September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › IT › Developer platform › CI/CD › Small business · September 2026 Edition

CI/CD platforms for small business buyers

Asked as “CI/CD platform”, and as “continuous integration and delivery tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 44 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
93%
Clear leader
93GitHub Actions05GitLab CI/CD02CircleCI

93% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01GitHub Actions93%3%68endorsed leader
02GitLab CI/CD5%13%67accepted challenger
03CircleCI2%22%60accepted challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09Jenkins0%75%56criticized challenger
08JetBrains TeamCity0%40%10criticized challenger
07Azure DevOps0%36%11criticized challenger
06Bitbucket Pipelines0%31%13criticized challenger
04Buildkite0%6%16accepted challenger
05DeployHQ0%0%13accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not small business.
All six head-to-head pages: the top four products, each against each

One product takes 93% of first choices here, so the chart would put eight markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Four products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category.

What they warned about

Nine of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Mistral Small and Llama 4 Maverick changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Jenkins
75%
42 of 56 labels negative · 12 of 12 models · 14 hard negative
“Here are the platforms you should avoid... Why to Avoid/Caution: Jenkins requires a dedicated sysadmin-level skill set to manage.” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
CircleCI
22%
13 of 60 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“heavy usage\u2011based pricing that can spiral (CircleCI, AWS CodeBuild, Azure Pipelines)” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt
GitLab CI/CD
13%
9 of 67 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“What to Avoid on a Tight Budget: GitLab Premium ... it can be a massive budget trap for growing small teams” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Travis CI
57%
4 of 7 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Avoid or be extra cautious with platforms that have a history of sudden pricing changes (Travis CI, GitLab Premium)” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt

What they cite

Twelve of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited and eight the search results they consulted.

Sites the answers cite

59 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 687 links across 193 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · DeployHQ40 answers · 40 citations · 11 models
35 answers · 53 citations · 9 models
35 answers · 35 citations · 9 models
21 answers · 24 citations · 9 models
20 answers · 20 citations · 9 models
19 answers · 22 citations · 9 models
18 answers · 19 citations · 10 models
14 answers · 14 citations · 8 models
vendor site · CircleCI11 answers · 18 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Atlassian11 answers · 11 citations · 7 models
11 answers · 11 citations · 7 models
10 answers · 11 citations · 5 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best ci/cd platform”, “ci/cd platform”, “ci/cd platforms”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
GitHub parent site
GitHub Actions 93%
93%1811,500,00031,479
GitLab gitlab.com
GitLab CI/CD 5%
5%18690,5004,844603,028 company$884665
CircleCI circleci.com2%1404,400207133,93224
Buildkite buildkite.com0%573,600983,563$4770
DeployHQ deployhq.com0%1260113,215
Semaphore semaphore.io0%2333,1001,29412,0642
Vercel vercel.app0%16
Bitbucket bitbucket.org
Bitbucket Pipelines 0%, Bitbucket 0%
0%18133,1001,56022,601
Drone CI drone.io0%9
Render render.com0%2790,50020,86684,66219

