TL;DR: GitHub Actions is free, native to GitHub, and handles 80% of CI/CD workflows fine. Earthly is better if you need consistent, reproducible builds across local and remote environments without vendor lock-in. The real answer: it depends on whether you care more about convenience or build consistency.
I spent a weekend last month rebuilding our entire CI/CD pipeline. We were on GitHub Actions, shipping fast but dealing with constant "works on my machine" debugging. Our deploys would pass locally, then fail on the action runner because environment differences. That's when I looked seriously at Earthly.
Here's the thing: this isn't a "one is objectively better" situation. GitHub Actions and Earthly solve different problems, even though they both live in the CI/CD space. Most teams should probably use GitHub Actions. But some teams — especially those shipping containerized applications or dealing with complex build dependencies — might find Earthly saves them literal hours per week.
Who should read this: You're deciding between GitHub Actions and Earthly for a new project, or you're frustrated with your current CI/CD setup and wondering if switching is worth it.
What GitHub Actions Actually Does
GitHub Actions is GitHub's native CI/CD platform. You write workflows in YAML, push to GitHub, and Actions runs your jobs on runners (GitHub-hosted or self-hosted). It's integrated directly into the GitHub UI, which is convenient.
The free tier gives you:
- 2,000 minutes/month on GitHub-hosted runners (Linux, Windows, macOS)
- Unlimited self-hosted runners
- No setup beyond a
.github/workflows/directory
That's genuinely a lot of free compute. For most small-to-medium teams, you'll never hit the paid tier.
GitHub Actions is battle-tested. It powers deployment pipelines at companies like Stripe, Figma, and honestly thousands of smaller startups that never talk about it publicly because it just works. The ecosystem is massive — thousands of pre-built actions on the marketplace that do everything from deploying to AWS to running linters.
The downside? Your builds are tightly coupled to GitHub. If you ever need to migrate CI platforms, you're rewriting all your workflows. And if you have complex, multi-stage builds with lots of dependencies, the YAML can get... unwieldy. I've seen 400-line GitHub Actions workflows that are impossible to debug.
What Earthly Actually Does
Earthly is fundamentally different. It's a containerized build framework that uses a file called Earthfile (similar syntax to Dockerfile, but for defining build steps).
The key insight: an Earthly build runs the same way on your laptop as it does in CI. No "works on my machine" problems. No subtle differences between local Docker and what your CI runner sees.
You write an Earthfile:
VERSION 0.7
FROM ubuntu:22.04
build:
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y build-essential
COPY . /src
WORKDIR /src
RUN make build
SAVE ARTIFACT ./dist /output
test:
FROM +build
RUN make test
docker:
FROM +build
ENTRYPOINT ["/app/main"]
SAVE IMAGE my-app:latest
Then run earthly +build locally or in CI. Same result either way. No surprises.
Earthly also handles dependency caching better than most CI platforms. It understands the DAG (directed acyclic graph) of your build and caches aggressively. If your tests don't change and your source code doesn't change, Earthly knows that and skips work.
Try GitHub Actions → (it's free if you're on GitHub already)
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Factor | GitHub Actions | Earthly |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (2K min/mo), then $0.008/min | Free for single-user, $10-100/mo teams |
| Setup Time | Minutes (YAML) | Hours (learning Earthfile syntax) |
| Local Testing | Limited (need to simulate runner env) | Full — run same build locally |
| Build Caching | Per-job, action-dependent | Intelligent, content-addressed |
| Vendor Lock-in | High (GitHub-specific) | Low (runs anywhere Docker runs) |
| Learning Curve | Shallow | Steeper |
| Parallel Execution | Built-in (matrix strategy) | Built-in (targets run in parallel) |
| Docker Support | Solid, but indirect | Native — designed for containers |
| Community Size | Massive | Growing but smaller |
| Multi-language | Yes (any shell command) | Yes (any container image) |
When GitHub Actions Is the Right Call
Use GitHub Actions if:
✅ You're already on GitHub — why add another tool? It's right there.
✅ Your builds are simple — run tests, build a binary, ship it. GitHub Actions handles this in 10 lines of YAML.
✅ Your team doesn't need to reproduce CI failures locally — if bugs in your build process are rare and debugging them in CI logs is fine.
✅ You have tight GitHub integration needs — pull request checks, branch protections, automatic releases tied to tags. GitHub Actions integrates seamlessly.
