Compare
Migrate your CI/CD from GitHub Actions to Semaphore
- ✔️ Run 2x faster builds
- ✔️ See your entire path to production in a single CD view
- ✔️ Always have CI/CD experts at hand to support you
Don’t waste your developers’ time with slow builds
Cut your build times in half using Semaphore’s top-of-market machines and advanced pipeline features. Considering how often developers push code in a month, the ROI of switching to Semaphore is 41:1 (see whitepaper).
Level up developer productivity & happiness
On Semaphore, a graphical workflow builder puts high-performance CI/CD into the hands of every developer. Test insights empower the team to keep the project sustainable, while fast SSH debugging enables fast error recovery in daily work.
Adopt end-to-end Continuous Delivery
On Semaphore, CD is not limited to a series of after-build steps. Features like parameterized promotions and deployment queues give you the power and flexibility to make deploys to any environment completely painless.
Have a partner – an extension of your team
For us, CI/CD is not an afterthought. You can always count on Semaphore as a trusted partner who will go the extra mile in supporting you in your mission to deliver great software, fast.
“Since moving from GitHub Actions to Semaphore our CI pipeline has been more stable and 2x faster. This allowed us to detect failures and flaky tests faster. Our engineering team is now more focused on core business and delivering features to our customers.”
Amin Ben Slime
Senior Software Engineer at Klarx
Compare Semaphore vs. Github Actions
| Semaphore | GitHub Actions | |
|---|---|---|
| Product type |  |
 |
| SaaS | ✅ ⓘSaaS with autoscaling resources |
❌ ⓘHard limits on parallel jobs depending on plan |
| Hybrid: run agents on customer-managed infrastructure | ✅ | ✅ |
| Fully on-premises | ✅ | ✅ |
| Setup & Maintenance |  |
|
| Graphical pipeline configuration | ✅ ⓘWorkflow Builder: point-and-click interface to create and edit pipelines |
❌ |
| GitHub support | ✅ | ✅ |
| Bitbucket support | ✅ | ❌ |
| Gitlab support | Pending | ❌ |
| No maintenance required for platform software | ✅ ⓘOfficial VMs and Docker images are refreshed weekly, include popular OSS tools out-of-the-box |
❌ ⓘJobs must run a Docker container for each language or tool that a project needs |
| Command-line interface | ✅ ⓘCLI can manage projects and do everything the UI can |
❌ ⓘCLI limited to viewing workflow results |
| Declarative configuration of services | ✅ ⓘSupported via CLI |
❌ |
| Machine & Operating System support | |
 |
| Multiple machine types in cloud model | ✅ ⓘWide choice of CPU, memory, and disk space configurations |
❌ ⓘEnd user maintains the machines |
| Linux | ✅ | ✅ |
| macOS | ✅ | ✅ ⓘMax 5 parallel jobs on standard plans |
| ARM | ✅ ⓘSupported in self-hosted model |
✅ ⓘSupported in self-hosted model
|
| Windows | ✅ ⓘSupported in self-hosted model
|
✅ ⓘSupported in cloud and self-hosted models
|
| Continuous Integration | |
 |
| Test results reporting and insights | ✅ ⓘSee which tests passed/failed, find slowest tests to speed up development process.
|
❌ |
| Debugging feedback loop | ✅ ⓘFast debugging via SSH access to both running and finished jobs.
|
❌ ⓘNo direct SSH access to job environment, only log inspection.
|
| Continuous Delivery | |
|
| Manage multiple deployment environments | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multi-stage releases | ✅ ⓘCombine automatic steps with manual approval to ensure maximum reliability when delivering to users. |
❌ |
| Automatic and manual promotions | ✅ ⓘChain pipelines together for any CD workflow (blue/green, canary, etc). |
❌ |
| Deployment dashboards | ✅ ⓘSee which versions of all your applications have been deployed to which environment. |
❌ |
| Parameterized promotions | ✅ ⓘDefine custom forms to parameterize CD pipelines. |
❌ |
| Deployment queues | ✅ ⓘControl which pipelines must run sequentially to prevent conflict and which may run in parallel.
|
❌ |
| Performance | |
|
| Top-of-market performance | ✅ ⓘ25%-100% faster than GitHub Actions workflows, depending on project
|
❌ |
| Autoscaling parallelism | ✅ ⓘServerless model
|
✅ ⓘWith hard limits depending on plan |
| Allocate more CPUs and RAM to complex jobs | ✅ ⓘChange one line of configuration |
❌ |
| Scalable dependency cache | ✅ ⓘ9.6GB upgradeable on request, expires after 30 days |
✅ ⓘ10GB hard limit, expires after 7 days
|
| Built-in artifacts store | ✅ | ✅ |
| Built-in Docker registry | ✅ | ✅ |
| Support | |
|
| Email-based account and technical support | ✅ | ✅ |
| Video call support | ✅ | ❌ |
| Support SLAs | ✅ | ✅ |
| Custom solution engineering | ✅ | ❌ |
| Dedicated customer success manager | ✅ | ❌ |
| Private Slack channel | ✅ | ❌ |
Case studies
“We were using Jenkins to build the old system, and it was hard to maintain and quite painful. We looked at other hosted CI services, but they were very unreliable. When we found Semaphore, we got our application up and running pretty quickly. We now use it for all projects.”
Lukas Oberhuber
CTO at Simply Business
“Semaphore allows us to build anywhere from two to twenty branches in parallel, each one in a threaded environment. We had thousands of tests that were running for a really long time and with Semaphore we got the build to run in under 20 minutes.”
Artem Lypiy
QA Lead at 500px
“Semaphore 2.0 allows us to build, tag, push, and run Docker images easily. This makes building a powerful pipeline where we can deploy to our Kubernetes cluster fairly easily and quickly.”
Nic Cavigliano
Senior Software Engineer