Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CircleCI vs IBM Rational Build Forge comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 11, 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
13th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
AI Software Development (200th)
IBM Rational Build Forge
Ranking in Build Automation
23rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of CircleCI is 3.5%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Rational Build Forge is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CircleCI3.5%
IBM Rational Build Forge1.6%
Other94.9%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

RA
Global Head - DevOps and AIOps Startegist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Automated CI/CD pipelines have transformed deployment speed and collaboration for my teams
CircleCI offers fast parallel builds, easy integration with GitHub, and the ability to deploy applications on Kubernetes pods, which are amazing features. Fast parallel builds and GitHub integration have definitely helped my team reach faster time to market for our applications. Previously, our deployment used to take a couple of hours when doing it manually, but with CircleCI pipeline, our hours-long job has been converted to a couple of minutes. Its simplicity, fast pipeline execution, and strong GitHub and GitLab integrations are definitely unique advantages I discovered while using CircleCI. Time saved is one of the key aspects I have seen since using CircleCI. I have noticed fewer deployment errors, and it has helped me with easy debugging. Time saved is directly proportional to the cost and effort saved. CircleCI has positively impacted my organization by integrating directly with my Git repositories as a fully managed SaaS platform. CircleCI has a great impact on my team's collaboration and communication, with around 25 to 40 developers and DevOps engineers using it daily across multiple repositories and environments, helping us use it at scale. CircleCI has significantly increased our release frequency and deployment speed compared to before I started using it. CircleCI improves security for my organization by enforcing automated checks in the pipeline and securely managing secrets through environment variables while providing auditable deployments. CircleCI integrates seamlessly with my DevOps toolchain by connecting directly to GitHub, container registries, and my cloud platform AWS, allowing the entire CI/CD flow from code commit to deployment and monitoring with minimal manual effort.
it_user1330545 - PeerSpot reviewer
CRM Program Release Manager at Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center
Great reporting features and very functional
The solution could be more user friendly. Trying to train somebody on it can be difficult. If you're in this field, you kind of learn the tools, but trying to show a PM how to find report sheets to pull data was difficult. I had to show them how to write the queries and pull the data that they needed. It's not a layman's solution. If you're working with a programmer or with an architect, you won't have issues trying to relay how to utilize the tool. It was for those who cut the checks where there were problems enabling them to pull the data they required. I guess the answer is DevOps, but it depends on your environment. Just being able to sign into dashboards and get accurate results was my biggest thing with my PMs on my projects. They like charts and pie graphs, the ability to see things at a glance data where they could make decisions on the fly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"CircleCI has positively impacted the organization, as it has been used for many years and serves as the main source for application deployment."
"The automation workflow in CircleCI related to third-party applications is very good and allows standardization of applications."
"CircleCI has significantly reduced build and deployment times, saving substantial engineering hours and effort for me, which has directly improved my productivity and release velocity, reflecting incredible ROI."
"It's a stable product."
"CircleCI has positively impacted my organization by bringing in faster deployments, which means we can release faster, receive quicker feedback, and enhance collaboration and communication across the entire team."
"All features are useful. Our customer doesn't have any complaints about the tool. It works pretty well for what they want and what they need to do."
"Very good reporting features."
 

Cons

"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."
"I rated CircleCI six out of ten because I think they need more transparency in pricing, as there are instances of unclear network data transfer and storage costs related to caching and workspaces."
"The solution’s pricing could be better."
"I believe debugging complex pipelines and managing credits can sometimes be challenging, especially for large workflows, so these areas can be improved."
"A return on investment with CircleCI has not been observed, and no relevant metrics such as time saved or fewer employees needed can be shared."
"There needs to be some improvement in the user interface of CircleCI."
"Not user friendly for the layman."
"Its logging can be improved. When something goes wrong, it is not always very easy to find the problem. It is hard to identify whether the problem is because of low memory in the server or some configuration in Rational Build Forge. The error logs are not very detailed, and they should provide more information. It should also have more integration with third-party tools. It would be great to have more integration with third-party tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of CircleCI could be less expensive."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CircleCI?
There is not much experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing because that is managed by the legal team.
What needs improvement with CircleCI?
CircleCI's Orbs are not as easy to use as they could be. If CircleCI implemented a function approach similar to GitHub Actions, it would be significantly better. CircleCI could be improved if it co...
What advice do you have for others considering CircleCI?
For others looking into using CircleCI, study thoroughly about CircleCI's Orbs because they are quite complicated. The overall review rating for CircleCI is 6 out of 10.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Rational Build Forge
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shopify, Zenefits, Concur Technologies, CyberAgent
Cars.com
Find out what your peers are saying about CircleCI vs. IBM Rational Build Forge and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.