Jenkins is the best other continuous delivery software for most teams that want a free, self-hosted starting point, while GitLab is the closest match for teams that want source control, pipelines, and delivery in one product. CircleCI is the clearest choice for credit-based cloud builds, and Buildkite is the clearest choice for teams that want to run agents on their own machines. Harness is the quote-only option here, so ask for a written quote before you compare it with the published prices in this article.
This list covers the main shapes of delivery: a self-hosted automation server, a combined DevOps platform, a credit-based cloud service, a managed delivery platform, a release tool, two open source Kubernetes and multi-cloud tools, and a hybrid runner service. Pick by where your code runs and which billing unit you can forecast.
On this page
Best other continuous delivery software: comparison table
Swipe the table sideways on a phone to see every column.
| # | Name | Best for | Starting price | Free plan / trial | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jenkins | Self-hosted pipelines with many plugins | $0 | Yes | Visit |
| 2 | GitLab | Source control and delivery in one product | $29 per user/month | Yes | Visit |
| 3 | CircleCI | Cloud builds billed in credits | $15 per month | Yes | Visit |
| 4 | Harness | Managed delivery with verification and rollback | quote only | Yes | Visit |
| 5 | Octopus Deploy | Staged releases across many targets | $45 per month | Yes | Visit |
| 6 | Argo CD | GitOps delivery for Kubernetes | $0 | Yes | Visit |
| 7 | Spinnaker | Multi-cloud delivery pipelines | $0 | Yes | Visit |
| 8 | Buildkite | Self-hosted agents with a clear per-user price | $30 per active user/month | Yes | Visit |
The 8 best best other continuous delivery software tools, in detail
Jenkins
Best for: Self-hosted pipelines with many plugins
Jenkins is an open source automation server that can act as a simple build server or as the continuous delivery hub for a whole project. Its plugin library covers source control, build tools, test tools, deployment targets, and notifications, so most teams can connect the tools they already use without changing their whole stack. Jenkins runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and it can spread work across several machines.
- The trade-off is ownership.
- Jenkins itself costs $0, but the server, storage, backups, upgrades, and plugin updates are your work, and a neglected instance can become slow or har
- Choose Jenkins when you want full control and you have staff time for upkeep.
Pros
- No licence fee
- more than 2,300 community plugins
- runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS
Cons
- You operate, patch, and secure the server yourself
- the interface and plugin set need regular upkeep
GitLab
Best for: Source control and delivery in one product
GitLab combines source code management, CI/CD pipelines, planning, and security testing in one product, which cuts down the number of separate tools a team must connect. The Free plan on GitLab.com costs $0, covers up to 5 users per top-level group, and includes 400 compute minutes per month and 10 GiB of project storage. Premium costs $29 per user per month billed annually and raises the limit to 10,000 compute minutes per month and 500 GiB of project storage, with advanced CI/CD and priority support.
- GitLab also includes $12 of GitLab Credits per user per month on Premium, and extra compute minutes cost $10 per 1,000 minutes, so heavy build use can
- A subscription cannot be moved between GitLab.com and Self-Managed, so changing the deployment model means buying a new subscription.
Pros
- Free plan with 400 compute minutes per month
- Premium adds 10,000 compute minutes per month
- one product for code, pipelines, and planning
Cons
- Premium is $29 per user per month billed annually, so seat costs add up fast
- Ultimate has no published price and needs a quote
CircleCI
Best for: Cloud builds billed in credits
CircleCI is a hosted CI/CD service that bills in credits, which you spend on compute time, seats, and add-on features. The Free plan costs $0 per month, includes 30,000 credits per month, up to 5 active users, and 30x concurrency, with Docker, Windows, Linux, Arm, macOS, and self-hosted runners. The Performance plan starts at $15 per month, includes the same 30,000 credits, and raises concurrency to 80x, with larger resource classes and an optional 8×5 support add-on.
- The billing detail to watch is that seats draw from the same credit balance as compute.
- On Performance, each extra user costs 25,000 credits per month, which is about $15 at the $15 per 25,000 credit rate, before any build minutes are use
- Network and storage use beyond the plan thresholds costs 420 credits per GB, and Docker layer caching costs 200 credits per job run.
Pros
- Free plan with 30,000 credits per month and 5 active users
- Performance adds 80x concurrency
- open source projects can get up to 400,000 credits per month
Cons
- Seats are also charged in credits, at 25,000 credits per extra user per month on Performance
- single sign-on and config policies are held for Scale
Harness
Best for: Managed delivery with verification and rollback
Harness is a software delivery platform that covers continuous integration, continuous delivery and GitOps, feature management, infrastructure as code, and several security and operations modules. The Free plan costs $0 and includes 2,000 Harness Cloud credits per month, which is about 1,000 minutes on a small Linux machine, with community support. The Essentials plan bundles four modules in one fixed package and is sold through sales, while the Enterprise plan lets a buyer pick any modules from a catalog of 14.
