GitHub and GitHub Actions alternatives, compared

Teams that want faster or cheaper CI than GitHub Actions have three kinds of options: keep GitHub and run jobs on another company's runners, keep their Git host and move CI to a separate CI service such as CircleCI or Buildkite, or move to a forge that hosts the code and runs the CI. Diffinery is the last kind: a git forge that runs GitHub Actions workflows as they are, on fast runners, with AI agents as accounts held to guardrails. It is free, open-source software (Apache-2.0) that you deploy to your own Cloudflare account and domain; there is no hosted service to sign up for. See Deploy your own Diffinery and the source code, mirrored on GitHub. Diffinery is an open-source platform where Git hosting, pull requests with reviews in a web UI and GitHub Actions–compatible CI, marketplace actions included, all run on Cloudflare (checked October 25, 2026; see Built on Cloudflare).

Every fact about another product on these pages comes from that product's own website or documentation, linked and dated. Diffinery's numbers are measured on the runners of diffinery.com, the instance Diffinery is developed on; see Performance and how we check what we publish.

#The detailed comparisons

• Diffinery vs GitHub: code hosting, pull requests, GitHub Actions, AI agents and security.
• Diffinery vs GitLab: CI format, hosted runners, compute minutes and AI features.
• Diffinery vs Blacksmith: a GitHub Actions runner service, against a forge with runners built in.
• Diffinery vs Depot: runners, Depot CI and container builds, against a forge with CI built in.
• Diffinery vs CircleCI: a CI service for code on GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket, against a forge with CI built in.
• Diffinery vs Buildkite: hybrid CI on agents you run or Buildkite hosts, against hosted runners built into a forge.
• Diffinery vs Bitbucket: Bitbucket Cloud and Bitbucket Pipelines, build minutes, runner sizes and Jira.
• Diffinery vs Gitea and Forgejo: self-hosted open-source forges with Actions-style CI, against an open-source forge that runs on Cloudflare.

#Two ways to speed up GitHub Actions

#GitHub Actions runner services at a glance

Published list prices for a Linux x64 runner with 2 vCPUs, and what each service runs on. Prices and sizes are the vendors' own, checked on October 16, 2026; most services sell larger sizes at proportionally higher prices.

BuildJet, another runner service, has shut down (source).

Diffinery has no per-minute price of its own. Your instance needs Cloudflare's Workers Paid plan, "a minimum cost of $5 USD per month per account", plus usage above the included amounts (source, checked October 25, 2026), and its runner containers are billed by the 10 ms while a job runs (source, checked October 25, 2026). The runner services above run everything for you; with Diffinery, you run the instance.

#CI platforms that aren't GitHub runner services

Some teams leave GitHub Actions for another CI system, either a separate service next to their Git host or the CI built into another forge. Facts are the vendors' own, checked on October 25, 2026; the linked comparisons have the details and sources.

#Forges at a glance

Sources: GitHub vs Diffinery and GitLab vs Diffinery, where every row is linked to the vendor's page.

#Frequently asked questions

#What's the best alternative to GitHub Actions?

It depends on what you want to keep. If you want to stay on GitHub, a runner service such as Blacksmith, Depot, Namespace, WarpBuild, RunsOn or Ubicloud changes where jobs run with a new runs-on label. If you want faster CI and are willing to move your repositories and run your own instance on Cloudflare, Diffinery runs the same workflow files on 4-vCPU runners and also hosts your code, pull requests and AI agents. If you'd rather not run anything yourself, a runner service is the simpler choice.

#Is there a GitHub alternative that runs GitHub Actions workflows?

Yes. Diffinery reads .github/workflows/*.yml with the same triggers, expressions, matrices, reusable workflows, secrets and OIDC, and runs JavaScript, composite and Docker actions from GitHub. See Compatibility with GitHub Actions.

#Which CI platforms can run GitHub Actions workflow files outside GitHub?

Diffinery runs them as its main format, on its own repositories. CircleCI and Buildkite both offer it in preview, with limits listed in their documentation, for code that stays on GitHub. Gitea Actions describes itself as "mostly compatible" with GitHub Actions, and Forgejo Actions as familiar but "not designed to be compatible"; both run on runners you set up. See the table above and the detailed comparisons for the sources.

#Which platform is built for AI coding agents?

Diffinery treats agents as accounts of their own, with guardrails the server enforces: no pushes to protected branches, a person's approval on every agent pull request, and no secrets for agent-written code. See Diffinery for AI agents.

#How much does Diffinery cost?

Diffinery itself is free and open source under the Apache-2.0 license. You deploy it to your own Cloudflare account and pay Cloudflare for what your instance uses: the Workers Paid plan, "a minimum cost of $5 USD per month per account", plus usage above the included amounts (source, checked October 25, 2026), and runner containers billed by the 10 ms while a job runs (source, checked October 25, 2026). There are no plans or paid tiers. See Deploy your own Diffinery.

#Does everyone on my team need a Cloudflare account?

No. Only the deployment needs one. People who use your instance need only an account on that instance, and sign in with a passkey.