{"slug": "woodpecker-ci", "name": "Woodpecker CI", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "Open-source, container-based CI/CD engine, a community fork of Drone CI.", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 5.35, "rising": 4.35, "first": "2026-02-06", "latest": "2026-10-24", "why": "HN commenters recommend it as a simple, easy-to-run CI for self-hosting, often paired with Forgejo or Gitea.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 4, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Forgejo/Gitea pairing", "Simple design"], "caveat": "Missing features", "short_quote": "I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI.", "icon": true, "domain": "woodpecker-ci.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Woodpecker CI", "WoodpeckerCI"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters recommend it as a simple, easy-to-run CI for self-hosting,", "cites": [{"id": 803581921, "item_id": 50223870, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223870", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI.", "excerpt": "I haven't used Dagger but it looks like a fundamentally different design from traditional CI engines, so some people might have issues moving to it. I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI. It's a very good design; very simple, easy to run, easy to use, integrates with most systems you'd want to, abstracts away components rather than tightly integrating them, and you don't need to be a programmer", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab"}, {"id": 789324752, "item_id": 49332797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332797", "by": "timetraveller26", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For CI/CD woodpecker has been working for us really well", "excerpt": "For CI/CD woodpecker has been working for us really well https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "CI/CD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}, {"text": " often paired with Forgejo or Gitea.", "cites": [{"id": 789392785, "item_id": 49337049, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337049", "by": "TabTwo", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "forgejo for hosting, woodpecker for CI/CD.", "excerpt": "forgejo for hosting, woodpecker for CI/CD. Hopefully forgejo gets federation in the near future because \u00f6ets face it, opening an issue on Github is easy because you have an user there but you wont get one on my private forgejo instance. Also, a tool like gh for forgejo would be nice. If you want to have an easy way to setup, have a look at https://yunohost.org/ that also offers lots of other nice stuff in its \"app st", "context": "", "use_case": "CI/CD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789463648, "item_id": 49341478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49341478", "by": "tensorfoundry", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo.", "excerpt": "this is our stack too, we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo. Coming from Github there's a few basic things that are missing in woodpekcer that may frustrate you but it's improving regularly.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI for Forgejo", "switched_from": "Buildkite", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789361633, "item_id": 49335102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335102", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do", "excerpt": "I also self-hosted GitLab for some years, eventually ended up moving over to Gitea + WoodpeckerCI + Nexus (with Nexus for a while). Well there was DroneCI in the middle for a bit there as well, but Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do. Only thing is that not that much other software out there supports Gitea, for example Kepler only knows about GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Trello and Linea", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "Drone CI", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}, {"text": " The main caveat is that users coming from GitHub may find a few basic features missing,", "cites": [{"id": 789463648, "item_id": 49341478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49341478", "by": "tensorfoundry", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo.", "excerpt": "this is our stack too, we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo. Coming from Github there's a few basic things that are missing in woodpekcer that may frustrate you but it's improving regularly.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI for Forgejo", "switched_from": "Buildkite", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}, {"text": " though it is improving regularly.", "cites": [{"id": 789463648, "item_id": 49341478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49341478", "by": "tensorfoundry", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo.", "excerpt": "this is our stack too, we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo. Coming from Github there's a few basic things that are missing in woodpekcer that may frustrate you but it's improving regularly.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI for Forgejo", "switched_from": "Buildkite", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Forgejo/Gitea pairing", "summary": "Commenters use it as the CI/CD piece alongside self-hosted Forgejo or Gitea.", "quotes": [{"id": 789392785, "item_id": 49337049, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337049", "by": "TabTwo", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "forgejo for hosting, woodpecker for CI/CD.", "excerpt": "forgejo for hosting, woodpecker for CI/CD. Hopefully forgejo gets federation in the near future because \u00f6ets face it, opening an issue on Github is easy because you have an user there but you wont get one on my private forgejo instance. Also, a tool like gh for forgejo would be nice. If you want to have an easy way to setup, have a look at https://yunohost.org/ that also offers lots of other nice stuff in its \"app st", "context": "", "use_case": "CI/CD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789463648, "item_id": 49341478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49341478", "by": "tensorfoundry", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo.", "excerpt": "this is our stack too, we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo. Coming from Github there's a few basic things that are missing in woodpekcer that may frustrate you but it's improving regularly.