Pick Buildkite if
cI teams who will stay on Free at $0 while they create a first pipeline, then buy Pro at $30 / active user / month when they need more than 10 self-hosted agents or hosted minutes.
Read the Buildkite pageBuildkite vs GitLab
Our take
Pick Buildkite if cI teams who will stay on Free at $0 while they create a first pipeline, then buy Pro at $30 / active user / month when they need more than 10 self-hosted agents or hosted minutes. Pick GitLab if teams who will stay on Free at $0 (5 users, 400 minutes) while they open a first pipeline graph, then Premium at $29/user/month billed yearly when they need unlimited licensed users and 10,000 compute
Best for
Buildkite YAML steps you start at $0 (self-hosted agents or hosted minutes)
GitLab A DevSecOps pipeline you start at $0
Free plan
Buildkite $0 · solo / small teams. Up to 250 concurrent jobs and 50 active users on the compare we fetched
GitLab $0 · per user/month. No credit card. 5 users per top-level group. 400 compute minutes / month. 10 GiB storage. SCM + CI/CD. SAST. GitLab Credits are an add-on for Duo
Lowest paid
Buildkite Linux hosted agents $0.004
GitLab GitLab Credits $1
Next step up
Buildkite Mac hosted agents $0.02
GitLab Premium $29/user/mo yearly
Coding agent
Buildkite Self-hosted agents
GitLab
Runs where
Buildkite Local or hosted
GitLab Hosted
Watch out
Buildkite Free $0 is not unlimited hosted minutes
GitLab Free is 5 users and 400 minutes
Last checked
Buildkite 2026-10-23 · buildkite.com/pricing
GitLab 2026-10-23 · about.gitlab.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick GitLab if
teams who will stay on Free at $0 (5 users, 400 minutes) while they open a first pipeline graph, then Premium at $29/user/month billed yearly when they need unlimited licensed users and 10,000 compute minutes.
Read the GitLab page