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 16 sites; 2 of them are among the sites the models cited here (atlassian.com, blog.jetbrains.com). The first result for “best ci/cd platform” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best CI/CD platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which continuous integration and delivery tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top CI/CD platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best CI/CD platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a CI/CD platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which CI/CD platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5CircleCI, GitHub Actions
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub ActionsChanged
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
GitHub Actions
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: CircleCI, Jenkins
GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
One alternativeCircleCI
against: Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: Jenkinsagainst: Bitbucket Pipelines, CloudBees CI, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Nortal
GPT-5.4 miniGitHub Actions
Three alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Bitbucket Pipelines, Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesAzure Pipelines, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesBitbucket Pipelines, GitLab CI/CD
against: CircleCI, Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: CircleCI
Gemini 3.5 FlashGitHub Actions
Six alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Heroku, Railway, Render, Vercel
against: Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Five alternativesBitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, DeployHQ, GitLab CI/CD, Vercel
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Five alternativesCircleCI, Gitea, Ubicloud, WarpBuild, Woodpecker CI
against: GitLab CI/CD
GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
One alternativeCircleCI
against: Jenkins
against: AWS CodePipeline, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Harness, Jenkins, Spinnaker, Travis CI
Perplexity SonarGitHub Actions
Four alternativesCircleCI, DeployHQ, GitLab CI/CD, Semaphore
GitHub ActionsHeld
Three alternativesAWS CodePipeline, GitLab CI/CD, Semaphore
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Semaphore
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: Azure Pipelines, Buildbot, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Spinnaker, Tekton, Zuul
Grok 4.20GitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Semaphore
against: Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: CircleCI, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity, Semaphore
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
against: Azure DevOps, Buildkite, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity
Mistral SmallGitHub Actions
Three alternativesGitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity
no first choiceChangedGitHub Actions
Four alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Semaphore
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesDeployHQ, Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: Argo Workflows, Codefresh, Harness, Jenkins, Tekton
DeepSeek V4 FlashGitHub Actions
Five alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, DeployHQ, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: CircleCI
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI
against: Argo, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Tekton
against: Atlassian Bamboo, CircleCI, Jenkins, Spinnaker, Travis CI
Llama 4 MaverickGitHub Actions
One alternativeDeployHQ
no first choiceChangedGitHub Actions
Five alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Semaphore
GitHub Actionsagainst: CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, JenkinsGitHub Actionsagainst: Azure DevOps, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity
Qwen 3.7 FlashGitHub Actions
Two alternativesAzure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesDeployHQ, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Travis CI
against: Jenkins
against: AWS CodePipeline, Atlassian Bamboo, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Jenkins, Travis CI
Kimi K2GitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesBitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: CircleCI, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Ionic Appflow, Jenkins, Microsoft App Center
GLM 4.7 FlashXGitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Six alternativesAzure Pipelines, Bitbucket Pipelines, Buildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, JetBrains TeamCity
against: Harness, Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesBuildkite, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
against: Bitbucket Pipelines
GitHub Actions
Six alternativesBuildkite, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Northflank, Porter, Qovery
against: Azure DevOps, CircleCI, CloudBees CI, IBM UrbanCode, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity
MiniMax M2.5GitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub ActionsHeld
Four alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesGitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: AWS CodeBuild, Azure Pipelines, Bitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Travis CI
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:40no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:25no08 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:48yes919 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:34yes196 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 07:47yes108 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:28yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:27yes812 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:34yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:28yes1049 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:49yes1433 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:48yes1041 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:28yes924 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:35no05 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:25yes36 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:32yes1120 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:47yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 07:36yes137 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:34no02 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:38yes811 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:35yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:31yes546 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:33yes1032 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:46yes1023 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:42no068 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:22yes910 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:29yes517 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:22yes1124 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:44yes206 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 07:25yes148 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:43yes511 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:41yes1010 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:43yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:32yes522 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:40yes1028 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:34yes1760 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:44yes525 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:36no05 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:38no03 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:29yes2224 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:28yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 07:26yes159 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:35yes53 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:32yes911 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:26yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:32yes541 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:21yes526 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:52yes15421 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:23yes528 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:43no08 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:35no010 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:42yes1123 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:43yes2010 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 07:49yes1410 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:21no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:36yes918 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:25yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:37no043 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:38yes1031 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:32yes9106 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:32no012 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:34yes1710 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:28yes59 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:43yes2223 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:35yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 07:38yes229 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:25yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:44yes3525 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:34yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:45no042 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:38yes1940 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:33yes2841 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:41yes2576 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
AWS CodePipeline / CodeBuild read as AWS CodePipeline
CloudBees read as CloudBees CI
GitLab read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab CI read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab CI (Premium/Ultimate) read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab CI (SaaS) read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab Premium read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab self-managed read as GitLab CI/CD
Unresolved, counted raw
Appcircle
Blacksmith
Codeship
Copado
Envoyer
NX
Nortal
Ubicloud
WarpBuild
Zuul
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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