- The limits matter when you size a deal.
- Essentials allows up to 500 users, 1 organization, 5 custom dashboards, 5 custom roles, and 6 months of pipeline execution history, and it is SaaS onl
- Enterprise allows unlimited users and organizations and up to 500 concurrent CD pipelines, with self-managed hosting and 25 months of history as add-o
Pros
- Free plan with 2,000 Harness Cloud credits per month
- Essentials bundles CI, CD and GitOps, infrastructure as code, and security testing in one package
- Enterprise allows any mix of modules
Cons
- Essentials and Enterprise publish no price, so the full cost needs a quote
- Essentials is capped at 500 users, 1 organization, and 60 concurrent pipelines
Octopus Deploy
Best for: Staged releases across many targets
Octopus Deploy is a deployment automation tool for teams that ship to many servers, clusters, and cloud targets and need staged releases with approvals. The free tier covers up to 10 targets, with a cap of 10 projects, 10 targets, and 10 users. Octopus Cloud costs $45 per month for up to 5 deployment targets, with $9 per additional target, and it includes the hosted service.
- Self-hosted Server is licensed by target-count tiers, and Enterprise is sold by quote with high availability and advanced support.
- Because Octopus bills per target, the right comparison is the size of your deployment estate, not the size of your team.
- A team with 20 developers and 5 targets pays far less than a team with 5 developers and 100 targets.
- The tool is deployment only, so you still need a separate build and test service unless you already have one.
Pros
- Free tier covers up to 10 targets
- Cloud starts at $45 per month for up to 5 targets
- release promotion and approvals are built in
Cons
- Cost rises with each deployment target, so a large estate costs more than a per-user tool
- self-hosted Server licensing is by target-count tiers
Argo CD
Best for: GitOps delivery for Kubernetes
Argo CD is a declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. The desired state of an application lives in a Git repository as manifests, Helm charts, or Kustomize overlays, and the Argo CD controller inside the cluster compares that declared state with what is actually running, then reconciles any drift. The project is free under the Apache 2.0 licence, it is a graduated Cloud Native Computing Foundation project, and it supports blue and green and canary deployments.
- The cost is operational, not a licence fee.
- You install the controller, secure it, upgrade it, and manage Applications and clusters as they grow.
- Managed control planes from vendors such as Akuity add multi-cluster management and hardened RBAC, and Akuity Pro starts from $495 per month for 1 Arg
Pros
- No licence fee under Apache 2.0
- pull-based GitOps with drift detection
- a graduated Cloud Native Computing Foundation project
Cons
- Kubernetes only, with no native build or test stage
- you operate the controller, RBAC, and upgrades yourself
Spinnaker
Best for: Multi-cloud delivery pipelines
Spinnaker is an open source, multi-cloud continuous delivery platform for releasing software changes with speed and confidence. It was created at Netflix and combines a pipeline management system with integrations to the major cloud providers, so one pipeline can deploy across AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Kubernetes. Pipelines can be triggered by Git events, Jenkins, Docker, or other Spinnaker pipelines.
- The trade-off is complexity.
- Spinnaker is a set of services, not a single small program, and running it in production takes platform engineering time for setup, upgrades, and moni
- Small teams with one cloud and a few services will find a hosted tool faster to adopt.
Pros
- No licence fee as open source software
- deploys across AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes, and other clouds
- pipeline management with canary and blue and green releases
Cons
- You operate a complex multi-service platform yourself
- it is more than most small teams need
Buildkite
Best for: Self-hosted agents with a clear per-user price
Buildkite is a CI/CD platform built around agents that run on your own infrastructure or on Buildkite hosted compute. The Free plan costs $0, covers up to 5 users and 10 concurrent jobs, and includes up to 2,000 Linux vCPU minutes per month and up to 250,000 test executions per month. The Pro plan costs $30 per active user per month, covers up to 50 users and up to 250 concurrent agents with 10 included, and includes 4,000 Linux AMD64 vCPU minutes per month and 1M test executions per month.
- The billing model is easy to read: you pay per active user and per agent beyond the included 10, and you do not pay Buildkite for compute you run your
- Hosted agents are metered per vCPU minute, with Linux from $0.004 per vCPU minute on Pro.
