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 Woodpecker
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 Woodpecker if teams who already run Gitea / Forgejo / GitHub and will stay on the Apache self-host at $0 while they open a first pipeline log, then keep self-hosting because Woodpecker does not print a hosted Cloud
Woodpecker
open-source CI desk
Best for
Buildkite YAML steps you start at $0 (self-hosted agents or hosted minutes)
Woodpecker Pipelines you start at $0 on your host
Free plan
Buildkite $0 · solo / small teams. Up to 250 concurrent jobs and 50 active users on the compare we fetched
Woodpecker $0 · apache-2.0. You run the server + one or more agents + a forge. Confirmed by the repo LICENSE (“Apache License / Version 2.0”)
Lowest paid
Buildkite Linux hosted agents $0.004
Woodpecker Not published by the vendor
Next step up
Buildkite Mac hosted agents $0.02
Woodpecker
Coding agent
Buildkite Self-hosted agents
Woodpecker Pipelines
Runs where
Buildkite Local or hosted
Woodpecker
Watch out
Buildkite Free $0 is not unlimited hosted minutes
Woodpecker $0 is the license, not the agent VM
Last checked
Buildkite 2026-10-23 · buildkite.com/pricing
Woodpecker 2026-10-23 · github.com/woodpecker-ci/woodpecker/blob
Which one, then?
Pick Woodpecker if
teams who already run Gitea / Forgejo / GitHub and will stay on the Apache self-host at $0 while they open a first pipeline log, then keep self-hosting because Woodpecker does not print a hosted Cloud dollar.
Read the Woodpecker page