Compare GitHub Actions and GitLab CI free tiers side by side. Pricing, limits, change history, and risk assessment for developers.

GitHub Actions vs GitLab CI

Side-by-side free tier comparison. Data verified through 2026-09-04.

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Verdict

Both GitHub Actions and GitLab CI offer free tiers. GitHub Actions provides "Free" while GitLab CI offers "Free". GitLab CI has a more stable pricing history (0 recorded changes vs 2).

GitHub Actions caution discovered 2026-09-02 restructured

CategoryCI/CD
TierFree
Verified2026-08-14
Changes2 recorded
Superseded: As of 2026-09-02, docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-github-actions/about-billing-for-github-actions reads: GitHub Actions usage is free for self-hosted runners and public repositories. For private repositories, each account receives a quota of free minutes, artifact storage, and cache storage. Usage beyond the included amounts is billed based on hourly usage of artifacts and caches, and minutes are calculated based on processing time. Different runner types have different per-minute costs. We are not publishing our stored GitHub Actions terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-02, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

GitLab CI stable

CategoryCI/CD
TierFree
Verified2026-09-04
Changes0 recorded
400 compute minutes/month, 10 GiB storage, 5 users. New accounts limited to 3 top-level groups

Pricing Change History

GitHub Actions

restructured discovered 2026-09-02 · effective date unknown high impact
The free tier for private repositories includes 2,000 minutes, 500MB artifact storage, and 10GB cache storage. The pricing page details specific per-minute costs for different runner types (Linux, Windows, macOS) and storage costs ($0.25/GB/month for shared storage, $0.07/GB for Actions cache and custom image storage), indicating that usage beyond the free quota is paid. This is not reflected in the current pricing page text.
Source ↗
postponed effective 2026-01-01 low impact
Self-hosted runner per-minute fee ($0.002/min) announced for March 2026 was postponed indefinitely after community backlash. Self-hosted runners remain free. Separately, hosted runner prices were reduced up to 39% (Jan 2026)
Source ↗

GitLab CI

No recorded pricing changes for GitLab CI.

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