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Drone.io vs GitLab CI: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Drone.io and GitLab CI

Drone.io and GitLab CI are two popular continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) tools used by software development teams. While both platforms offer similar functionality, there are key differences that make each unique.

  1. Architecture and technology stack: Drone.io is built as a microservices architecture that uses lightweight containers for running tasks. It leverages Docker to provide a scalable and modular solution. In contrast, GitLab CI is tightly integrated with the GitLab ecosystem and relies on shared runners to execute CI/CD pipelines.

  2. Ease of setup and configuration: Drone.io's user interface is simpler and more intuitive, making it easier to set up and configure. Its configuration file, written in YAML, is easy to understand and modify. GitLab CI, on the other hand, can be more complex to configure due to its tightly integrated nature and extensive feature set.

  3. Integration with version control systems: GitLab CI is tightly integrated with GitLab, a popular Git-based repository management platform. This integration allows seamless collaboration between code repositories and CI/CD pipelines. Drone.io, on the other hand, supports a wider range of version control systems beyond Git, including Mercurial and Subversion.

  4. Community and ecosystem: GitLab CI benefits from being part of the larger GitLab ecosystem, which has a large and active community. This means there is a wealth of resources, plugins, and community-contributed integrations available to enhance the functionality of GitLab CI. While Drone.io also has an active community, it may not have the same level of resources and integrations as GitLab CI.

  5. Pricing and deployment options: GitLab CI is part of the GitLab platform, which offers both self-hosted and cloud-hosted options. This gives users the flexibility to choose their preferred deployment method. Drone.io, on the other hand, is primarily self-hosted, which means users need to set up and maintain their own infrastructure.

  6. Supported platforms and integrations: GitLab CI supports a wide range of platforms and integrations, including cloud providers, container registries, and deployment targets. It also has built-in support for multiple runners, allowing parallel execution of pipelines. Drone.io, while it supports popular platforms and integrations, may have a more limited set of options compared to GitLab CI.

In summary, Drone.io and GitLab CI differ in their architecture, ease of setup, integration with version control systems, community support, pricing and deployment options, and supported platforms and integrations. These differences make each tool suitable for different use cases and preferences.

Advice on Drone.io and GitLab CI
Needs advice
on
CircleCICircleCIGitLab CIGitLab CI
and
Jenkins XJenkins X

We are a mid-size startup running Scala apps. Moving from Jenkins/EC2 to Spinnaker/EKS and looking for a tool to cover our CI/CD needs. Our code lives on GitHub, artifacts in nexus, images in ECR.

Drone is out, GitHub actions are being considered along with Circle CI and GitLab CI.

We primarily need:

  • Fast SBT builds (caching)
  • Low maintenance overhead (ideally serverless)
  • Everything as code
  • Ease of use
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Replies (3)
Glenn Gillen
Recommends
on
BuildkiteBuildkite

I think I've tried most of the CI tools out there at some point. It took me a while to get around to Buildkite because at first I didn't see much point given it seemed like you had to run the agent yourself. Eventually it dawned on me why this approach was more ingenious than I realised:

Running my app in a production (or production-like) environment was already a solved problem, because everything was already in some form of "everything as code". Having a test environment where the only difference was adding the Buildkite agent was a trivial addition.

It means that dev/test/prod parity is simple to achieve and maintain. It's also proven to be much easier to support than trying to deal with the problems that come with trying to force an app to fit into the nuances and constraints that are imposed by the containers/runtime of a CI service. When you completely control all of the environment the tests are running in you define those constraints too. It's been a great balance between a managed service and the flexibility of running it yourself.

And while none of my needs have hit the scale of Shopify (I saw one of their engineers speak about it at a conference once, I can't find the video now though 😞) it's good to know I can scale out my worker nodes to hundreds of thousands of workers to reduce the time it takes for my tests to run.

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Recommends
on
jFrogjFrog

I would recommend you to consider the JFrog Platform that includes JFrog Pipelines - it will allow you to manage the full artifact life cycle for your sbt, docker and other technologies, and automate all of your CI and CD using cloud native declarative yaml pipelines. Will integrate smoothly with all your other toolset.

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Estu Fardani
Recommends
on
GitLab CIGitLab CI

more configurable to setup ci/cd: * It can provide caching when build sbt, just add this section to yml file * Easy to use, many documentation

Weakness: * Need use gitlab as repository to bring more powerful configuration

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Decisions about Drone.io and GitLab CI

Buddy is one of the most easy-to-use tools for CI I ever met. When I needed to set up the pipeline I was really impressed with how easy it is to create it with Buddy with only a few moments. It's literally like: 1. Add repo 2. Click - Click - Click 3. You're done and your app is on prod :D The top feature that I've found is a simple integration with different notification channels - not only Slack (which is the one by default), but Telegram and Discord. The support is also neat - guys respond pretty quickly on even a small issue.

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Pros of Drone.io
Pros of GitLab CI
  • 51
    Open source
  • 50
    Built on docker
  • 27
    Free for open source
  • 23
    GitHub integration
  • 18
    Easy Setup
  • 17
    Hosted internally
  • 17
    Flexible scripting
  • 10
    Bitbucket integration
  • 7
    GitLab integration
  • 7
    Works with Heroku
  • 6
    Gogs integration
  • 4
    Browser testing
  • 4
    Works with Google AppEngine
  • 4
    Active Community
  • 3
    Works with Amazon
  • 2
    Works with Cloud Foundry
  • 2
    Gitea Integration
  • 1
    Configuration as code
  • 1
    Eazy to use
  • 1
    Easy tool to automate CI pipeline. Running in an hour
  • 1
    Easy pipelines
  • 1
    Only need yml config
  • 1
    Written in Go
  • 22
    Robust CI with awesome Docker support
  • 13
    Simple configuration
  • 9
    All in one solution
  • 7
    Source Control and CI in one place
  • 5
    Integrated with VCS on commit
  • 5
    Free and open source
  • 5
    Easy to configure own build server i.e. GitLab-Runner
  • 2
    Hosted internally
  • 1
    Built-in Docker Registry
  • 1
    Built-in support of Review Apps
  • 1
    Pipeline could be started manually
  • 1
    Enable or disable pipeline by using env variables
  • 1
    Gitlab templates could be shared across logical group
  • 1
    Easy to setup the dedicated runner to particular job
  • 1
    Built-in support of Kubernetes

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Cons of Drone.io
Cons of GitLab CI
  • 3
    Very basic documentation
  • 2
    Works best with GitLab repositories

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is 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.

What is GitLab CI?

GitLab offers a continuous integration service. If you add a .gitlab-ci.yml file to the root directory of your repository, and configure your GitLab project to use a Runner, then each merge request or push triggers your CI pipeline.

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What are some alternatives to Drone.io and GitLab CI?
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.
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.
Concourse
Concourse's principles reduce the risk of switching to and from Concourse, by encouraging practices that decouple your project from your CI's little details, and keeping all configuration in declarative files that can be checked into version control.
GitLab
GitLab offers git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds and wikis. Enterprises install GitLab on-premise and connect it with LDAP and Active Directory servers for secure authentication and authorization. A single GitLab server can handle more than 25,000 users but it is also possible to create a high availability setup with multiple active servers.
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.
See all alternatives