I used to think GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, CircleCI and TeamCity were basically the same thing with different YAML syntax. They're not.
The bigger distinction is:
Code hosting ≠ CI/CD ≠ workflow orchestration.
GitHub → GitHub Actions
GitLab → GitLab CI/CD
Bitbucket → Bitbucket Pipelines
Azure DevOps → Azure Pipelines
Gitea → Gitea Actions
Forgejo → Forgejo Actions
And then you have independent CI/CD/workflow platforms:
Jenkins
CircleCI
TeamCity
Argo Workflows
I put together a practical guide explaining:
→ what a code hosting platform actually does
→ what CI/CD adds
→ why companies sometimes use an external CI/CD platform
→ how Jenkins, CircleCI and TeamCity differ
→ why Argo is a different category
→ the pipeline/configuration file for each platform
→ which tools are worth learning as a developer
The goal isn't to memorize 10 YAML syntaxes.
It's to understand the architecture behind them.
Learn the concepts first. Choose the platform second.
Top comments (0)