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GitHub Actions vs Jenkins 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

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
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitHub Actions is 7.0%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 9.9%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins9.9%
GitHub Actions7.0%
Other83.1%
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.
JI
Principal Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Efficient resource allocation and robust workflow with autoscaling capabilities
In Kubernetes, we use node-based architecture with nodes and pods and follow practices like RBAC and rollback. Multiple pods can run concurrently. We benefit from Kubernetes' ability to autoscale pods and use horizontal pod autoscalers to adjust the number of pods based on metrics like CPU or memory usage, ensuring efficient resource allocation and stability under load.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It improves efficiency as it involves no downtime and is managed by GitHub."
"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."
"It is a very stable solution as we have not faced any issues."
"The solution has saved us approximately 20% in terms of efficiency and productivity."
"The most valuable feature of GitHub Actions is that it is completely free, can be integrated with different environments and cloud providers supporting all major cloud providers, and improves efficiency as it involves no downtime and is managed by GitHub."
"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 just 8 to 10 minutes through these optimizations."
"We can trigger files manually or automate processes."
"It is easy to use, especially if you are accustomed to using GitHub."
"Jenkins is particularly valuable since it saves time by automating manual tasks."
"The deploying and assessing of the development of our code and our application has been really useful, it's getting a bit easier for us to use Jenkins, and it is really helping us."
"Using Jenkins we have configured and automated the complete build procedure."
"It has been helpful in monitoring the progress and understanding how the daily build is happening."
"Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes."
"Jenkins has greatly improved the time it takes to deliver a software package to the market."
"I highly recommend Jenkins, it is my favourite CI/CD system."
"It is open source, flexible, scalable, and easy to use. It is easy to maintain for the administrator. It is a continuous integration tool, and its enterprise version is quite mature. It has good integrations and plug-ins. Azure DevOps can also be integrated with Jenkins."
 

Cons

"GitHub sometimes makes it difficult to debug actions."
"Switching between hosted and self-hosted agents can be a bit complex, as self-hosted agents need to be provisioned in platforms like Azure or AWS."
"My company would want to see some AI features in the tool as it can add value to the product."
"In terms of improvements, I think better logging for debugging purposes would be helpful, especially for complex workflows."
"The only issue I have faced is with authorization, particularly when configuring the GitHub token correctly."
"The pricing is high for the advanced security; GitHub Advanced Security for us is quite pricey."
"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."
"Sometimes it is quite complex to commit code from our local system to the GitHub repository; creating a folder in GitHub can be tedious."
"I would like to have an integrated dashboard on top of it and a better UX to look at. The dashboard could be better in terms of integration with other tools. We should be able to have a single pane of glass across all the tools that we use where Jenkins is the pipeline. This can be a very good upgrade to it."
"Partition security for the workflow of projects is not yet an option."
"UI is quite outdated."
"It could be cheaper because there are many solutions available in the market."
"The UI must be more user-friendly."
"The user interface could definitely be improved, and I rate it close to zero."
"Jenkins takes a long time to create archive files."
"Integrating Jenkins with other tools or solutions has presented some challenges. For instance, when attempting to integrate Jenkins with Kubernetes, I encountered numerous errors, which took several days to resolve. In Jenkins, adding a feature typically involves incorporating the repository feature separately. Jenkins lacks built-in Git repository functionality, necessitating an external Git repository to store Jenkins manifests."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's low-priced. Not high, but definitely low."
"The tool's price is okay and reasonable."
"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."
"It is free and open platform, so I would rate it 1 out of 10."
"For our basic usage, we didn't have to pay."
"The product is slightly more expensive than some alternatives."
"Regarding cost, as an enterprise, we negotiate our license and expenses, so I can't provide a specific rating for that."
"Jenkins is an open-source platform."
"The pricing for Jenkins is free."
"Jenkins is an open-source tool."
"Jenkins is open source."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."
"The solution is open source."
"The tool is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise58
 

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 ...
How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?
When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?
Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.
What needs improvement with Jenkins?
I do not have any notes for improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Find out what your peers are saying about GitHub Actions vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.