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GitHub Actions pros and cons

Vendor: GitHub

4.3 out of 5

22 reviews
100% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

GitHub Actions enhances developer productivity with seamless integration and automation features, streamlining workflows and reducing errors. Supporting YAML workflow creation and third-party tool integration, it optimizes job execution time and supports multiple operating systems. Despite these benefits, challenges include authorization configuration, agent switching complexity, debugging difficulties, and artifact management. Improved logging and artifact management could enhance usability for tech buyers considering this platform.

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Creating workflows in YAML format is straightforward and allows for easy comprehension and execution of tasks like building, testing, and deployment.

The platform's built-in features facilitate pipeline management, release management, and work item tracking, enhancing versatility and integration with hardware.

Collaboration is seamless regardless of developers' locations or operating systems, being platform-agnostic with support for Linux, Windows, and Oracle applications.

Automation features significantly boost efficiency by optimizing job execution times and allowing for parallel processing through custom workflows and Marketplace Actions.

GitHub Actions automates various tasks like deployments and backups, reducing CI/CD workload by 30% to 40% and saving approximately 20% in efficiency and productivity.

CONS

Deployment tool enhancements are needed for better integration and simplification.

Artifact management improvements are necessary, especially for saving screenshots or videos from failed tests.

Debugging capabilities, particularly in logging, need to be improved for complex workflows.

There is a need for more integration options with various platforms and programming languages.

Authorization and token configuration challenges occur, complicating connections to GitHub repositories.

GitHub Actions Pros review quotes

Senior Test Engineer at 10Pearls

Feb 27, 2024

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.

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reviewer2268420

it specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 31, 2023

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.

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Sandeep Mutalik

Co-Founder at S2R2 Technologies Pvt Ltd

Aug 12, 2024

It is a very stable solution as we have not faced any issues.

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Engineer at a recreational facilities/services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 1, 2024

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.

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MM

Muziwandile Mnambathi

Software Engineer at Mercedes-Benz AG

Jan 23, 2024

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.

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TD

Tomi Dapo-Osalusi

Aws solutions architect at ProjectCareer

Nov 21, 2024

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

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Assistant Manager Cloud DevOps at BlackBox IP Corporation

Nov 8, 2024

It is user-friendly, with clear and organized processes, making it easy to navigate and work with.

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MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Dec 30, 2024

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

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Ashish Makasare

AWS & Azure DevOps Engineer at Cravita Technologies India Private Limited

Oct 25, 2024

We can trigger files manually or automate processes.

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NB

NikolayBachvarov

Software Architect at AIOPS group

Jan 29, 2024

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

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GitHub Actions Cons review quotes

Senior Test Engineer at 10Pearls

Feb 27, 2024

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.

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reviewer2268420

it specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 31, 2023

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.

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Sandeep Mutalik

Co-Founder at S2R2 Technologies Pvt Ltd

Aug 12, 2024

My company would want to see some AI features in the tool as it can add value to the product.

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Free Report: GitHub Actions Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about GitHub Actions. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.

864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Engineer at a recreational facilities/services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 1, 2024

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

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MM

Muziwandile Mnambathi

Software Engineer at Mercedes-Benz AG

Jan 23, 2024

There is a part that detects outdated libraries. If that feature could be more intuitive and informative, that would be nice.

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TD

Tomi Dapo-Osalusi

Aws solutions architect at ProjectCareer

Nov 21, 2024

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.

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Assistant Manager Cloud DevOps at BlackBox IP Corporation

Nov 8, 2024

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

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MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Dec 30, 2024

The main improvement would be to add support for more programming languages and frameworks.

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Ashish Makasare

AWS & Azure DevOps Engineer at Cravita Technologies India Private Limited

Oct 25, 2024

GitHub sometimes makes it difficult to debug actions.

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NB

NikolayBachvarov

Software Architect at AIOPS group

Jan 29, 2024

The UI could be better.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 21)

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