IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Developer platform › September 2026 Edition

CI/CD platforms

Asked as “CI/CD platform”, and as “continuous integration and delivery tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 49 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
GitHub Actions
Clear leader
65% of first choices, clear leader.
ShowinginAll 67 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessGitHub Actions93%Clear leaderStanding →Mid-marketGitHub Actions65%Clear leaderThis pageEnterpriseGitLab CI/CD44%Clear leaderStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01GitHub Actions65%8%63endorsed leader
02GitLab CI/CD27%5%64accepted challenger
03CircleCI4%16%58accepted challenger
04Jenkins2%63%57criticized challenger
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09JetBrains TeamCity0%47%17criticized challenger
06Buildkite0%19%21accepted challenger
05Azure DevOps0%12%25accepted challenger
08Argo CD0%8%12accepted challenger
07Harness0%0%12accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
GitHub Actions vs GitLab CI/CDGitHub Actions vs CircleCIGitLab CI/CD vs CircleCI

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative80%
Key
01GitHub Actions65%
02GitLab CI/CD27%
03CircleCI4%
04Jenkins2%
05Azure DevOps0%
06Buildkite0%
07Harness0%
08Argo CD0%
09JetBrains TeamCity0%

02What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Jenkins
63%
36 of 57 labels negative · 12 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“Jenkins is often described as a legacy platform with high maintenance overhead... the maintenance burden outweighs the benefits.” Mistral Small, negative prompt
CircleCI
16%
9 of 58 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Avoid CircleCI initially: While powerful, its pricing model can spiral quickly” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
JetBrains TeamCity
47%
8 of 17 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“TeamCity is also considered a legacy CI/CD provider. Many organizations are actively migrating away from it” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Atlassian Bamboo
83%
5 of 6 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“EOL August 21, 2026. Atlassian is sunsetting it in favor of Bitbucket Pipelines.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

63 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 725 links across 236 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

toolradar.com
35 answers · 45 citations · 9 models
checkthat.ai
25 answers · 28 citations · 9 models
devopsness.com
24 answers · 24 citations · 8 models
blog.jetbrains.com
23 answers · 27 citations · 8 models
deployhq.com
vendor site · DeployHQ21 answers · 21 citations · 8 models
devopsplatforms.com
19 answers · 19 citations · 8 models
technologymatch.com
16 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
octopus.com
14 answers · 17 citations · 7 models
learn.g2.com
12 answers · 12 citations · 8 models
circleci.com
vendor site · CircleCI11 answers · 16 citations · 9 models
atlassian.com
vendor site · Atlassian11 answers · 11 citations · 8 models
harness.io
vendor site · Harness10 answers · 11 citations · 6 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

