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CircleCI vs GitHub Actions comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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

CircleCI
Ranking in Build Automation
14th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitHub Actions
Ranking in Build Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of CircleCI is 3.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitHub Actions is 10.1%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
GitHub Actions10.1%
CircleCI3.3%
Other86.6%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer0972521 - PeerSpot reviewer
Unhelpful support, unclear billing, and has offers ability to track usage
We've had occasional connectivity issues with cloud resources and build failure due to its own internal system setup and environment. That costs us credits. Support engineers do not thoroughly read and understand issues when emailing them. They reply to me with a totally different context about the problem. Just yesterday, my web applications failed to 'yarn build' after I downgraded the resource class from extr-large to large. I contacted support and got no reply. Billing is a mess. There is duplicate information in the bill downloaded from their website and when I asked for a consolidated bill, they just answered that they didn't have it. There is no transparency on how many billed minutes and credits I spent each day both on their website and the monthly bill which makes it difficult to understand when the monthly bill contains many refill item charges. It is difficult or impossible to track usage and burndown of my subscription and to gain total outstanding refill amounts on a daily basis. Their website doesn't provide sufficient information on credits allocated/calculated for my extra-large resource class.
MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration with various environments and cloud providers enhances automation
I use GitHub Actions for CI/CD pipelines. I automate infrastructure, deployment, and all processes. Most companies use CI/CD pipelines, and GitHub Actions is one of the tools available for this purpose The most valuable feature of GitHub Actions is that it is completely free. It can be integrated…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The automation workflow in CircleCI related to third-party applications is very good and allows standardization of applications."
"Some of the most valuable features include container-based builds, integration with Bit Bucket and being able to store artifacts."
"Enables us to detect exactly which build failed and why, and to push multiple builds to our production environment at a very fast rate."
"The ability to automate the build process in a seamless way and run workflows effortlessly. It supports parallel builds so it can scale well. Also, it covers the basics of any build and integration tool, including email notifications (especially when tests are fixed), project insights, etc."
"The solution offers continuous integration and continuous delivery."
"It's a stable product."
"I am familiar with the entire life cycle of the product."
"It is user-friendly, with clear and organized processes, making it easy to navigate and work with."
"It is easy to use, especially if you are accustomed to using GitHub."
"GitHub Actions is a beautiful tool that integrates smoothly with all major tools, reducing CI/CD work by 30% to 40%."
"The main benefit is collaboration. It allows us to easily collaborate with other developers, regardless of location. For example, we can collaborate with both our African and German colleagues seamlessly. It's platform-agnostic, so it is flexible and not tied to any OS, so we can work on Linux, Windows, web, and even Oracle applications. It's flexible, reliable, and overall an excellent tool for our needs."
"The most valuable features of GitHub Actions include its seamless integration within GitHub, which simplifies the CI/CD pipeline setup. The scalability of using different types of runners—both public and private runners—enhances deployment flexibility."
"It is a very stable solution as we have not faced any issues."
"We can trigger files manually or automate processes."
 

Cons

"The solution’s pricing could be better."
"There needs to be some improvement in the user interface of CircleCI."
"Billing is a mess."
"Integration with Microsoft Azure is one area for improvement. Azure is growing in its user base, and supports various cloud infrastructure components such as Service Fabric, App Service, etc. Some of Azure’s deployment models (like Kudu) require a steep learning curve, but if CircleCI would come up with such features (deployment to App Service) out of the box, it would be amazing."
"There is a part that detects outdated libraries. If that feature could be more intuitive and informative, that would be nice."
"Sometimes incremental steps should be taken during deployment instead of trying to execute all tasks simultaneously, particularly when dealing with AWS EKS clusters and Helm charts."
"The solution's integration capabilities and UI are areas of concern where improvement is required to make the product more user-friendly."
"We still use Jenkins for some tasks, which suggests there may be areas for improvement in GitHub Actions."
"There could be more integration options with different platforms."
"In our company, procedures or rules need to be completed, which is not a problem with GitHub Actions but with our process."
"My company would want to see some AI features in the tool as it can add value to the product."
"The only issue I have faced is with authorization, particularly when configuring the GitHub token correctly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of CircleCI could be less expensive."
"For our basic usage, we didn't have to pay."
"Regarding cost, as an enterprise, we negotiate our license and expenses, so I can't provide a specific rating for that."
"The cost for GitHub Actions may be around $45 dollars per user."
"The product is slightly more expensive than some alternatives."
"Price-wise, GitHub Actions is okay. If I want to use the product's advanced features, then I need to pay the licensing charges for the solution."
"The tool's price is okay and reasonable."
"It's low-priced. Not high, but definitely low."
"It is free and open platform, so I would rate it 1 out of 10."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CircleCI?
The solution offers continuous integration and continuous delivery.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CircleCI?
Beware of skyrocketing bills as CircleCI does not provide transparency into how they charge refills. Their monthly billing statement is almost unreadable and their online dashboard doesn't provide ...
What needs improvement with CircleCI?
We've had occasional connectivity issues with cloud resources and build failure due to its own internal system setup and environment. That costs us credits. Support engineers do not thoroughly read...
What do you like most about GitHub Actions?
I have optimized job execution time by running test scripts in parallel and creating multiple pipelines; we've significantly reduced execution times. What could take 50 minutes can be cut down to j...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitHub Actions?
I would rate pricing a seven, which leans toward the expensive side. However, there is still value for money, and that's why we continue using it.
What needs improvement with GitHub Actions?
Frankly, I cannot imagine something that could be improved in GitHub Actions; there's a lot of capabilities, and the feature set is more advanced than we use. The pricing is high for the advanced s...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shopify, Zenefits, Concur Technologies, CyberAgent
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about CircleCI vs. GitHub Actions and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.