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Woodpecker CI

Community-maintained open-source CI/CD engine with great extensibility.

Free and open-source (Apache 2.0)

Woodpecker CI is a community-maintained open-source continuous integration engine forked from Drone. It uses YAML-based pipeline definitions and supports Docker and Kubernetes execution backends. Features include native Gitea/GitHub/GitLab integration, plugin system, and secrets management. Lightweight and easy to self-host.

  • Best for: CI/CD
  • Pricing: Free and open-source (Apache 2.0)

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Features

Cache Management

Built-in caching mechanisms to speed up builds

Limited caching support

Deployment Gate Approvals

Manual approval steps before production deployments

Approval steps via conditions

Docker/Kubernetes Support

Native support for building and deploying containerized applications

Docker-based pipeline steps

Hosted Runners

Managed build infrastructure provided by the platform

Self-hosted only, no managed runners

Marketplace/Plugins

Extensible ecosystem of pre-built integrations and plugins

Plugin system for extensibility

Matrix Builds

Run tests across multiple OS and language versions in parallel

Matrix builds with environment variables

Parallel Execution

Run multiple jobs simultaneously to reduce build times

Parallel steps and groups

Pipeline as Code

Define CI/CD pipelines through code files in the repository

YAML-based pipeline definitions

Secrets Management

Secure storage and injection of API keys and credentials

Encrypted secrets in UI and CLI

Self-Hosted Runners

Ability to run build agents on your own infrastructure

Docker and Kubernetes agent backends

Best For

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