toolradar.com/blog/best-ci-cd-tools
34 answers · 9 models
devopsness.com/blog/best-cicd-platforms
24 answers · 8 models
checkthat.ai/answers/what-are-the-best-ci-cd-tools
23 answers · 8 models
deployhq.com/blog/best-ci-cd-software-top-10-tools-to-know-in-2025
21 answers · 8 models
blog.jetbrains.com/teamcity/2026/03/best-ci-tools
19 answers · 6 models
devopsplatforms.com/buying-guides/best-ci-cd-platforms
19 answers · 8 models
technologymatch.com/blog/jenkins-vs-gitlab-ci-vs-circleci-vs-github-actions…
15 answers · 7 models
learn.g2.com/best-continuous-delivery-tools
12 answers · 8 models
cloud.folio3.com/blog/ci-cd-tools-in-2024
10 answers · 5 models
devopstales.com/devops/best-ci-cd-tools-comparison-2026
9 answers · 3 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best CI/CD platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which continuous integration and delivery tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top CI/CD platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best CI/CD platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a CI/CD platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which CI/CD platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
Two alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI
GitLab CI/CDChanged
Four alternativesAzure DevOps, Bitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Four alternativesDrone CI, GitLab CI/CD, Gitea, Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: Atlassian Bamboo, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity
GPT-5.4 miniGitHub Actions
Three alternativesAzure Pipelines, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Buildkite, JenkinsGitHub ActionsHeld
Three alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkinsno first choiceGitHub Actions
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: Buildkite, CircleCI, Jenkinsno first choiceagainst: Argo CD, Jenkins
Gemini 3.5 FlashGitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
One alternativeArgo CD
against: JenkinsGitHub ActionsChanged
Two alternativesArgo CD, GitLab CI/CD
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Five alternativesArgo CD, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Harness, Octopus Deploy
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Woodpecker CI
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
Three alternativesArgo CD, CircleCI, Harness
against: Jenkinsagainst: AWS CodePipeline, Atlassian Bamboo, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity, Travis CI
Perplexity SonarGitLab CI/CD
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitHub Actions, Semaphore
GitHub ActionsChanged
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Semaphore
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Seven alternativesAzure DevOps, Bitbucket Pipelines, Buildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Harness, JetBrains TeamCity
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkinsno first choiceagainst: Azure Pipelines, Bitbucket Pipelines, Jenkins, Spinnaker
Grok 4.1 FastGitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: JenkinsGitHub ActionsHeld
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Four alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Four alternativesBitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
One alternativeCircleCI
against: Jenkinsagainst: CircleCI, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity
Mistral SmallGitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
Two alternativesCircleCI, Jenkins
CircleCI, GitLab CI/CDChanged
Three alternativesAzure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins
no first choiceGitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: CircleCI, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity, Travis CI
DeepSeek V4 FlashGitHub Actions
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: CircleCI, JenkinsGitLab CI/CDChanged
Three alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, GitHub Actions
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Three alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Four alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
against: Atlassian Bamboo, BuildJet, CircleCI, Cirrus CI, GitHub Actions, Ionic Appflow, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity, Microsoft App Center, Travis CI
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceGitHubChanged
Two alternativesHarness, Podman
no first choiceGitHub Actions
Five alternativesCircleCI, Dagger, DeployHQ, GoCD, Jenkins
no first choiceagainst: Azure DevOps, Buildkite, CircleCI, Codefresh, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Tekton / Argo Workflows
Qwen 3.7 FlashGitHub Actions
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: JenkinsGitHub ActionsHeld
One alternativeGitLab CI/CD
against: Jenkinsno first choiceGitHub Actions
Two alternativesDeployHQ, GitLab CI/CD
against: CircleCI, Jenkinsno first choiceagainst: GitHub Actionsagainst: Bitbucket Pipelines
Kimi K2GitHub Actions
Three alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
GitHub ActionsHeld
Three alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Five alternativesAzure DevOps, Buildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Two alternativesGitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
Three alternativesBuildkite, CircleCI, Jenkins
against: Atlassian Bamboo, CircleCI, JFrog Pipelines, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity, Travis CI
GLM 4.7 FlashXGitHub Actions
Three alternativesAzure Pipelines, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CDChangedagainst: Jenkinsno first choiceagainst: Azure DevOps, Buildkite, Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCityGitHub Actions, Jenkins
Four alternativesAzure DevOps, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Woodpecker CI
no first choiceagainst: Atlassian Bamboo, CloudBees CI, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
MiniMax M2.5CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD
One alternativeAzure DevOps
GitLab CI/CDChanged
Two alternativesCircleCI, GitHub Actions
against: JenkinsGitHub Actions
Four alternativesAzure Pipelines, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Three alternativesArgo CD, Flux, GitLab CI/CD
no first choiceagainst: Jenkins, JetBrains TeamCity, Travis CI
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:34yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:23yes57 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:40yes1223 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:22yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:39yes1713 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:38yes911 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:38yes1518 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:42yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:39no046 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:27yes1529 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:22yes2358 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:26yes516 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:45yes98 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:44no04 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:32yes1123 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:34yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:36yes189 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:30yes56 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:26yes1515 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:37yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:34yes518 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:45yes1523 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:30yes1558 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:22yes940 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:32yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:44yes610 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:29yes1119 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:40yes2010 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:31yes1110 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:43yes58 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:43yes1011 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:25yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:29no037 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:47yes1040 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:28yes951 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:37yes1055 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:40no06 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:33no04 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:46yes1619 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:35yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:39yes147 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:26yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:22yes915 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:34yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:49yes541 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:44yes1042 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:41yes1189 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:44yes515 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:25no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:44no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:29no017 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:42yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:27yes1811 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:34no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:36yes2428 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:47yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:39yes546 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:33yes1458 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:46yes1070 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:25yes525 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:39yes1710 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:40yes15 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:38yes2026 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:23yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:37yes4219 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:22yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:21yes3037 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:22yes54 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:36yes1028 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:23yes2935 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:35yes3044 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:45yes1728 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
CloudBees read as CloudBees CI
CloudBees (CI) read as CloudBees CI
GitLab read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab (SaaS) read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab (Self-Managed CE) read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab CI read as GitLab CI/CD
GitLab Ultimate read as GitLab CI/CD
Unresolved, counted raw
BuildJet
Cirrus CI
Cloudflare Pages
Dokploy
Google Cloud Build
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in developer platform

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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