DevOps
Terraform vs Pulumi vs CDK in 2026: What We Actually Use and Why
Three tools that claim to solve the same problem. Here is what the differences actually mean in practice, and when each one makes sense.
The CI/CD market has effectively consolidated. Here is what actually differentiates the three main options and which context suits each one.
A few years ago, CI/CD tool selection required evaluating a dozen products. The market has since consolidated. GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and CircleCI cover the vast majority of production workloads. The question is no longer which tools exist — it is which of these three fits your situation.
If your code is on GitHub, GitHub Actions is the natural default. The integration is native, the marketplace is extensive, and the pricing is generous for most teams. The workflow syntax is YAML-based and readable. The runner ecosystem — hosted runners, ARM runners, GPU runners — has matured significantly. For a team already on GitHub, switching to a separate CI tool requires a real justification.
Self-hosted runners require more operational effort than GitLab CI's equivalent. The secrets management is functional but not sophisticated. At high volume, the pricing can become substantial. More importantly, GitHub Actions works only if your code is on GitHub. If you have a mixed environment or any repositories on a different platform, you will be managing two CI systems.
GitLab CI is tightly integrated with the GitLab platform. For teams running self-managed GitLab, it is often the most practical choice. The pipeline syntax is mature and the built-in registry, security scanning, and environments UI give you more out of the box than GitHub Actions. GitLab Runners scale well in self-hosted environments, which matters for teams with compliance requirements around where builds execute.
If your team uses GitHub, introducing GitLab CI means maintaining a separate platform. The ecosystem of community integrations is smaller. The configuration syntax is also more opinionated — powerful once understood, but with a steeper initial curve than GitHub Actions.
CircleCI's main advantage is build performance. The parallelism features and the caching implementation are more mature than either GitHub Actions or GitLab CI for complex build pipelines. Teams with long test suites who need to parallelize across many containers find CircleCI's model works well. The pricing model — credits rather than minutes — is also more predictable at scale.
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CircleCI is a standalone tool. It does not come with the rest of a development platform. You pay for the CI capability separately from everything else. For smaller teams or simpler pipelines, the value of the performance features does not justify the additional tool in the stack. The integration with GitHub and GitLab works, but the native integrations in GitHub Actions and GitLab CI remain tighter.
We default to GitHub Actions for teams on GitHub with standard build and test pipelines. We use GitLab CI for teams running self-managed GitLab or who have compliance requirements around build execution environment. We recommend CircleCI only when a client has a concrete performance problem — usually manifesting as test pipelines above 30 minutes — and the cost of the tool is justified by the time saved.
The wrong way to approach this choice is to start with a feature comparison. Start with your current platform, your team's existing knowledge, and your most urgent pipeline problem. The right tool is almost always the one that addresses that specific bottleneck without introducing a new one.
Written by
Khaled Kayyali
Co-Founder & CEO
AWS Certified Solutions Architect with 10+ years across software development, cloud infrastructure, and IT leadership. Leads cloud architecture and DevOps strategy for funded startups and scaling companies across MENA and global markets.
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