Woodpecker CI
Top pickA small, container-native CI server you can run on one box.
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sovereigntyWoodpecker is a community fork of Drone that stayed Apache-2.0 after Drone's licence changed. Every pipeline step is a container, the config is a single YAML file, and the whole server is one Go binary plus an agent — it will run comfortably on hardware you would otherwise consider too small for CI. It plugs into GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Forgejo and Bitbucket, so you can keep hosting code where it is and simply move the build minutes onto your own machine. Of everything here it is the least ceremony for the most control.
OPEN SOURCEApache-2.0SELF-HOSTLOCAL-FIRST
LicenseApache-2.0
PricingFree and open source. You pay only for the machine it runs on.
Open sourceYes
Self-hostableYes
Local-first dataYes
What it does well
- +Genuinely Apache-2.0 with no enterprise carve-out
- +Container-per-step model — the pipeline is portable by construction
- +Runs against GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Forgejo and Bitbucket
- +Light enough for a small VPS; no database cluster required
Where it falls short
- −Small ecosystem — no marketplace of ready-made actions
- −You own the runner: patching, disk space and caching are yours
- −No hosted option, so there is nobody to page at 3am
- −Windows and macOS builds need machines you supply
Woodpecker CI as an alternative to
Where Woodpecker CI shows up in our comparisons, and how it ranked.
Woodpecker CI head-to-head
Straight comparisons against the tools people weigh it against.