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GNU Make vs GitHub Actions comparison

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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

GitHub Actions
Ranking in Build Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GNU Make
Ranking in Build Automation
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitHub Actions is 7.0%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GNU Make is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitHub Actions7.0%
GNU Make1.7%
Other91.3%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Bharadwaj Deepak Mohapatra - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at ENTERPRISE SYSTEM SOLUTIONS LIMITED
Has supported repository management and demonstrates potential in workflow flexibility
While GitHub Actions offers a range of functionalities, it is newer compared to more established tools such as Jenkins and Azure DevOps. There is still room for improvement, especially in areas concerning deeper capabilities akin to those provided by Jenkins and Azure DevOps. Given the evolving nature of technology, there are potential improvements GitHub Actions can focus on, including enhancing support and reliability to match its competitors.
JC
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Enhances productivity with efficient dependency handling and a straightforward setup
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for tasks like compiling C++ code. In the industry, AI developers, for example, use GNU Make in their work…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I am familiar with the entire life cycle of the product."
"Creating workflows in YAML format is straightforward and easy to comprehend. This includes both understanding and writing workflows. Additionally, the downloading aspect for third-party instances can also be easily done. It's worth noting that vulnerability analysis and similar tasks should be part of our automation through data workflows. Furthermore, we can break down our processes step by step, starting from building, then moving on to analysis, testing, and finally deploying in production and the clear environment. All of these tasks can be efficiently managed within this platform."
"The product's most beneficial feature is the ability to create workflows within the solution."
"It is a very stable solution as we have not faced any issues."
"The most valuable feature of GitHub Actions is the ability to automate various tasks, such as backups and deployments, to ease the development workflow."
"It offers numerous built-in features for pipeline management, release management, and even work item tracking on boards, which makes it a versatile tool that seamlessly integrates with hardware and facilitates optimization."
"It saves a lot of time with GitHub Actions; especially, the whole process if done manually might cost us a lot, maybe a week or two weeks just for deployment, but now with automation, we automate the deployment effectively."
"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."
"I think this product has all you need."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"Full-featured syntax allows building strategies as simple or as complex as one wishes, and declarative approach fits the task really well. Wide adoption also means that everybody knows what GNU Make is and how to use it."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it. Not having it, developers would probably have to resort to doing everything manually or via shell scripts."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
 

Cons

"There is a part that detects outdated libraries. If that feature could be more intuitive and informative, that would be nice."
"There could be more integration options with different platforms."
"The primary area for improvement I see is in artifact management, especially for saving screenshots or videos from failed tests or data-driven actions. Currently, the configuration for saving these artifacts is complex."
"Improvements could be made in terms of time-saving capabilities and resolving potential complexities in centralized workflows."
"While GitHub Actions offers a range of functionalities, it is newer compared to more established tools such as Jenkins and Azure DevOps. There is still room for improvement, especially in areas concerning deeper capabilities akin to those provided by Jenkins and Azure DevOps."
"GitHub sometimes makes it difficult to debug actions."
"The solution's integration capabilities and UI are areas of concern where improvement is required to make the product more user-friendly."
"The main challenge I've experienced is with integration, particularly uploading to OneDrive, which was more complex compared to Google Drive or AWS S3 bucket."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."
"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"GNU Make requires using the Tab symbol as the first symbol of command line for execution. In some text editors this can be problematic, as they automatically insert spaces instead of tabs."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost for GitHub Actions may be around $45 dollars per user."
"The product is slightly more expensive than some alternatives."
"The tool's price is okay and reasonable."
"Regarding cost, as an enterprise, we negotiate our license and expenses, so I can't provide a specific rating for that."
"It's low-priced. Not high, but definitely low."
"It is free and open platform, so I would rate it 1 out of 10."
"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."
"For our basic usage, we didn't have to pay."
"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."
"GNU Make is free and open source software."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
While GitHub Actions offers a range of functionalities, it is newer compared to more established tools such as Jenkins and Azure DevOps. There is still room for improvement, especially in areas con...
What is your primary use case for GitHub Actions?
The main use case for GitHub Actions is maintaining enterprise repositories in private for security reasons, because we have multiple enterprise clients. We're using the premium GitHub service for ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GNU Make?
GNU Make is a free solution that comes with Linux, which positively impacts operational costs by eliminating licensing fees.
What needs improvement with GNU Make?
I am not familiar enough with it to suggest any specific new features or areas for improvement. It occupies its niche well.
What is your primary use case for GNU Make?
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for task...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. GitHub Actions and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.