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GitHub Actions vs Tekton 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
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tekton
Ranking in Build Automation
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitHub Actions is 11.1%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tekton is 12.3%, up from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Muzammil Riaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers version control, automated script execution and reduces manual efforts
Its integration and deployment are quite easy. You need to create a YAML file in your project, detailing configurations within this file. It integrates itself, requiring you to specify titles, descriptions, parameters, and a trigger scheduler if needed. Apart from that, it's just a simple YAML file, so there's no need for complex configurations. In one project, I used GitHub to automate an application related to email marketing, focusing on actions for data scraping. This required running scripts daily, sometimes even twice or thrice a day. Manually executing these scripts is inefficient and overly reliant on individual team members. However, by integrating the project with GitHub Actions, we automated script execution. Triggers were set up to initiate the pipeline automatically with every new commit or push to a branch. Additionally, we implemented schedulers to run pipelines at predetermined times, like 9 PM or 2 PM. Another enhancement was executing five tests in parallel through data actions, making the process more robust. GitHub Actions also offers stepwise execution details, greatly aiding in understanding and managing workflows. 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.
AjayKrishna - PeerSpot reviewer
If you're dealing with many applications and need a reliable, scalable, and efficient system, I'd recommend this solution
Tekton's most important feature is its cloud-native nature. Unlike Jenkins, which may not scale as efficiently, Tekton's CI pipeline can automatically scale up to handle increased workload demands without needing manual adjustments. Another important aspect is the level of customization offered by Tekton. Each task in the CI pipeline can be customized independently, allowing developers to write code in various languages like shell scripting, Java, or Python and incorporate them into the pipeline as needed. This level of abstraction and customization greatly benefits developers in creating efficient CI pipelines. Also, it can be challenging to understand the logs and troubleshoot issues without clear guidance. It's not always easy to reach technical support and get immediate answers. In my opinion, improvement in this area would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GitHub Actions is valuable for its ease of use and integration."
"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 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."
"It is easy to use, especially if you are accustomed to using GitHub."
"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 improves efficiency as it involves no downtime and is managed by GitHub."
"I find the automation feature of GitHub Actions most valuable for our building processes. It integrates seamlessly with GitHub, so there's no extra configuration needed, making the building process easy and efficient. GitHub Actions handles scalability well, automatically managing execution infrastructure without requiring additional configurations. We haven't yet explored GitHub Actions' support for AI projects, as we haven't used its AI capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of GitHub Actions is the ability to automate various tasks, such as backups and deployments, to ease the development workflow."
"Tekton is a stable product."
"One of the best things I appreciate is that Tekton runs on the Kubernetes platform. This is very useful when working on a project with other team members. For instance, suppose we have a very big project that requires building a large amount of source code or running many unit tests. During the build and unit test phases, Tekton on Kubernetes allows us to have a scalable machine to handle these tasks. This scalability is the most useful aspect for me."
"It scales automatically based on the number of tasks or pipelines running, which is efficient and effective for our development needs."
"Tekton's most important feature is its cloud-native nature. Unlike Jenkins, which may not scale as efficiently, Tekton's CI pipeline can automatically scale up to handle increased workload demands without needing manual adjustments."
"I would say the customization ability that Tekton provides is good."
"The installation process is seamless, requiring fewer resources compared to Jenkins."
"I like the setup of the dashboard."
"Tekton is serverless and runs on OpenShift, and we leverage Tekton to take full advantage of the Kubernetes features such as running and scaling the solution in PaaS."
 

Cons

"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."
"There is a part that detects outdated libraries. If that feature could be more intuitive and informative, that would be nice."
"GitHub Actions lacks a feature for automating the build process for mobile applications."
"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."
"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."
"In terms of improvements, I think better logging for debugging purposes would be helpful, especially for complex workflows."
"The main improvement would be to add support for more programming languages and frameworks."
"Tekton should include many features to integrate event-driven pipelines."
"Tekton is a good product with all the features I need. There isn't anything that needs improvement."
"The user interface of Tekton could be improved."
"When we started with Tekton around 2021 or early 2022, the community support was somewhat limited, which posed challenges when dealing with issues or debugging. We had to rely on Red Hat OpenShift support to overcome these challenges. However, I believe that these issues will naturally improve over timeas the developer community grows stronger. From a technical perspective, I haven't had the opportunity to deeply evaluate the product end-to-end, especially in the past year or so, when I've been less involved with it."
"The product's version update management process needs improvement."
"The stability issues can be there."
"Improvements could include introducing a UI-based pipeline development feature, such as drag and drop, which would help individuals with limited technical knowledge start building pipelines."
"The product's UI could be improved, as there are occasional latency issues. The triggering part, especially the CRD installation needs enhancement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost for GitHub Actions may be around $45 dollars per user."
"For our basic usage, we didn't have to pay."
"The product is slightly more expensive than some alternatives."
"It is free and open platform, so I would rate it 1 out of 10."
"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."
"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 product is free and open-source."
"Tekton is an open-source tool."
"The tool is open-source and free to use."
"It is entirely open source and free of charge."
"The product is free of cost."
"The solution is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
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?
I would need to check with my team about specific shortcomings. We still use Jenkins ( /products/jenkins-reviews ) for some tasks, which suggests there may be areas for improvement in GitHub Actions.
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 do you like most about Tekton?
Its seamless integration with Kubernetes, being built on top of it and utilizing Custom Resource Definitions, ensures a smooth experience within Kubernetes environments exclusively.
What needs improvement with Tekton?
Regarding areas for improvement in Tekton, I have not encountered significant issues. It works well for our use case. However, incorporating AI could be a potential enhancement in the future.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
The Home Depot, PayPal, Target, HSBC, McKesson, Oncology Venture
Find out what your peers are saying about GitHub Actions vs. Tekton and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.