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Drone vs Woodpecker CI

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 Woodpecker CI Simple, container-native continuous integration
FeatureDroneWoodpecker CI
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score97 · Excellent92 · Excellent
CategoryCI/CD & BuildCI/CD & Build
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetesdocker, kubernetes
GitHub stars★ 38,428★ 7,909
First released20142019
ReplacesJenkins, CircleCIJenkins, CircleCI

What are Drone and Woodpecker CI?

Drone

Drone is a container-based continuous integration and delivery platform that runs each pipeline step in an isolated container. It targets teams wanting CI defined entirely in code. It is deployed via Docker.

  • Pipelines defined as code
  • Every step runs in a container
  • Many Git provider integrations
  • Plugin ecosystem

Read the full Drone guide →

Woodpecker CI

Woodpecker CI is a simple, community fork of Drone offering container-native continuous integration pipelines. It targets developers who want lightweight CI alongside their Git server. It is deployed via Docker.

  • Container-native pipelines
  • Simple YAML configuration
  • Integrates with Gitea and GitHub
  • Lightweight footprint

Read the full Woodpecker CI guide →

Drone vs Woodpecker CI: key differences

Both projects are written in Go. Drone is the more established project (first released 2014), while Woodpecker CI arrived in 2019. Drone has the considerably larger community, at 38,428 GitHub stars versus 7,909.

Why pick each one

Choose Drone if…

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

Watch out for

  • Now under commercial steward
  • Spurred the Woodpecker fork
Drone details

Choose Woodpecker CI if…

  • Easy to set up
  • Lightweight CI
  • Good Git integrations

Watch out for

  • Fewer features than big CI tools
  • Smaller plugin ecosystem
Woodpecker CI details

Frequently asked questions

Is Drone or Woodpecker CI 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 Woodpecker CI free and open-source?

Yes. Drone is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Woodpecker CI under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Drone and Woodpecker CI with Docker?

Drone: yes. Woodpecker CI: yes.

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