✅ You want massive ecosystem support — there are Actions for literally everything. Need to deploy to 15 cloud platforms? There's an Action for each.
❌ Cost is a concern — if you're running 100+ minute-heavy builds per day, GitHub Actions paid tier gets expensive fast. Earthly's flat team pricing might be cheaper.
❌ You're managing multiple repositories with identical build logic — GitHub Actions duplicates YAML across repos. Earthly's Earthfile is portable and centralized.
When Earthly Is Worth the Switch
Use Earthly if:
✅ Your builds are complex and multi-stage — microservices, monorepos, Docker images with lots of dependencies. Earthly's caching and DAG logic saves hours per week.
✅ You need "works locally" guarantees — developers can reproduce build failures without CI. This alone is worth the switch for some teams.
✅ You're shipping Docker images constantly — Earthly is built for containerized workflows. It understands layers, caching, image composition in ways GitHub Actions doesn't.
✅ You use multiple CI platforms or plan to — Earthly is platform-agnostic. Run it on GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, or your laptop. Same behavior.
✅ Your CI costs are spiraling — if you're hitting GitHub's paid tier hard, Earthly's $10/seat is cheaper for teams.
❌ You need native pull request integration — Earthly doesn't check PRs natively. You still need to wire it into GitHub Actions or another CI platform to run.
❌ Your team isn't comfortable with Docker — Earthly's syntax is closer to Dockerfile than YAML, which is actually a feature. But if Docker is unfamiliar, it's one more learning curve.
The Honest Comparison: Real Workflow
Here's how each handles a realistic scenario: build a Node.js app, run tests, push Docker image to registry, deploy to Kubernetes.
GitHub Actions approach:
name: Deploy
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with:
node-version: '20'
- run: npm ci
- run: npm run build
- run: npm test
- uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
with:
push: true
tags: myregistry/app:${{ github.sha }}
- run: kubectl set image deployment/app app=myregistry/app:${{ github.sha }}
Simple, readable, gets the job done. But if your build has 3 different Node versions to test, or needs to build 5 services in a specific order, this gets messy fast.
Earthly approach:
VERSION 0.7
FROM node:20
build:
COPY . /src
WORKDIR /src
RUN npm ci
RUN npm run build
SAVE ARTIFACT ./dist /dist
test:
FROM +build
RUN npm test
docker:
FROM node:20-alpine
COPY +build/dist /app
ENTRYPOINT ["node", "/app/index.js"]
SAVE IMAGE myapp:latest
deploy:
FROM alpine/helm:latest
RUN apk add kubectl
COPY +docker --push myregistry/app:latest
RUN kubectl set image deployment/app app=myregistry/app:latest
More lines, but each target is self-contained and reusable. You can run earthly +test locally to debug without CI. The +build target is cached and can be referenced elsewhere.
Then in your GitHub Actions workflow, you just call:
- run: earthly --push +deploy
That's it. All the complexity lives in the Earthfile where it belongs.
Pricing Reality Check
GitHub Actions:
- Free: 2,000 minutes/month = ~40 builds/month if each takes 50 minutes
- Paid: $0.008/minute for runners = $24/month for 3,000 extra minutes
- Self-hosted runners: free compute, but you manage the infrastructure
Earthly:
- Free tier: single-user, public builds
- Teams: $10/user/month for up to 5 users, $20/user/month beyond that
- On-premise: custom pricing
Real example: A 5-person team running 50 builds/month, each 20 minutes average:
- GitHub Actions: mostly free (~1,000 minutes), maybe $10/month if they exceed
- Earthly: $50/month (5 users × $10)
For this team, GitHub Actions is cheaper. But if each build takes 2 hours (complex microservices):
- GitHub Actions: 100 build minutes/month × $0.008 = way over free tier, probably $50-100/month
- Earthly: still $50/month flat
At scale, Earthly pricing flattens out.
Build Caching: The Real Differentiator
This deserves its own section because it's where Earthly genuinely outshines GitHub Actions.
GitHub Actions caches are:
- Per-job, per-branch (you can override this, but it's the default)
- String-matched (you specify paths like
node_modulesor.gradle) - Hit or miss, not fine-grained
Earthly caches are:
- Content-addressed (based on file hashes, not string matching)
- Shared across all branches by default
- Layer-aware (like Docker layers, so partial cache hits work)
Example: You change a comment in your code. GitHub Actions invalidates the entire node_modules cache because the files changed. Earthly sees that npm ci didn't change (source didn't change), so it skips reinstalling and uses the cached layer.
