Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

GitlabRunner VS Tekton

Compare GitlabRunner VS Tekton and see what are their differences

GitlabRunner logo GitlabRunner

Speed up your CI/CD pipeline

Tekton logo Tekton

Tekton is a powerful and flexible open-source framework for creating CI/CD systems, allowing developers to build, test, and deploy across cloud providers and on-premise systems.
  • GitlabRunner Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-03-10
  • Tekton Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-24

GitlabRunner features and specs

  • Integration with GitLab
    GitLab Runner integrates seamlessly with GitLab CI/CD, providing a smooth experience for managing and deploying builds directly from your repositories.
  • Multiple Executor Types
    GitLab Runner supports various executors like Docker, Shell, VirtualBox, Parallels, SSH, and Kubernetes, allowing flexibility in running builds in different environments.
  • Open Source
    Being open source, GitLab Runner allows for complete transparency, the ability to customize or extend functionalities, and does not incur licensing costs.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    GitLab Runner can be installed on multiple platforms, including Linux, macOS, and Windows, offering versatility in build server setup.
  • Autoscaling
    With native support for autoscaling on cloud platforms, GitLab Runner can scale resources up or down, optimizing cost and performance based on demand.

Possible disadvantages of GitlabRunner

  • Complex Setup for Large Projects
    Configuring GitLab Runner for large and complex projects can be challenging, often requiring significant DevOps expertise to optimize the pipeline and runners efficiently.
  • Resource Management
    Managing resources effectively can be complex, especially when dealing with shared runners, which might lead to resource contention or inefficient builds.
  • Limited Community Support
    While GitLab Runner is open source, its community and third-party support might not be as extensive as other CI/CD tools like Jenkins, potentially leading to slower resolution of issues.
  • Lack of Plugins
    Compared to other CI/CD systems, GitLab Runner has fewer third-party plugins, which might require custom scripts or workarounds to achieve specific functionalities.
  • Dependency on GitLab
    The tight integration means that GitLab Runner is heavily reliant on GitLab, limiting its use in environments where GitLab is not the primary version control system.

Tekton features and specs

  • Cloud-Native
    Tekton is designed to work seamlessly in cloud-native environments, utilizing Kubernetes as its underlying platform, making it a natural choice for modern CI/CD pipelines in cloud-based and containerized applications.
  • Flexibility and Extensibility
    Tekton provides a highly flexible architecture with customizable pipelines, tasks, and resources, allowing developers to tailor the CI/CD processes according to specific requirements.
  • Open Source and Community-Driven
    Being an open-source project, Tekton benefits from community contributions and collaboration, ensuring a wide array of features, improvements, and robust community support.
  • Standardization
    Tekton aims to standardize CI/CD components and workflows, promoting interoperability across different tools and platforms, which reduces complexity and enhances integration efforts.
  • Event-Driven Architecture
    Tekton supports event-driven workflows, which allows for efficient scalability and responsiveness to changes, enabling dynamic CI/CD executions based on specific triggers.

Possible disadvantages of Tekton

  • Complexity for New Users
    Tekton can present a steep learning curve for newcomers due to its highly customizable nature and the need for understanding Kubernetes concepts, which may require additional time and resources to master.
  • Maturity
    As a relatively newer tool compared to some established CI/CD systems, Tekton's ecosystem and set of features might still be evolving, potentially leading to incomplete or experimental features.
  • Resource Consumption
    Running Tekton pipelines can be resource-intensive because they rely on Kubernetes, which might require significant infrastructure resources, thus possibly increasing costs.
  • Documentation Limitations
    Though improving, the documentation for Tekton might still lack comprehensive examples or detailed guides for complex use cases, which can hinder its ease of implementation.
  • Integrations
    While Tekton is built for extensibility, it may not natively support all third-party integrations that other mature CI/CD tools provide out of the box, requiring additional work to integrate with specific tools.

GitlabRunner videos

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Tekton videos

Are Tekton Tools Still Worth It in 2024?

More videos:

  • Review - Tekton Troubadour Review: Take 2
  • Review - The Truth About TEKTON!! - Is it a SCAM or are They Good Quality!!! (TEKTON vs. Snap-on)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GitlabRunner and Tekton)
Developer Tools
26 26%
74% 74
Continuous Integration
37 37%
63% 63
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0
Continuous Deployment
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tekton seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 27 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

GitlabRunner mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of GitlabRunner yet. Tracking of GitlabRunner recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Tekton mentions (27)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing GitlabRunner and Tekton, you can also consider the following products

Buddy - The simplest CI/CD tool ever made, acclaimed by top developers worldwide. It uses delivery pipelines to build, test and deploy software. Pipelines are created with over 100 ready-to-use actions, that can be arranged in any way.

CircleCI - CircleCI gives web developers powerful Continuous Integration and Deployment with easy setup and maintenance.

Semaphore - Semaphore is a fully managed, high performance testing and deployment solution for your company. A Continuous Integration tool.

SaaS Starter Kit - A starter template with Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD and more

MergeQueue - Automate Github’s CI/CD in under 3 mins

Bitbu - Built for professional teams