Alternatives to Earthly

4 editor-selected alternatives · Earthly overview →

source: tools.alternatives · stored order · active records only; review scores are annotations and never change membership or order

A directional evidence panel appears only when the substitute rationale, trade-offs, sources, and verification date have been recorded. Older selections without that panel remain visible but are unclassified under the new evidence contract.

GitHub Actions

85/100freemiumexplicit relation

GitHub's built-in CI/CD and workflow automation platform that runs directly in your repository. Define workflows in YAML triggered by Git events (push, PR, release), schedules, or manual dispatch. Massive marketplace of 20,000+ community-maintained actions for testing, building, deploying, and automating tasks. Supports matrix builds, caching, secrets, environments with approval gates, and self-hosted runners. Free for public repos with generous minutes for private repos.

GitHub Actions provides free and unlimited CI/CD execution for public repositories, alongside 2,000 free minutes per month for private repositories. GitHub Pro ($4/month) and Team ($4.67/user/month) include 3,000 monthly minutes, while GitHub Enterprise includes 50,000 minutes with overage billed starting at $0.006 per Linux minute.Review →

GitLab CI/CD

freemiumexplicit relation

GitLab's built-in CI/CD pipeline system defined via .gitlab-ci.yml files in your repository. Features multi-stage pipelines, parallel jobs, matrix builds, environments with deployment tracking, merge train for serialized merges, auto DevOps for zero-config CI/CD, container registry, and security scanning (SAST/DAST). Supports self-hosted runners and Kubernetes executors. Tightly integrated with GitLab's merge requests and issue tracking. A leading alternative to GitHub Actions for GitLab users.

Freemium unified DevOps and DevSecOps platform available SaaS and self-hosted. Free tier ($0/user/mo) includes essential CI/CD, 5GB storage, and 400 compute minutes/mo with unlimited self-hosted runners. Premium ($29/user/mo billed annually) adds code review approvals, multi-project pipelines, 10,000 compute min/mo, and 24/7 support. Ultimate ($99/user/mo billed annually) provides complete DevSecOps with automated SAST, DAST, container scanning, secret detection, compliance dashboards, 50,000 compute min/mo, and free guest seats. Additional compute is $10 per 1,000 minutes.

CircleCI

74/100freemiumexplicit relation

Cloud CI/CD platform known for speed and Docker-first workflows. Offers parallelism, intelligent caching, and orbs (reusable configuration packages) for common tasks. Used by Spotify, Samsung, and Ford. Strong at complex build pipelines with conditional logic, matrix builds, and granular resource allocation that help large teams optimize their build times.

Freemium cloud and self-hosted CI/CD automation platform using credit-based compute. Free tier provides 30,000 monthly credits (up to 6,000 build minutes on standard Linux) for up to 5 users on Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows, and self-hosted runners (with 400,000 credits/mo for open source). Performance tier starts at $15/mo (includes 5 users and 30,000 credits) with $15 per 25,000 additional credits, credit rollover up to 1 year, parallelism, GPU runners, and Docker Layer Caching. Scale tier offers custom annual pricing ($2,000+/mo) with 24/7 SLA and audit logs. Server plan provides on-premise/private cloud deployment with FedRAMP and SOC 2 Type II compliance.Review →

Woodpecker CI

open sourcefreeexplicit relation

Woodpecker CI is a community-maintained open-source CI/CD engine forked from Drone CI, designed as the default continuous integration solution for self-hosted Git platforms like Gitea, Forgejo, and Codeberg. With simple YAML pipeline configuration, minimal resource usage (~100MB RAM), and Apache-2.0 licensing, it provides a lightweight alternative to Jenkins and GitHub Actions for developers who prefer infrastructure they control.

100% Free and Open Source under the Apache-2.0 license ($0 software licensing). Entirely self-hosted on your own servers or Kubernetes clusters with no user seat fees, runner limits, or licensing costs.

Open-source Earthly alternatives

Woodpecker CI — see all open-source developer tools.

Free Earthly alternatives

GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, CircleCI, Woodpecker CI offer a free plan or free tier.

More DevOps & Deployment tools

same category, not editor-selected alternatives — see how Earthly compares →

CiliumCilium is a CNCF Graduated, Apache-2.0 project for Kubernetes networking, security, and observability using eBPF. It can replace kube-proxy, enforce identity-aware L3-L7 network policies, and add Hubble flow observability plus Tetragon runtime-security signals. Current source checks support GKE Dataplane V2 using Cilium/eBPF and Azure CNI Powered by Cilium for AKS.OrbStackOrbStack is a macOS application that replaces Docker Desktop with lightweight container and Linux VM management. Its docs emphasize fast starts, lower CPU and memory overhead, and native macOS integration with menu bar controls, file sharing, and network access to containers by name, with exact gains depending on workload. Supports Docker, Kubernetes, and full Linux VMs.RayRay is an open-source distributed computing framework built for scaling AI and Python applications from a laptop to thousands of GPUs. It provides libraries for distributed training, hyperparameter tuning, model serving, reinforcement learning, and data processing under a single unified API. Ray's public site highlights OpenAI and other enterprise users. Maintained by Anyscale with Apache-2.0 open-source licensing.ActAct is an open-source tool that runs GitHub Actions workflows locally using Docker containers that match GitHub's execution environment. It provides instant feedback on workflow changes without pushing to a repository, supports matrix builds, secret management, and artifact handling. Act can also replace Makefiles by using workflow files as task definitions, making it useful for both CI/CD development and local task automation across development teams.ClerkClerk is a complete authentication and user management platform for React, Next.js, and modern JavaScript frameworks. It provides pre-built UI for sign-in, sign-up, user profiles, organizations, MFA, passkeys, JWT sessions, webhooks, and billing. The Hobby plan supports up to 50,000 monthly retained users per app, with Pro, Business, and Enterprise tiers for growing teams.DockerIndustry-standard container platform for building, shipping, and running applications in isolated, reproducible environments. Package apps with all dependencies into portable containers using Dockerfiles and images. Docker Compose orchestrates multi-container applications. Docker Hub hosts millions of pre-built images. Docker Desktop provides GUI management on Mac/Windows. Essential for local development, CI/CD, and production deployments. The foundation of modern containerized infrastructure.ModalModal is a serverless compute platform that lets developers run AI workloads on GPUs with a Python-first SDK. Functions deploy with decorators, auto-scale from zero to thousands of containers, and bill per second. It supports LLM inference, fine-tuning, batch jobs, and sandboxes, with current GPU options including B200, H200, H100, A100, L40S, A10, L4, and T4. Modal’s 2026 Series C valued the company at $4.65B.PangolinIdentity-based remote access platform built on WireGuard that combines reverse proxy and VPN capabilities. Pangolin supports clientless browser access for web apps and client-based private-resource access across macOS, iOS, Windows, Linux, and Android, with zero-trust rules, peer-to-peer tunnels, automatic SSL, SSO/OIDC options, and cloud or self-hosted deployment.ArgoCDArgo CD is the most popular GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. It continuously monitors Git repositories and automatically syncs application state to match the desired configuration. A CNCF graduated project used by thousands of organizations for deploying to Kubernetes clusters.

FAQ

Which Earthly alternative is listed first?

GitHub Actions is first in the editor-selected list of 4 Earthly alternatives and carries an editorial review score of 85/100. The stored order is editorial; review scores do not determine membership or position.

Are there open-source Earthly alternatives?

Yes — Woodpecker CI are open source.

Are there free Earthly alternatives?

Yes — GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, CircleCI, and more offer a free plan or free tier.