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI for Forgejo", "switched_from": "Buildkite", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789361633, "item_id": 49335102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335102", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do", "excerpt": "I also self-hosted GitLab for some years, eventually ended up moving over to Gitea + WoodpeckerCI + Nexus (with Nexus for a while). Well there was DroneCI in the middle for a bit there as well, but Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do. Only thing is that not that much other software out there supports Gitea, for example Kepler only knows about GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Trello and Linea", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "Drone CI", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}, {"label": "Simple design", "summary": "Described as simple, easy to run and use, and usable without being a programmer.", "quotes": [{"id": 803581921, "item_id": 50223870, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223870", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI.", "excerpt": "I haven't used Dagger but it looks like a fundamentally different design from traditional CI engines, so some people might have issues moving to it. I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI. It's a very good design; very simple, easy to run, easy to use, integrates with most systems you'd want to, abstracts away components rather than tightly integrating them, and you don't need to be a programmer", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab"}]}, {"label": "Works well", "summary": "Users call it really pleasant and say it has worked well for them.", "quotes": [{"id": 789363584, "item_id": 49335224, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335224", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This one is really pleasant: https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "excerpt": "This one is really pleasant: https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789324752, "item_id": 49332797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332797", "by": "timetraveller26", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For CI/CD woodpecker has been working for us really well", "excerpt": "For CI/CD woodpecker has been working for us really well https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "CI/CD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}, {"label": "Drone alternative", "summary": "It is a Drone CI fork, and one user who moved from Drone found it more flexible.", "quotes": [{"id": 789361633, "item_id": 49335102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335102", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do", "excerpt": "I also self-hosted GitLab for some years, eventually ended up moving over to Gitea + WoodpeckerCI + Nexus (with Nexus for a while). Well there was DroneCI in the middle for a bit there as well, but Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do. Only thing is that not that much other software out there supports Gitea, for example Kepler only knows about GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Trello and Linea", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "Drone CI", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 750617569, "item_id": 46913598, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46913598", "by": "_rwo", "date": "2026-02-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I really need to check out woodpeckerci (drone ci fork)", "excerpt": "The only way this title could be any better is this: Github Actions is slowly KILLING engineering teams /s Said that - every CI sucks one way or another, Github actions is just good enough to fire up a simple job/automation which seems to be majority of use cases anyway? I think fully production CI pipelines will always be complicated in one way or another (proper catching alone is a challenge on it's own); I really ", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Actions Is Slowly Killing Your Engineering Team"}, {"id": 803581921, "item_id": 50223870, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223870", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI.", "excerpt": "I haven't used Dagger but it looks like a fundamentally different design from traditional CI engines, so some people might have issues moving to it. I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI. It's a very good design; very simple, easy to run, easy to use, integrates with most systems you'd want to, abstracts away components rather than tightly integrating them, and you don't need to be a programmer", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab"}]}, {"label": "Hosted option", "summary": "Codeberg offers hosted Woodpecker CI.", "quotes": [{"id": 789370465, "item_id": 49335654, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335654", "by": "watermelon0", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Codeberg offers hosted Woodpecker CI.", "excerpt": "Forgejo CI is based on act, which allows running GitHub Actions locally. However, Codeberg offers hosted Woodpecker CI.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Missing features", "summary": "Users coming from GitHub may be frustrated by a few missing basic features.", "quotes": [{"id": 789463648, "item_id": 49341478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49341478", "by": "tensorfoundry", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo.", "excerpt": "this is our stack too, we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo. Coming from Github there's a few basic things that are missing in woodpekcer that may frustrate you but it's improving regularly.