GNU Make vs GitHub Actions comparison

GitHub and GNU are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitHub is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while GNU is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0. GitHub holds a 11.4% mindshare in BA, compared to GNU’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of GitHub users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of GNU users who would recommend it.

GitHub Actions

Read 22 GitHub Actions reviews

2,804 Views
2,804 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

GNU Make

Read 6 GNU Make reviews

250 Views
250 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

GitHub Actions

GNU Make

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GNU Make and GitHub Actions compete in automating build processes. GitHub Actions appears to have the upper hand due to its integrated CI/CD capabilities.

Features: GNU Make offers build dependencies management, task automation, dependency avoidance in building targets. GitHub Actions provides CI/CD pipelines, parallel workflow support, integrates with GitHub repositories.

Room for Improvement: GNU Make could improve integration options, user interface, cloud capabilities. GitHub Actions might enhance its setup simplicity outside GitHub, offer more third-party integrations, provide extended offline support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitHub Actions benefits from seamless deployment within GitHub and extensive community support. GNU Make requires manual setup, relying on file-based configurations without an integrated support ecosystem.

Pricing and ROI: GNU Make is free and has no setup costs, attractive for budget-focused projects. GitHub Actions, free for public repositories, may incur costs for private usage but offers a favorable ROI by improving workflow efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed GNU Make vs. GitHub Actions Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GNU Make vs. GitHub Actions

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 865,384 peers since 2012

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

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GNU Make

Ranking in Build Automation

17th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitHub Actions is 11.4%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GNU Make is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

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…

Read full review

reviewer2561757

Software 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…

Read full review

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."

"The level of automation achievable is really good. So, the custom workflow creation and Marketplace Actions improved our project's efficiency."

"GitHub Actions is a beautiful tool that integrates smoothly with all major tools, reducing CI/CD work by 30% to 40%."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of GitHub Actions is the ability to automate various tasks, such as backups and deployments, to ease the development workflow."

"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."

"We can trigger files manually or automate processes."

"It improves efficiency as it involves no downtime and is managed by GitHub."

More GitHub Actions pros

"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."

"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."

"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."

"Setup is extremely straightforward."

"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."

"Makefiles are extremely easy to work with using any preferred editor. GNU Make can be run directly from the terminal, not requiring any time wasted on clicking."

Cons

"In terms of improvements, I think better logging for debugging purposes would be helpful, especially for complex workflows."

"Sometimes it is quite complex to commit code from our local system to the GitHub repository; creating a folder in GitHub can be tedious."

"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."

"We still use Jenkins for some tasks, which suggests there may be areas for improvement in GitHub Actions."

"Improvements could be made in terms of time-saving capabilities and resolving potential complexities in centralized workflows."

"We can leverage this database tool to manage everything within our environment and data burners, allowing for customization and execution. An additional advantage is the capability to modify aspects like file size, making processes more efficient and faster across the pipelines. Regarding improvements or implementations, I believe there should be enhancements made to the deployment tool. It should be integrated as part of the solution. Infrastructure-wise, we already have tools like GitHub and RobSpot, and data enables us to automate various processes, which is quite beneficial. As for further enhancements, I'm uncertain. I've shared everything I know. However, if there's something specific you'd like to see in future releases, a feature that may not exist yet but would be desirable, I can't provide any input on that matter."

"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."

"The reporting capabilities are somewhat limited."

More GitHub Actions cons

"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."

"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Regarding cost, as an enterprise, we negotiate our license and expenses, so I can't provide a specific rating for that."

"It is free and open platform, so I would rate it 1 out of 10."

"The product is slightly more expensive than some alternatives."

"For our basic usage, we didn't have to pay."

"It's low-priced. Not high, but definitely low."

"The cost for GitHub Actions may be around $45 dollars per user."

"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."

"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."

"GNU Make is free and open source software."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for GNU Make?

See all answers

Comparisons

Tekton vs GitHub Actions

Compared 31% of the time

Harness vs GitHub Actions

Compared 14% of the time

Bamboo vs GitHub Actions

Compared 12% of the time

TeamCity vs GitHub Actions

Compared 9% of the time

Buildkite vs GitHub Actions

Compared 5% of the time

More GitHub Actions Competitors

Jenkins vs GNU Make

Compared 68% of the time

Bazel vs GNU Make

Compared 32% of the time

More GNU Make Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitHub Actions

August 2025

Download GitHub Actions product report

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

July 2025

Download GNU Make product report

Overview

GitHub Actions streamlines CI/CD processes with an intuitive YAML workflow and robust automation, enhancing efficiency and integration with third-party tools and cloud providers.

GitHub Actions automates development pipelines, supports scalable public and private runners, and manages secure secrets. This tool integrates seamlessly with platforms like AWS, Kubernetes, Google Cloud, and Databricks. It enhances DevOps workflows with reliable task automation. Users note areas for UI and deployment tool improvements, artifact management simplification, and additional programming language support. Debugging complexity and hosting agent transitions pose challenges, along with integration enhancements for tools like OneDrive.

What are GitHub Actions' key features?

YAML Workflow Creation: Simplifies configuration with intuitive YAML.
CI/CD Integration: Provides seamless integration within DevOps pipelines.
Automation Capabilities: Automates tasks with minimal manual intervention.
Third-Party Tool Compatibility: Works well with diverse tools and platforms.
Secure Secrets Management: Protects sensitive information effectively.

What benefits do users find in GitHub Actions?

Enhanced Performance: Boosts task execution speed and reliability.
Scalability: Supports growth with flexible runner options.
Improved Release Cycles: Ensures consistent updates and deployments.
Workflow Efficiency: Reduces manual tasks, increasing operational efficiency.

Companies in tech and software development frequently utilize GitHub Actions for integrating, deploying, and versioning projects. It is often employed for deploying applications to cloud environments like AWS and Kubernetes, managing extensive CI/CD workflows, and automating test and security operations, thereby streamlining production cycles across industries.

GitHub

Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

GNU

Buyer's Guide

GNU Make vs. GitHub Actions

July 2025

Free Report: GNU Make vs. GitHub Actions

Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. GitHub Actions and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our GNU Make vs. GitHub Actions report.

See our list of best Build Automation vendors.

We monitor all Build Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.