Semaphore is 30% faster and 30% cheaper than Github Actions
- With Semaphore, you get:
πΉ 2Γ faster builds and smarter pipelines - πΉ Hands-on support from real CI/CD experts
- πΉ No usage limits, better pricing, no surprises
- πΉ Built for performance at scale
- πΉ Get time back to build what matters
GitHub Actions vs. Semaphore: key differences
GitHub Actions pain π | Semaphore gain π |
---|---|
π οΈ Hidden complexity in workflows | β Fast, optimized pipelines |
β³ Slow builds and job limits | β‘ Smart parallelism and flexible infrastructure |
π₯ Performance bottlenecks under load | π CI/CD as code with real-time debugging |
π Limited observability and debugging | ποΈ Auto-scaling, hybrid cloud or self-hosted |
β Hard to scale across teams | π€ Human support that helps you improve |
From GitHub Actions to Semaphore: high performance, hands-on support, better pricing
GitHub Actions couldnβt keep up with our growing needs. Semaphore delivered faster builds, powerful parallelism, and hands-on support that helped us scale with confidence.
π¨ Before
β³ Slow builds
π Performance issues
πΈ Cost inefficiencies
π οΈ Workflow friction
β
After
β‘ 8-minute test suites
π Massive parallelization
π° Cost-optimized pipelines
π€ Proactive support

β
fast builds 8-minute test suites
β
reduced costs

Ryan Clark
Engineering Leader for Infrastructure, Developer Experience, and Platform Services at BetterUp
Why teams choose Semaphore over GitHub Actions
Built for performance at any scale β‘
GitHub Actions may work for simple tasksβbut once you need performance, scale, and real support, Semaphore takes over.
- βοΈ No limits on parallelism or job queuesβ¨
- βοΈ Scale pipelines without rewriting workflowsβ¨
- βοΈ Proactive support from CI/CD experts
π Spend less time fighting CI, more time shipping code.
Faster builds, better dev experience π
Semaphore is optimized for speed and clarity. Teams switching from GitHub Actions ship faster and spend less time debugging builds.
- βοΈ Optimized parallel test executionβ¨
- βοΈ Workflow visibility and real-time debuggingβ¨
- βοΈ Predictable performance under load
π Keep your developers focused on product, not CI problems.
“It’s cheap, it’s easy to understand, and the support team is quick to assist if you need help. Honestly, after trying GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Octopus, Jenkins, and more, this clearly stands out to me as the better option.”

Fredrik August Madsen-Malmo
Head of DevOps at Kvist
One setup, multiple environments, total control π
Avoid inconsistent setups across projects. Semaphore brings structure, flexibility, and control to teams working across any environment.
- βοΈ CI/CD as versioned codeβ¨
- βοΈ Runs across cloud, hybrid, and self-hostedβ¨
- βοΈ Fine-grained permission control
π Consistent, scalable CI/CD for any team size.
“Semaphore is an incredibly easy-to-use CI/CD platform. Integrating my Ruby on Rails applications to use it is always very easy to do. Their platform has an incredibly good-looking UI, and documentation is also very well written.”

Lorenzo Zabot
Backend Engineer at Vox Group
π Compare Semaphore π GitHub Actions
- Product type
- SaaS
- Hybrid: run agents on customer-managed infrastructure
- Fully on-premises
- Open source
- Features
- Graphical pipeline configuration
- GitHub support
- Bitbucket support
- Gitlab support
- Built-in rest reports
- Built-in flaky test detection
- Monorepo support
- Debugging feedback loop
- Command-line interface
- Declarative configuration of services
- Machine & Operating System support
- Multiple machine types in cloud model
- Linux
- macOS
- ARM
- Windows
- Continuous Delivery
- Manage multiple deployment environments
- Multi-stage releases
- Automatic and manual promotions
- Deployment dashboards
- Parameterized promotions
- Deployment queues
- Performance
- Top-of-market performance
- Autoscaling parallelism
- Allocate more CPUs and RAM to complex jobs
- Scalable dependency cache
- Built-in artifacts store
- Built-in Docker registry
- Security
- Runtime isolation
- IP allow list
- Audit logs
- ISO 27001 certificate
- SOC 2 certificate
- Role-based access
- Okta / SAML for LDAP integration
- Support
- Email-based account and technical support
- Video call support
- Support SLAs
- Custom solution engineering
- Dedicated customer success manager
- Private Slack channel
- Community support via Discord