Hey everyone, I’ve been helping a mid-size startup modernize their deployment workflow, and now we’re at the crossroads of choosing between GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, and Jenkins. Each has pros and cons — GitLab feels more integrated, Jenkins is endlessly customizable but heavy to maintain, and GitHub Actions seems convenient for smaller setups. Has anyone here gone through this decision process recently? Curious how you balanced ease of use vs flexibility and cost.

Yeah, I’ve been through that exact headache last year when we migrated from Jenkins to GitLab CI. Jenkins gave us total control but demanded constant babysitting — plugins breaking, agents failing, maintenance piling up. GitLab CI, on the other hand, felt much cleaner, especially with built-in Docker integration and easy YAML configuration. It was just simpler to onboard new developers. GitHub Actions worked well for lighter projects but lacked some depth in multi-environment pipelines. Before deciding, I’d recommend reading through devops consulting services — they break down how to align CI/CD choices with scaling strategies, which helped us understand what fit our team size and complexity level. For me, GitLab struck the right balance between flexibility and sanity.

Interesting points. We’re still on Jenkins mostly because of legacy reasons, but I can totally relate to the maintenance pain. The idea of moving to GitLab CI keeps popping up in our meetings, especially since our ops team is trying to simplify management. I’ll check out that link too — always good to get a more structured view before making a switch.