Head to head
Semaphore vs GitLab CI/CD
Both platforms are scored with the same methodology and the same category rubric. Nothing on this page is influenced by advertising.
47/100 | 60/100Higher score | |
|---|---|---|
| Category rank | #7 | #2 |
| Confidence | High confidence | High confidence |
| External Reputation | 76 | 86 |
| AI Authority | 22 | 59 |
| Web Authority | 16 | 21 |
| Expert Assessment | 71 | 62 |
| 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 | $29 per user/month, billed annually (Premium) · free tier: Free at $0/user/month, no credit card required: 5 users per top-level group, 400 compute minutes/month, SCM and CI/CD, 10 GiB adjustable storage, Static Application Security Testing; AI features require the GitLab Credits add-on |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Subscription (per user/month, annual) with credit and usage-based add-ons |
| 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. | Engineering organisations that want a single vendor for source control, CI/CD, security scanning and planning, especially those with data-residency or air-gap needs, those willing to run their own runners, and qualifying OSS, education or startup projects eligible for free Ultimate. |
| 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 are a small team without seasoned DevOps staff, need more than 5 free users, want a lightweight CI runner bolted onto an existing stack, require month-to-month or mixed-tier licensing, run heavy CI on GitLab-hosted runners and cannot tolerate hard pipeline stops, or need a firm Ultimate budget before a sales cycle. |
| Markets | SMB, Mid-Market, Agencies, Enterprise (Hybrid/Enterprise editions) | SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise, Public Sector, Open Source, Education, Startups |
| 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.