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Woodpecker CI

Lightweight self-hosted CI/CD engine for the Gitea stack

open sourceupdated Apr 21, 2026

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.

Woodpecker CI is a self-hosted continuous integration and delivery engine with over 6,700 GitHub stars and nearly 8,000 commits. Originally forked from Drone CI after its shift to a proprietary Business Source License, Woodpecker maintained the community-driven, fully open-source approach under Apache-2.0 licensing. It has become the default CI/CD solution for the growing self-hosted Git ecosystem, powering all continuous integration at Codeberg and integrating natively with Gitea and Forgejo — the open-source alternatives to GitHub and GitLab that are rapidly gaining adoption.

Pipeline configuration lives in a .woodpecker.yml file in your repository, using a familiar YAML syntax that defines steps, services, and build matrices. Each step runs in an isolated container, supporting Docker and Kubernetes as execution backends. The engine starts in seconds and idles at approximately 100MB of RAM — a fraction of what Jenkins or GitLab Runner consume. Despite its lightweight footprint, Woodpecker supports essential CI/CD features including multi-pipeline workflows, conditional step execution, encrypted secrets, cron-scheduled builds, matrix builds for testing across environments, and a plugin ecosystem for common tasks like deployment, notifications, and artifact publishing.

The web UI provides build history, real-time log streaming, and repository management through a clean, modern interface. Multi-platform agent support means you can run builds on different architectures — amd64, arm64, or Windows — using dedicated worker nodes. Configuration-as-code is a core principle: everything from pipeline definitions to secret references is versioned alongside your application code. For teams running self-hosted infrastructure with Gitea or Forgejo, Woodpecker CI provides the missing CI/CD piece that completes the stack without external dependencies on GitHub Actions or GitLab CI.

Pricing

Free and open source (Apache-2.0). Self-hosted only — no paid cloud tier.

Platforms

Server runs on Linux, macOS, Windows. Docker and Kubernetes deployment. Agents for amd64, arm64, Windows.

Categories

Tags

Use Cases

GitHub Actions logo

GitHub Actions

Automate your workflow from GitHub

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.

freemium
GitLab CI/CD logo

GitLab CI/CD

Built-in CI/CD for GitLab

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.

freemiumOpen Source
Earthly logo

Earthly

Your CI/CD scripts as code. Consistent, reproducible builds.

Build automation framework that combines Dockerfile and Makefile syntax for repeatable, containerized builds. Earthly runs every step in a container so builds produce identical results on dev laptops and CI, augmenting Make/Gradle/npm/cargo with cross-language reproducibility. Features parallel target execution, layer caching, multi-platform builds, and references across Earthfiles or repositories.

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Tekton logo

Tekton

Cloud-native CI/CD framework for Kubernetes-native pipelines.

Tekton is a cloud-native CI/CD framework that provides Kubernetes-native pipeline resources. A Linux Foundation / CD Foundation project, it offers reusable, composable building blocks for creating CI/CD systems. Used by Google Cloud Build, Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines, and other platforms as their underlying pipeline engine.

Open Source

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Used in Stacks

Comparisons

Blacksmith vs Woodpecker CI: CI/CD Platforms Compared

Blacksmith and Woodpecker CI both help teams run continuous integration pipelines, but with very different approaches. Blacksmith provides high-performance bare-metal runners for GitHub Actions at half the cost, while Woodpecker CI is a fully self-hosted CI/CD server inspired by Drone. The choice depends on whether you want to optimize existing GitHub Actions or run a completely independent CI system.

BlacksmithWoodpecker CI

Woodpecker CI vs Tekton — Lightweight Container-Native CI vs Kubernetes-Native Pipeline Framework

Woodpecker CI provides a lightweight container-native continuous integration server forked from Drone with simple YAML configuration and minimal resource requirements. Tekton offers a Kubernetes-native pipeline framework with custom resources for building complex CI/CD workflows as cluster primitives. Woodpecker wins on simplicity while Tekton wins on Kubernetes-native extensibility.

Woodpecker CITekton

Woodpecker CI vs GitHub Actions — Self-Hosted Simplicity vs Cloud Ecosystem

Woodpecker CI and GitHub Actions serve the same purpose — running automated build, test, and deploy pipelines — but from opposite ends of the hosting spectrum. Woodpecker is a lightweight, self-hosted CI engine designed for the Gitea and Forgejo ecosystem, while GitHub Actions is the dominant cloud CI platform tightly integrated with GitHub. The choice reflects a broader decision about infrastructure ownership.

Woodpecker CIGitHub Actions

FAQ

What is Woodpecker CI?

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.

Is Woodpecker CI free?

Yes — Woodpecker CI is open source and free to use. Free and open source (Apache-2.0). Self-hosted only — no paid cloud tier.

Is Woodpecker CI open source?

Yes — Woodpecker CI is open source.

What are the best Woodpecker CI alternatives?

The top editor-verified Woodpecker CI alternatives are GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Earthly, and more.