# CI/CD platforms for enterprise buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "CI/CD platform" and as "continuous integration and delivery tool", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/developer/ci-cd-platforms/enterprise/

**Standing:** GitLab CI/CD leads with 44% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 50 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GitLab CI/CD | 44% | 9% | 65 |
| 2 | GitHub Actions | 16% | 24% | 46 |
| 3 | GitHub | 12% | 0% | 15 |
| 4 | Azure DevOps | 8% | 9% | 35 |
| 5 | Jenkins | 8% | 51% | 53 |
| 6 | Buildkite | 6% | 17% | 18 |
| 7 | CloudBees CI | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 8 | CircleCI | 2% | 32% | 44 |
| 9 | Harness | 0% | 0% | 26 |
| 10 | JetBrains TeamCity | 0% | 21% | 24 |
| 11 | Octopus Deploy | 0% | 0% | 11 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions; alternatives GitLab CI/CD
- GPT-5.4 mini: GitHub Actions; alternatives AWS CodePipeline, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: GitHub, GitLab CI/CD; alternatives Argo CD, Azure DevOps, Buildkite, Harness
- Perplexity Sonar: GitLab CI/CD; alternatives Azure Pipelines, CircleCI, Harness, Jenkins
- Grok 4.1 Fast: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD; alternatives Atlassian, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, CloudBees CI
- Mistral Small: GitLab CI/CD; alternatives Buildkite, GitHub Actions, Jenkins
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD; alternatives Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Jenkins
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice; alternatives Buildkite, CircleCI, Octopus Deploy
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: GitLab CI/CD; alternatives CircleCI, CloudBees CI, GitHub Actions
- Kimi K2: GitLab CI/CD; alternatives Azure DevOps, Buildkite, GitHub Actions, Harness
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: GitHub Actions; alternatives Azure DevOps, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, JetBrains TeamCity
- MiniMax M2.5: Azure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD

## Sources the answers cite

62 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- octopus.com: 36 answers, 40 citations
- blog.jetbrains.com: 29 answers, 35 citations
- toolradar.com: 26 answers, 28 citations
- checkthat.ai: 17 answers, 20 citations
- deployhq.com: 17 answers, 17 citations
- em360tech.com: 17 answers, 17 citations
- augmentcode.com: 15 answers, 18 citations
- circleci.com: 14 answers, 24 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://octopus.com/devops/ci-cd/ci-cd-tools-for-enterprise (35 answers)
- https://blog.jetbrains.com/teamcity/2026/03/best-ci-tools (27 answers)
- https://toolradar.com/blog/best-ci-cd-tools (25 answers)
- https://em360tech.com/top-10/top-enterprise-ci-cd-tools (17 answers)
- https://checkthat.ai/answers/what-are-the-best-ci-cd-tools (14 answers)
- https://deployhq.com/blog/best-ci-cd-software-top-10-tools-to-know-in-2025 (14 answers)
- https://augmentcode.com/tools/continuous-integration-tools (13 answers)
- https://devopsness.com/blog/best-cicd-platforms (10 answers)
- https://in-com.com/blog/top-ci-cd-tools-comparison-for-enterprises-architectures-pipelines-and-delivery-risk (10 answers)
- https://vendorbenchmark.com/blog/ci-cd-platform-pricing-benchmark-comparison (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Jenkins: 27 of 53 labels negative. "If you are still on Jenkins, make a migration plan to GitHub, GitLab, or Harness your priority." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, direct prompt)
- CircleCI: 14 of 44 labels negative. "GitHub Actions (hosted) and CircleCI (cloud) — per-minute/credit billing that scales linearly and sometimes super-linearly" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- GitHub Actions: 11 of 46 labels negative. "What to avoid for this requirement - GitHub Actions (hosted) and CircleCI (cloud) — per-minute/credit billing that scales linearly" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Atlassian Bamboo: 6 of 9 labels negative. "Why to Avoid: Atlassian announced a firm timeline to phase out its Data Center product line." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.