Tools;Customizable Continuous Delivery Pipelines;Customizable Stages, Parallel Execution and Control Flow Switches;Secrets and Dependency Management;Powerful Command Line Interface;Autoscale and Pay Only What you Use;Project Timeline Shows All Development Activities at a Glance;Dashboard Shows You All Projects That You Participate in;Seamless GitHub Integration - One Click To Add a Project;Automatically Test Your App After Every Change;New Branches are Added & Removed Automatically;Know If a Pull Request Is Good To Merge;Review Every Version in Branch History;Easily Run Your Tests in Parallel Threads;Projects are Autoconfigured for Testing;	Multiple workflow files support; Free and open source; Workflow run interface; Search for actions in GitHub Marketplace; Integrated with Github's Checks API; Logs and artifacts downloading support
Statistics
Stacks 190	Stacks 48.2K
Followers 187	Followers 3.1K
Votes 83	Votes 27
Pros & Cons
Pros 20 Easy setup 15 Fast builds 14 Free for private github repos 8 Great customer support 6 Free for open source	Pros 8 Integration with GitHub 5 Free 3 Ready actions in Marketplace 3 Easy to duplicate a workflow 2 Configs stored in .github Cons 5 Lacking [skip ci] 4 Lacking allow failure 3 Lacking job specific badges 2 No ssh login to servers 1 No manual launch
Integrations
GitHub Slack Heroku Docker Kubernetes	GitHub

What are some alternatives to Semaphore, GitHub Actions?

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.

Airflow

Use Airflow to author workflows as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) of tasks. The Airflow scheduler executes your tasks on an array of workers while following the specified dependencies. Rich command lines utilities makes performing complex surgeries on DAGs a snap. The rich user interface makes it easy to visualize pipelines running in production, monitor progress and troubleshoot issues when needed.

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.

Related Comparisons

Github Actions vs Semaphore: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Github Actions and Semaphore

Integration with GitHub vs. Multi-platform support: One major difference between Github Actions and Semaphore is their integration capabilities. Github Actions is tightly integrated with GitHub and is primarily designed to work with repositories hosted on GitHub. On the other hand, Semaphore offers multi-platform support and can be used with repositories hosted on various version control systems, including GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab.
Configuration files: In terms of configuration, Github Actions uses a declarative YAML-based syntax for defining workflows and actions. This allows for easy and intuitive configuration, making it beginner-friendly. On the other hand, Semaphore uses a more traditional imperative approach, allowing users to configure their workflows using shell scripts and commands. This provides more flexibility and control, but may involve a steeper learning curve for beginners.
Environment and language support: Github Actions offers a wide range of pre-built environments and language support, including popular programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, and Java. It also allows users to define custom environments using Docker containers. Semaphore also provides a good range of pre-defined environments, but the options may not be as extensive as Github Actions. However, Semaphore allows users to create custom environments using VM images, which can be useful for specific project requirements.
Pricing and plans: When it comes to pricing, Github Actions provides a certain amount of free workflow minutes per month for public repositories, with additional minutes available for purchase. For private repositories, there is a separate pricing model based on the number of concurrent jobs. Semaphore offers a free tier for small projects with limited resources, and additional pricing plans based on the number of concurrent jobs and additional features.
Community and ecosystem: Github Actions has a large and active community, thanks to its integration with GitHub, which is one of the most widely used version control systems. This means that there are plenty of open-source actions and workflows available for developers to use and contribute to. Semaphore also has a community and ecosystem, but it may not be as extensive as Github Actions due to its multi-platform nature.
UI and user experience: Github Actions has a user-friendly interface, tightly integrated with the GitHub repository, which allows users to easily configure and visualize their workflows. It provides a visually intuitive way to set up and manage workflows, making it easier for users to understand and debug their pipelines. Semaphore also has a user-friendly UI, but since it supports multiple platforms, the interface may have a slightly different design and user experience.

Github Actions vs Semaphore

Overview

Github Actions vs Semaphore: What are the differences?