# Alternatives to Semaphore

Fast hosted CI/CD pipelines.

Semaphore ranks #2 of 7 in CI/CD platforms, with an Alt Score of 86. It is licensed under Apache 2.0 (Community Edition); commercial license (Enterprise Edition) and available on Web and Linux. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/semaphore/
Category: CI/CD platforms

## Where Semaphore stands out

- **Free tier minutes** — 2 of 6 apps with a verified answer have this
- **Debugging (SSH into runner)** — 3 of 7 apps with a verified answer have this

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Software teams that need CI/CD pipelines to build, test, and deploy their code, from small projects to enterprises with monorepos, containers, mobile apps, or compliance requirements.
- **What you get**: Pipelines defined as YAML, organized into blocks and jobs, with parallel execution and dependency graphs (DAGs). You get fast, production-like sandbox environments, built-in test reporting and flaky-test detection, caching and Docker registry support, and promotions to gate or automate deployments across environments. Available as a hosted cloud service or self-hosted using your own infrastructure.
- **How it works**: You define a pipeline configuration file describing the sequence of blocks and jobs to run on each push or pull request; Semaphore's job runners (cloud-hosted or self-hosted agents) execute those jobs in parallel, and promotions chain additional pipelines together for staged delivery to production.

## Profile

- **License**: Apache 2.0 (Community Edition); commercial license (Enterprise Edition) (verified 2026-07-09)
- **Pricing model**: Usage-based (verified 2026-07-09)
- **Starts at**: $0.003/min (Ubuntu ARM 2vCPU) (verified 2026-07-09)
- **Platforms**: Web, Linux
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-09)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [CircleCI](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/circleci.md) | 96 | Proprietary | Web |
| 2 | [Buildkite](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/buildkite.md) | 82 | ? | Web, Linux, macOS, Windows |
| 3 | [TeamCity](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/teamcity.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Windows, Linux, macOS, Web |
| 4 | [Woodpecker CI](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/woodpecker-ci.md) | 82 | Apache-2.0 | Linux, Windows, macOS, Web |
| 5 | [Jenkins](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/jenkins.md) | 68 | MIT | Linux, Windows, macOS, Web |
| 6 | [Drone](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/drone.md) | 55 | Apache-2.0 (Community Edition); Drone Non-Commercial License (Enterprise Edition) | Linux, Windows |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| CI/CD platforms checklist | Semaphore | CircleCI | Buildkite | TeamCity | Woodpecker CI | Jenkins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium | Free | Free |
| Starts at | $0.003/min (Ubuntu ARM 2vCPU) | Free | Free | €2,399/year | Free | Free |
| License | Apache 2.0 (Community Edition); commercial license (Enterprise Edition) | Proprietary | ? | Proprietary | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Platforms | Web, Linux | Web | Web, Linux, macOS, Windows | Windows, Linux, macOS, Web | Linux, Windows, macOS, Web | Linux, Windows, macOS, Web |
| Free tier minutes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | ? |
| Self-hostable runners | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pipeline as code | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Matrix builds | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Caching quality | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Container-native | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Secrets management | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Marketplace / plugins | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Concurrency limits | Partial | Partial | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Debugging (SSH into runner) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Partial | Partial |

## Sources

Sources for Semaphore. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **Pricing model**: Usage-based — <https://semaphore.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Semaphore now separates compute pricing from support and success services. Pay only for what you use.”
- **Platforms**: Web, Linux — <https://docs.semaphore.io/CE/getting-started/install-single-machine> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Note: Cloud consumed via Web; CE self-hosted control plane on Linux.
  - Quote: “This page explains how to install the Semaphore Community Edition control plane on a single Linux Server. A Linux machine running Ubuntu.”
- **Starts at**: $0.003/min (Ubuntu ARM 2vCPU) — <https://semaphore.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Ubuntu ARM $0.003 /min 2vCPU”
- **Status**: active — <https://github.com/semaphoreio/semaphore> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Note: Active repo; 2026 blog posts and product updates.
  - Quote: “Free and open source under Apache 2.0 license.”
- **License**: Apache 2.0 (Community Edition); commercial license (Enterprise Edition) — <https://github.com/semaphoreio/semaphore> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Free and open source under Apache 2.0 license. This is what you'll find in this repository (everything outside the `ee/` folder).”
- **Free tier minutes**: Yes — <https://semaphore.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Free Credits Get $15 free credits per month (≈ 2,000 Ubuntu x64 2-vCPU minutes). Credits can be used across available services.”
- **Self-hostable runners**: Yes — <https://docs.semaphore.io/using-semaphore/self-hosted> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Semaphore Hybrid lets you run jobs on your own hardware. This page explains what self-hosted agents are and how to install them on several platforms.”
- **Pipeline as code**: Yes — <https://docs.semaphore.io/using-semaphore/pipelines> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Pipelines are also the unit of configuration. Each pipeline is encoded as separate a YAML file in the .semaphore folder.”
- **Matrix builds**: Yes — <https://docs.semaphore.io/using-semaphore/jobs> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “A job matrix is a more advanced form of job parallelism where you can define multiple variables with different values and run all the possible permutations.”
- **Caching quality**: Yes — <https://docs.semaphore.io/using-semaphore/cache> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Semaphore provides a cache tool in all jobs to reuse files your project depends on but are not part of the repository. For jobs running on Semaphore Cloud, the total cache size is 9.6GB.”
- **Container-native**: Yes — <https://docs.semaphore.io/using-semaphore/containers> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Jobs can run inside Docker containers. This allows you to define a custom-built environment with pre-installed tools and dependencies needed for your project.”
- **Secrets management**: Yes — <https://docs.semaphore.io/using-semaphore/secrets> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “Secrets store sensitive data like API keys, passwords, and SSH keys. Secrets are encrypted on creation and decrypted at runtime when required for jobs.”
- **Marketplace / plugins**: No — <https://semaphore.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Note: No dedicated marketplace/plugin store; native feature modules only.
  - Quote: “Semaphore Product Features Continuous Integration & Pipelines Deployments & Automation MCP Server Metrics & Observability Security & Compliance Developer Toolkit”
- **Concurrency limits**: Partial — <https://semaphore.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Note: Default cap of 20 concurrent jobs, raisable on request.
  - Quote: “Includes 20 concurrent jobs by default. Higher limits are available on request based on usage.”
- **Debugging (SSH into runner)**: Yes — <https://docs.semaphore.io/using-semaphore/jobs> (verified 2026-07-09)
  - Quote: “You can debug a job interactively by SSHing into the agent. This is a very powerful feature for troubleshooting. Click on SSH Debug”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/