Head to head
Semaphore vs GitHub Actions
Both platforms are scored with the same methodology and the same category rubric. Nothing on this page is influenced by advertising.
47/100 | 70/100Higher score | |
|---|---|---|
| Category rank | #7 | #1 |
| Confidence | High confidence | High confidence |
| External Reputation | 76 | 92 |
| AI Authority | 22 | 68 |
| Web Authority | 16 | 44 |
| Expert Assessment | 71 | 64 |
| TOP10 User Score | — | — |
| Pricing | $0.003 per minute (Ubuntu ARM 2 vCPU); Ubuntu x64 2 vCPU $0.0075/min; self-hosted $0.0025/min · free tier: $15/month in free credits (~2,000 Ubuntu x64 2-vCPU minutes), 20 concurrent jobs by default, artifacts free to 20 GB/month egress and 100 GB/month storage; free support covers only account setup, projects and Git integration | Team $4 USD per user/month for the first 12 months (3,000 CI/CD minutes/month, 2GB Packages storage, web-based support) · free tier: Free plan $0/month forever: unlimited public/private repositories, 2,000 CI/CD minutes/month (free for public repositories), 500MB Packages storage, community forum support; separate 30-day trial covering GitHub Enterprise, Copilot and Advanced Security |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Subscription with bundled allowance plus usage-based metered overage |
| Best for | Teams of roughly 5-150 engineers running frequent Linux, ARM or container builds who are unhappy with pipeline wall-clock time, want per-minute billing with no seat tax, and are willing to pay for fast human support or to self-host via Community Edition. | Open-source projects and small-to-mid teams already standardised on GitHub.com running mostly Linux builds near their included minute allowance, who value one control plane for code, review, packages, scanning and CI and can absorb an occasional multi-hour CI stall. |
| Avoid if | Your workflow already lives entirely in GitHub or GitLab, you are macOS/iOS-dominant, you need a contractual response-time SLA on a small budget, you require verified SOC 2 / ISO 27001 evidence up front, or you need flexible refunds and mid-term cancellation. | You need CI to survive independently of your SCM or cannot tolerate ten-plus hours of pipeline downtime, you run heavy macOS/iOS build matrices where round-up billing at $0.077–$0.102 per minute bites, you are a mid-sized team whose only requirement is SSO and audit logging, or you need a firm three-year TCO today. |
| Markets | SMB, Mid-Market, Agencies, Enterprise (Hybrid/Enterprise editions) | SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise, Open Source / Individual Developers |
| Founded | — | — |
| Headquarters | — | — |
A higher TOP SCORE means more of the evidence favours that platform on this methodology — it is not a recommendation, and it does not account for your specific requirements. Advertisers are never declared the winner of a comparison.