AWS CodePipeline vs Github Actions

Overview

AWS CodePipeline

Stacks551

Followers933

Votes30

GitHub Actions

Stacks48.2K

Followers3.1K

Votes27

AWS CodePipeline vs Github Actions: What are the differences?

Introduction:

AWS CodePipeline and GitHub Actions are two popular continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools that enable developers to automate their software development workflows. While both tools serve the same purpose, there are several key differences between them that set them apart.

Integration with Platforms: AWS CodePipeline is tightly integrated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and provides seamless integration with other AWS services such as AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, and AWS CodeDeploy. On the other hand, GitHub Actions is specifically designed for GitHub repositories and provides extensive integration with the GitHub platform, making it easier to manage and automate workflows directly from GitHub.
Hosting and Infrastructure: AWS CodePipeline uses AWS services for hosting and infrastructure, which provides scalability, security, and reliability. It allows developers to leverage the underlying infrastructure of AWS for their CI/CD workflows. In contrast, GitHub Actions is hosted on GitHub's infrastructure, and the workflows are executed directly on GitHub's servers. This makes it simpler to set up and use, especially for projects hosted on GitHub.
Pricing and Cost Model: AWS CodePipeline follows AWS's pricing model, which includes per pipeline pricing based on active pipelines and additional charges for other associated services used. On the other hand, GitHub Actions offers a certain number of free minutes, known as the "free tier," for public repositories. For private repositories and additional usage, a pay-per-minute pricing model is applied, which can be more cost-effective for smaller projects.
Customization and Flexibility: AWS CodePipeline provides a wide range of AWS services that can be used as "actions" in the pipeline, enabling extensive customization and flexibility. It allows developers to build complex CI/CD pipelines using various services offered by AWS. GitHub Actions, on the other hand, offers more flexibility in terms of workflows and automation within the GitHub ecosystem. It provides the ability to create custom actions using Docker containers, making it easier to reuse and share actions across repositories.
Community and Ecosystem: GitHub Actions benefits from the large and active GitHub community, which has contributed numerous pre-built actions and workflows available in the GitHub Marketplace. This extensive ecosystem provides a wide range of ready-to-use actions to automate common tasks. While AWS CodePipeline also has a community and ecosystem, it may not be as extensive or targeted specifically towards CI/CD workflows.
Deployment Options: AWS CodePipeline offers deployment options to various platforms, including AWS services, as well as third-party platforms like Kubernetes, GitHub, and Bitbucket. It provides flexibility in deploying applications to different environments. Conversely, GitHub Actions is primarily focused on GitHub deployment and integrations, making it more suitable for projects tightly integrated with GitHub's infrastructure.

In Summary, AWS CodePipeline provides tight integration with AWS services, while GitHub Actions offers extensive integration with the GitHub platform and provides flexibility in workflows and automation. The pricing models also differ, with AWS CodePipeline aligning with AWS's pricing, and GitHub Actions having a free tier for public repositories. Ultimately, the choice between the two depends on the specific requirements of the project and the preferred ecosystem.

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Advice on AWS CodePipeline, GitHub Actions

Somnath

Engineering Leader at Altimetrik Corp.

Jun 25, 2020

Needs adviceon

CircleCI

Drone.io

GitHub Actions

I am in the process of evaluating CircleCI, Drone.io, and GitHub Actions to cover my #CI/ #CD needs. I would appreciate your advice on comparative study w.r.t. attributes like language-Inclusive support, code-base integration, performance, cost, maintenance, support, ease of use, ability to deal with big projects, etc. based on actual industry experience.

Thanks in advance!

1.82M views1.82M

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Detailed Comparison

AWS CodePipeline	GitHub Actions
CodePipeline builds, tests, and deploys your code every time there is a code change, based on the release process models you define.	It makes it easy to automate all your software workflows, now with world-class CI/CD. Build, test, and deploy your code right from GitHub. Make code reviews, branch management, and issue triaging work the way you want.
Workflow Modeling;AWS Integrations;Pre-Built Plugins;Custom Plugins;Declarative Templates;Access Control	Multiple workflow files support; Free and open source; Workflow run interface; Search for actions in GitHub Marketplace; Integrated with Github's Checks API; Logs and artifacts downloading support
Statistics
Stacks 551	Stacks 48.2K
Followers 933	Followers 3.1K
Votes 30	Votes 27
Pros & Cons
Pros 13 Simple to set up 8 Managed service 4 GitHub integration 3 Parallel Execution 2 Automatic deployment Cons 2 No project boards 1 No integration with "Power" 365 tools	Pros 8 Integration with GitHub 5 Free 3 Easy to duplicate a workflow 3 Ready actions in Marketplace 2 Configs stored in .github Cons 5 Lacking [skip ci] 4 Lacking allow failure 3 Lacking job specific badges 2 No ssh login to servers 1 No Deployment Projects
Integrations
Runscope Amazon S3 GitHub Jenkins CloudBees BlazeMeter Ghost Inspector AWS Elastic Beanstalk Amazon EC2	GitHub

What are some alternatives to AWS CodePipeline, GitHub Actions?

