Buildkite Agent vs Earthly
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted ci/cd & build options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Buildkite Agent | Earthly |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 53 · Fair |
| Category | CI/CD & Build | CI/CD & Build |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,078 | ★ 12,048 |
| First released | 2014 | 2020 |
| Replaces | GitHub Actions, CircleCI | Make, GitHub Actions |
What are Buildkite Agent and Earthly?
Buildkite Agent
The Buildkite Agent is an open-source build runner that executes pipeline jobs on your own machines while Buildkite coordinates orchestration. It lets teams keep build infrastructure private and scalable.
- Runs builds on your own hardware
- Cross-platform agent
- Parallel job execution
- Artifact handling
Earthly
Earthly is an open-source build automation tool that runs reproducible builds inside containers using a syntax that combines Dockerfiles and Makefiles. It works the same on any CI system or locally.
- Reproducible container builds
- Works on any CI
- Parallel build execution
- Build cache support
Buildkite Agent vs Earthly: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — MIT for Buildkite Agent versus MPL-2.0 for Earthly. Buildkite Agent is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Earthly. Buildkite Agent is the more established project (first released 2014), while Earthly arrived in 2020. Earthly has the considerably larger community, at 12,048 GitHub stars versus 1,078.
Why pick each one
Choose Buildkite Agent if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Choose Earthly if…
- Released under the MPL-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 12k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Buildkite Agent or Earthly better?
Neither is universally better. Earthly has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Buildkite Agent and Earthly free and open-source?
Yes. Buildkite Agent is licensed under MIT and Earthly under MPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Buildkite Agent and Earthly with Docker?
Buildkite Agent: yes. Earthly: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Buildkite Agent or Earthly?
Buildkite Agent has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Earthly. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.