CI / CD

Hosted CI

• ★ GitHub Actions — the default if your code lives on GitHub. Generous free minutes for public repos; paid by minute for private. Largest action marketplace.
• GitLab CI — built into GitLab; great if you're on GitLab.
• Buildkite — hybrid (hosted control plane, self-hosted agents); excellent for big teams.
• CircleCI — long-running standard; smaller free tier than it once was.
• Travis CI — once dominant; now niche.
• AppVeyor — Windows-focused.
• Azure Pipelines — bundled with Azure DevOps.
• Bitbucket Pipelines — bundled with Bitbucket.

Modern container-native

• ★ Dagger — pipelines as code in TS / Go / Python; runs locally and in CI; cache-friendly. The most-recommended new tool in 2026 for "stop writing YAML."
• Earthly — Earthfile (Dockerfile-shaped); reproducible, cacheable, runs anywhere.
• WoodpeckerCI — open source Drone fork; lightweight self-host.
• Drone — older, Docker-native CI.

Build platforms / mobile-specific

• EAS Build — Expo / React Native; see Mobile Native.
• Codemagic, Bitrise, AppCircle — mobile CI.
• Fastlane — iOS / Android automation; runs anywhere.

Self-host runners

• ★ GitHub Actions self-hosted runners — point at your hardware (Hetzner, your laptop, AWS).
• Runs On (runs-on.com) — drop-in self-hosted GitHub runners on your AWS for ~10x cheaper.
• Ubicloud — open-source GitHub Actions-compatible runners.
• Buildjet, BlackSmith, Namespace — managed faster runners than GitHub default.

Caching / speedup

• Turborepo Remote Cache — for monorepo builds.
• Nx Cloud — same idea for Nx.
• actions/cache — built-in GitHub Actions cache.
• Depot.dev — cached Docker builds.
• BuildBuddy — Bazel cache + remote execution.

Deploy / release tools

• ★ GitHub Releases + actions/create-release — boring; works.
• Changesets + GitHub Actions — version + release npm packages from monorepos.
• release-please (Google) — automate releases from conventional commits.
• semantic-release — older but mature.
• Knope — newer release automation in Rust.

Container registry

• GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io) — free for public, generous for private.
• Docker Hub — incumbent; rate limits on free.
• Cloudflare Container Registry — newer; pairs with Cloudflare Workers.
• AWS ECR, GCP Artifact Registry, Azure Container Registry — cloud-native.

Status / dashboards

• GitHub Actions tab — fine for most.
• Buildkite UI — nicer for big pipelines.
• PR-level checks — test status, deploy previews, screenshot diffs (Chromatic / Argos).

Pick this if…

• Default for GitHub repos: GitHub Actions.
• Big-team scale: Buildkite + self-hosted agents on Hetzner / AWS.
• Tired of YAML: Dagger.
• Reproducible Docker-first: Earthly.
• Need cheap runners: Runs On or Ubicloud (GitHub-compatible self-host).
• Release npm packages from a monorepo: Changesets.