- Enterprise is custom, with a 30-user minimum and unlimited self-hosted agents.
Pros
- Free plan with up to 5 users, 10 concurrent jobs, and 2,000 Linux vCPU minutes per month
- Pro includes 4,000 Linux vCPU minutes per month and 1M test executions per month
- your own compute is not metered
Cons
- Pro is capped at 50 users, so larger teams need Enterprise by quote
- extra self-hosted agents cost $3.50 per agent per month after the first 10
How we chose
We picked tools that cover the main kinds of continuous delivery: self-hosted, combined DevOps, credit-based cloud, managed delivery, release automation, GitOps for Kubernetes, multi-cloud, and hybrid agents. Each tool had to be a real product with an official homepage and a published price or a clear quote-only status. Prices and plan limits come from official vendor pricing pages and docs opened on 2026-11-12. We did not test any tool hands-on. We did not install any product, run a build, or claim personal use. Where a vendor hid the price, as Harness does, we wrote quote only.
Pick by team size and budget
| Team and setup | First pick | Starting price to budget | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo developer or 5 users, self-hosted | Jenkins or Buildkite Free | $0 | Your time to run the server or agents |
| Small team, one product, code and delivery together | GitLab Free, then Premium | $29 per user/month (billed annually) | Premium seat cost at $29 per user per month |
| Small team, hosted cloud builds | CircleCI Free, then Performance | $15 per month (Performance) | Seats at 25,000 credits per extra user per month |
| Kubernetes team, Git-driven releases | Argo CD | $0 (open source, no licence fee) | Operating the controller and RBAC yourself |
| Multi-cloud team with a platform group | Spinnaker | $0 (open source, no licence fee) | Running a multi-service platform |
| Many deployment targets, staged releases | Octopus Deploy Cloud | $45 per month (Cloud, up to 5 targets) | $9 per additional target |
| Managed delivery, no published price needed yet | Harness Free, then quote | quote only | Essentials cap of 500 users and 60 concurrent pipelines |
| Hybrid agents, up to 50 users | Buildkite Pro | $30 per active user/month (Pro) | $3.50 per agent per month after the first 10 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best other continuous delivery software for most teams?
Jenkins is the best other continuous delivery software for most teams that want a free, self-hosted starting point with many plugins, while GitLab is the closest match for teams that want source control and delivery in one product. CircleCI suits hosted cloud builds, and Buildkite suits teams that run agents on their own machines.
How much does continuous delivery software cost?
Costs range from $0 for Jenkins, Argo CD, and Spinnaker as open source tools to $15 per month for CircleCI Performance, $29 per user per month billed annually for GitLab Premium, $30 per active user per month for Buildkite Pro, and $45 per month for Octopus Deploy Cloud for up to 5 targets. Harness is quote only.
Which continuous delivery tool is best for Kubernetes?
Argo CD is the best choice in this list for Kubernetes, because it is a GitOps controller that reconciles cluster state against Git, with drift detection and blue and green and canary deployments. Spinnaker also deploys to Kubernetes, but it is a larger multi-cloud platform.
Is there a free continuous delivery tool?
Yes. Jenkins, Argo CD, and Spinnaker are open source with a $0 licence fee. GitLab Free costs $0 with 400 compute minutes per month, CircleCI Free costs $0 with 30,000 credits per month, Harness Free costs $0 with 2,000 Cloud credits per month, Octopus Deploy has a free tier for up to 10 targets, and Buildkite Free costs $0 for up to 5 users.
What is the main cost trap in CircleCI pricing?
The main cost trap is that seats are charged in credits as well as compute. On Performance, each extra user costs 25,000 credits per month, about $15 at the $15 per 25,000 credit rate, before any build minutes are used. Network and storage use beyond the plan thresholds costs 420 credits per GB, and Docker layer caching costs 200 credits per job run.
Which tool is best for staged releases to many servers?
Octopus Deploy is the best tool in this list for staged releases to many servers, because it is built around release promotion, approvals, and deployment targets. Cloud costs $45 per month for up to 5 targets, with $9 per additional target, and the free tier covers up to 10 targets. It is deployment only.
Sources
- https://www.jenkins.io/
- https://about.gitlab.com/
- https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/
- https://circleci.com/
- https://circleci.com/pricing/
- https://harness.io/
- https://harness.io/pricing/
- https://octopus.com/
- https://octopus.com/pricing/
- https://argoproj.github.io/cd/
- https://spinnaker.io/
- https://buildkite.com/
- https://buildkite.com/pricing/
Prices and features were read on each company’s own website in November 2026. They change often, so confirm the current offer on the official site before you sign up or buy.