GitHub Actions vs LayerCI

Overview

GitHub Actions

Stacks48.2K

Followers3.1K

Votes27

LayerCI

Stacks4

Followers17

Votes0

GitHub Actions vs LayerCI: What are the differences?

Introduction

In the context of continuous integration and deployment, GitHub Actions and LayerCI are two popular tools that provide automation and workflow capabilities. While both tools share similarities in terms of allowing developers to automate tasks, there are key differences that set them apart.

Integration with GitHub: One of the main differences between GitHub Actions and LayerCI lies in their integration with GitHub. GitHub Actions is seamlessly integrated with GitHub, allowing users to easily define workflows and automate tasks directly within the GitHub repository. On the other hand, LayerCI can be used with any Git provider, not limited to GitHub. This flexibility allows developers to leverage LayerCI's automation capabilities regardless of the host platform.
Workflow Definition: GitHub Actions uses a YAML-based syntax for defining workflows. Developers can create workflows by specifying events that trigger certain actions, defining the sequence of steps, and configuring various settings. LayerCI, on the other hand, provides a programming language-agnostic approach to automation. It offers a Docker-based runtime and allows developers to write custom scripts using their preferred programming language. This flexibility in workflow definition enables developers to have more control over the automation process.
Testing and Review Staging Environments: LayerCI places a strong emphasis on creating disposable and ephemeral environments for testing and reviewing code changes. It allows developers to easily create isolated staging environments, run tests, and perform code reviews before merging changes into the main branch. GitHub Actions, while it supports testing and code review workflows, does not provide the same level of isolation and flexibility in creating disposable environments.
Third-Party Integrations: GitHub Actions offers a wide range of built-in integrations with various tools and services commonly used in the software development lifecycle. This makes it easier for developers to incorporate other tools into their workflows, such as hosting deployments, notifications, and issue tracking. LayerCI, on the other hand, does not have as many built-in integrations but does provide an API that allows developers to create their own custom integrations.
Pricing Model: GitHub Actions offers a free tier that includes a certain number of workflow minutes per month, with additional minutes available at a cost. For enterprises or teams with more demanding needs, GitHub Actions also provides a paid plan with more generous resource allocation. LayerCI, on the other hand, offers a free tier and a paid plan based on usage. Pricing is determined by the number of parallel tests or deployments running at any given time, allowing users to scale their usage based on their specific requirements.
Visibility and Collaboration: GitHub Actions provides a high level of visibility and collaboration within a GitHub repository. It allows multiple developers to contribute to workflows, review changes, and provide feedback through the pull request process. LayerCI, while it supports collaboration to some extent, does not have the same level of visibility and collaboration features as GitHub Actions.

In summary, the key differences between GitHub Actions and LayerCI lie in their integration with GitHub, workflow definition, testing and review staging environments, third-party integrations, pricing model, and visibility and collaboration features. While GitHub Actions offers seamless integration with GitHub, LayerCI provides a more flexible approach to workflow definition and emphasizes disposable environments for testing and code reviews. Additionally, GitHub Actions offers a wider range of built-in integrations, whereas LayerCI provides a more customizability through its API.

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Advice on GitHub Actions, LayerCI

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

Comments

Detailed Comparison

GitHub Actions	LayerCI
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.	Turn your CI pipelines into instant demo environments per commit.We take memory snapshots of your CI pipelines to turn them into hyper-efficient lambdas & demo environments.
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	Start your whole stack in seconds; Automatic demo environments; Speed without needing Docker; Get speed without unnecessary complexity; A web-based terminal for every CI pipeline; Evaluate website changes faster than ever
Statistics
Stacks 48.2K	Stacks 4
Followers 3.1K	Followers 17
Votes 27	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 8 Integration with GitHub 5 Free 3 Easy to duplicate a workflow 3 Ready actions in Marketplace 2 Read actions in Marketplace Cons 5 Lacking [skip ci] 4 Lacking allow failure 3 Lacking job specific badges 2 No ssh login to servers 1 No manual launch	No community feedback yet
Integrations
GitHub	GitHub

What are some alternatives to GitHub Actions, LayerCI?

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 LayerCI: What are the differences?

Introduction

Integration with GitHub: One of the main differences between GitHub Actions and LayerCI lies in their integration with GitHub. GitHub Actions is seamlessly integrated with GitHub, allowing users to easily define workflows and automate tasks directly within the GitHub repository. On the other hand, LayerCI can be used with any Git provider, not limited to GitHub. This flexibility allows developers to leverage LayerCI's automation capabilities regardless of the host platform.
Workflow Definition: GitHub Actions uses a YAML-based syntax for defining workflows. Developers can create workflows by specifying events that trigger certain actions, defining the sequence of steps, and configuring various settings. LayerCI, on the other hand, provides a programming language-agnostic approach to automation. It offers a Docker-based runtime and allows developers to write custom scripts using their preferred programming language. This flexibility in workflow definition enables developers to have more control over the automation process.
Testing and Review Staging Environments: LayerCI places a strong emphasis on creating disposable and ephemeral environments for testing and reviewing code changes. It allows developers to easily create isolated staging environments, run tests, and perform code reviews before merging changes into the main branch. GitHub Actions, while it supports testing and code review workflows, does not provide the same level of isolation and flexibility in creating disposable environments.
Third-Party Integrations: GitHub Actions offers a wide range of built-in integrations with various tools and services commonly used in the software development lifecycle. This makes it easier for developers to incorporate other tools into their workflows, such as hosting deployments, notifications, and issue tracking. LayerCI, on the other hand, does not have as many built-in integrations but does provide an API that allows developers to create their own custom integrations.
Pricing Model: GitHub Actions offers a free tier that includes a certain number of workflow minutes per month, with additional minutes available at a cost. For enterprises or teams with more demanding needs, GitHub Actions also provides a paid plan with more generous resource allocation. LayerCI, on the other hand, offers a free tier and a paid plan based on usage. Pricing is determined by the number of parallel tests or deployments running at any given time, allowing users to scale their usage based on their specific requirements.
Visibility and Collaboration: GitHub Actions provides a high level of visibility and collaboration within a GitHub repository. It allows multiple developers to contribute to workflows, review changes, and provide feedback through the pull request process. LayerCI, while it supports collaboration to some extent, does not have the same level of visibility and collaboration features as GitHub Actions.

GitHub Actions vs LayerCI

Overview