SHSelfHostIndex

Drone vs Laminar

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted ci/cd & build options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
DR Drone Container-based continuous delivery platform VS LA Laminar Lightweight and modular continuous integration service
FeatureDroneLaminar
CategoryCI/CD & BuildCI/CD & Build
LicenseApache-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguageGoC++
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetesbare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 37,713★ 352
First released20142016
ReplacesJenkins, CircleCIJenkins

Why pick each one

Choose Drone if…

  • Clean container model
  • Configuration as code
  • Scales with runners
Drone details

Choose Laminar if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Written in C++
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Laminar details

Frequently asked questions

Is Drone or Laminar better?

Neither is universally better. Drone has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Drone and Laminar free and open-source?

Yes. Drone is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Laminar under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Drone and Laminar with Docker?

Drone: yes. Laminar: check the project docs for container support.

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