Jenkins

In a nutshell Jenkins CI is the leading open-source continuous integration server. Built with Java, it provides over 300 plugins to support building and testing virtually any project.

Travis CI

Free for open source projects, our CI environment provides multiple runtimes (e.g. Node.js or PHP versions), data stores and so on. Because of this, hosting your project on travis-ci.com means you can effortlessly test your library or applications against multiple runtimes and data stores without even having all of them installed locally.

Codeship

Codeship runs your automated tests and configured deployment when you push to your repository. It takes care of managing and scaling the infrastructure so that you are able to test and release more frequently and get faster feedback for building the product your users need.

CircleCI

Continuous integration and delivery platform helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Offers a modern software development platform that lets teams ramp.

Buddy

Git platform for web and software developers with Docker-based tools for Continuous Integration and Deployment.

TeamCity

TeamCity is a user-friendly continuous integration (CI) server for professional developers, build engineers, and DevOps. It is trivial to setup and absolutely free for small teams and open source projects.

Drone.io

Drone is a hosted continuous integration service. It enables you to conveniently set up projects to automatically build, test, and deploy as you make changes to your code. Drone integrates seamlessly with Github, Bitbucket and Google Code as well as third party services such as Heroku, Dotcloud, Google AppEngine and more.

wercker

Wercker is a CI/CD developer automation platform designed for Microservices & Container Architecture.

GoCD

GoCD is an open source continuous delivery server created by ThoughtWorks. GoCD offers business a first-class build and deployment engine for complete control and visibility.

Airflow

Use Airflow to author workflows as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) of tasks. The Airflow scheduler executes your tasks on an array of workers while following the specified dependencies. Rich command lines utilities makes performing complex surgeries on DAGs a snap. The rich user interface makes it easy to visualize pipelines running in production, monitor progress and troubleshoot issues when needed.

Related Comparisons

AWS CodePipeline vs Github Actions: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Integration with Platforms: AWS CodePipeline is tightly integrated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and provides seamless integration with other AWS services such as AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, and AWS CodeDeploy. On the other hand, GitHub Actions is specifically designed for GitHub repositories and provides extensive integration with the GitHub platform, making it easier to manage and automate workflows directly from GitHub.
Hosting and Infrastructure: AWS CodePipeline uses AWS services for hosting and infrastructure, which provides scalability, security, and reliability. It allows developers to leverage the underlying infrastructure of AWS for their CI/CD workflows. In contrast, GitHub Actions is hosted on GitHub's infrastructure, and the workflows are executed directly on GitHub's servers. This makes it simpler to set up and use, especially for projects hosted on GitHub.
Pricing and Cost Model: AWS CodePipeline follows AWS's pricing model, which includes per pipeline pricing based on active pipelines and additional charges for other associated services used. On the other hand, GitHub Actions offers a certain number of free minutes, known as the "free tier," for public repositories. For private repositories and additional usage, a pay-per-minute pricing model is applied, which can be more cost-effective for smaller projects.
Customization and Flexibility: AWS CodePipeline provides a wide range of AWS services that can be used as "actions" in the pipeline, enabling extensive customization and flexibility. It allows developers to build complex CI/CD pipelines using various services offered by AWS. GitHub Actions, on the other hand, offers more flexibility in terms of workflows and automation within the GitHub ecosystem. It provides the ability to create custom actions using Docker containers, making it easier to reuse and share actions across repositories.
Community and Ecosystem: GitHub Actions benefits from the large and active GitHub community, which has contributed numerous pre-built actions and workflows available in the GitHub Marketplace. This extensive ecosystem provides a wide range of ready-to-use actions to automate common tasks. While AWS CodePipeline also has a community and ecosystem, it may not be as extensive or targeted specifically towards CI/CD workflows.
Deployment Options: AWS CodePipeline offers deployment options to various platforms, including AWS services, as well as third-party platforms like Kubernetes, GitHub, and Bitbucket. It provides flexibility in deploying applications to different environments. Conversely, GitHub Actions is primarily focused on GitHub deployment and integrations, making it more suitable for projects tightly integrated with GitHub's infrastructure.

AWS CodePipeline vs Github Actions

Overview