On a team running dozens of builds per day, this adds up to hours saved per week.
Integration Ecosystem
GitHub Actions wins here, decisively. There are thousands of pre-built actions. Need to deploy to AWS? There's an action. Deploy to Vercel? Action. Post to Slack on failure? Action.
Earthly has a growing marketplace, but it's smaller. You're more likely to need custom scripts. That said, if you're using Earthly within GitHub Actions (which is the most common setup), you can still use all the GitHub Actions ecosystem for stuff that doesn't fit into Earthly.
Example:
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: earthly/actions-setup@v1 # Setup Earthly
- run: earthly --push +docker
- uses: actions/slack-action@v1 # Still using GitHub Actions for notifications
if: failure()
Best of both worlds.
Multi-Repo and Monorepo Handling
GitHub Actions: Each repo needs its own workflows. If you have 10 services and they all follow the same build pattern, you're duplicating YAML across 10 repos. There are tricks to reuse workflows (via composite actions), but they're clunky.
Earthly: The Earthfile is a single source of truth. If you have a monorepo with 10 services, one Earthfile can define builds for all of them:
VERSION 0.7
services:
build-service-a:
# build logic for service A
build-service-b:
# build logic for service B
Then in CI, you call earthly +build-service-a or earthly +build-service-b. Same Earthfile, no duplication.
For monorepos, this is a significant win for Earthly.
The Docker Situation
GitHub Actions has good Docker support, but it's indirect. You're usually using a pre-built action like docker/build-push-action. This abstracts away some complexity but also hides it.
Earthly is designed around Docker. Every build step implicitly runs in a container. There's no "oh wait, this command doesn't work because the environment is different." Everything is containerized, so behavior is consistent.
If you're shipping Docker images, Earthly feels more natural. If you're shipping Node binaries or Python wheels, GitHub Actions is fine.
Vendor Lock-in Risk
This matters more than people think.
GitHub Actions workflows are tied to GitHub. If you decide to migrate to GitLab CI, BitBucket Pipelines, or anything else, you're rewriting all your workflows.
Earthly's Earthfile runs on any platform that has Docker. GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Jenkins, your laptop — doesn't matter. The build definition is portable.
For startups and teams that might outgrow GitHub or need multi-platform CI, this is a real advantage.
Learning Curve and Onboarding
Honest take: GitHub Actions is easier to learn initially. YAML feels familiar if you've written any CI/CD before. You can read a tutorial and be productive in an hour.
Earthly takes longer. The Earthfile syntax is close to Dockerfile, but not identical. There's a mental model shift from "run these commands sequentially" to "define these targets and their dependencies." It usually takes 4-8 hours of focused learning before a team is comfortable.
But once learned, Earthly builds are easier to debug and maintain. The upfront cost pays dividends.
Bottom Line
For most teams: use GitHub Actions. It's free, integrated, and solves 80% of CI/CD problems without friction. Add it to your GitHub repo, write some YAML, ship.
For teams with complex builds or Docker-heavy workflows: seriously evaluate Earthly. The consistency, caching, and portability usually pay for itself in reduced debugging time.
Ideal hybrid approach: Run Earthly inside GitHub Actions. Use GitHub Actions for orchestration, PR checks, and notifications. Use Earthly for the actual build definition. This gives you the portability of Earthly plus the convenience of GitHub integration.
If you're deciding right now, ask yourself one question: "Do my developers debug failed builds often?" If yes, Earthly is worth trying. If no, GitHub Actions is fine.
Resources:
- GitHub Actions Quickstart → — official docs, good enough to get started
- Earthly Documentation → — surprisingly well-written for a newer tool
- Earthly Tutorial on YouTube → — 30-minute intro, worth watching before committing to learning
- GitHub Actions Marketplace → — browse available actions, get ideas for your workflows
*
Worth the Investment
If you're leveling up your setup, here are a few things I actually use:
- Ergonomic Standing Desk — my back thanks me every day
- Mechanical Keyboard for Coding — worth every penny for long coding sessions
— John Calloway writes about developer tools, AI, and building profitable side projects at Calloway.dev. Follow for weekly deep-dives.*
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