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI for Forgejo", "switched_from": "Buildkite", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}]}], "who": [], "tags": ["self-hostable", "for Forgejo/Gitea users", "for Drone CI users", "hosted on Codeberg"], "use_cases": ["ci", "ci/cd", "self-hosted ci", "ci for forgejo", "ci/cd for larger teams"], "compared": [{"slug": "drone-ci", "name": "Drone CI", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "buildkite", "name": "Buildkite", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "github-actions", "name": "GitHub Actions", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "forgejo", "name": "Forgejo", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gitea", "name": "Gitea", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49331033", "title": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50222622", "title": "Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48582147", "title": "The Forge We Deserve", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47043345", "title": "Almost Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46908491", "title": "GitHub Actions Is Slowly Killing Your Engineering Team", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 803581921, "item_id": 50223870, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223870", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI.", "excerpt": "I haven't used Dagger but it looks like a fundamentally different design from traditional CI engines, so some people might have issues moving to it. I recommend Drone.io or WoodpeckerCI for hosting your own CI. It's a very good design; very simple, easy to run, easy to use, integrates with most systems you'd want to, abstracts away components rather than tightly integrating them, and you don't need to be a programmer", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab"}, {"id": 789463648, "item_id": 49341478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49341478", "by": "tensorfoundry", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo.", "excerpt": "this is our stack too, we initially ran BuildKite but switched to Woodpecker for Forgeo. Coming from Github there's a few basic things that are missing in woodpekcer that may frustrate you but it's improving regularly.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI for Forgejo", "switched_from": "Buildkite", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789392785, "item_id": 49337049, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337049", "by": "TabTwo", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "forgejo for hosting, woodpecker for CI/CD.", "excerpt": "forgejo for hosting, woodpecker for CI/CD. Hopefully forgejo gets federation in the near future because \u00f6ets face it, opening an issue on Github is easy because you have an user there but you wont get one on my private forgejo instance. Also, a tool like gh for forgejo would be nice. If you want to have an easy way to setup, have a look at https://yunohost.org/ that also offers lots of other nice stuff in its \"app st", "context": "", "use_case": "CI/CD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789370465, "item_id": 49335654, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335654", "by": "watermelon0", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Codeberg offers hosted Woodpecker CI.", "excerpt": "Forgejo CI is based on act, which allows running GitHub Actions locally. However, Codeberg offers hosted Woodpecker CI.", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789363584, "item_id": 49335224, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335224", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This one is really pleasant: https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "excerpt": "This one is really pleasant: https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789361633, "item_id": 49335102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335102", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do", "excerpt": "I also self-hosted GitLab for some years, eventually ended up moving over to Gitea + WoodpeckerCI + Nexus (with Nexus for a while). Well there was DroneCI in the middle for a bit there as well, but Woodpecker is perfectly okay and more free in regards to what you can do. Only thing is that not that much other software out there supports Gitea, for example Kepler only knows about GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Trello and Linea", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "Drone CI", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 789324752, "item_id": 49332797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332797", "by": "timetraveller26", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For CI/CD woodpecker has been working for us really well", "excerpt": "For CI/CD woodpecker has been working for us really well https://woodpecker-ci.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "CI/CD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 777330179, "item_id": 48583136, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583136", "by": "KronisLV", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it works well with containers and is delightfully simple", "excerpt": "Also running Gitea, pretty pleasant experience! Moved over from Sonatype Nexus to Gitea Packages as well since administering Nexus is annoying: https://docs.gitea.com/usage/packages However for CI I use WoodpeckerCI (previously used Drone but migrated over), it works well with containers and is delightfully simple: https://woodpecker-ci.org/ Though I guess in my case I don't collaborate with others much outside of wo", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "Drone", "story": "The Forge We Deserve"}, {"id": 753321417, "item_id": 47082588, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082588", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "use WoodpeckerCI otherwise.", "excerpt": "Using GCP gives me the same feeling as vibe-coded source code. Technically works but deeply unsettling. Unless GCP is somehow saving you boatloads of cash, AWS is much better. RDS is a very quick way to expand your bill, followed by EC2, followed by S3. RDS for production is great, but you should avoid the bizarre HN trope of \"Postgres for everything\" with RDS. It makes your database unnecessarily larger which expand", "context": "", "use_case": "CI/CD for larger teams", "switched_from": "", "story": "Almost Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years"}, {"id": 750617569, "item_id": 46913598, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46913598", "by": "_rwo", "date": "2026-02-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I really need to check out woodpeckerci (drone ci fork)", "excerpt": "The only way this title could be any better is this: Github Actions is slowly KILLING engineering teams /s Said that - every CI sucks one way or another, Github actions is just good enough to fire up a simple job/automation which seems to be majority of use cases anyway? I think fully production CI pipelines will always be complicated in one way or another (proper catching alone is a challenge on it's own); I really ", "context": "", "use_case": "CI", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Actions Is Slowly Killing Your Engineering Team"}]}