Woodpecker CI
A lightweight, container-based CI/CD engine that you host yourself and connect to your Git forge.
- License
- Apache License 2.0Open source (OSI)
- GitHub stars
- 8.0k705 forks
- Latest release
- v3.19.0Oct 7, 2026
- Setup
- Needs a databaseSelf-hosted
What the free edition leaves out
The free edition covers the features teams usually need; we found nothing important held back. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not state it, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Not confirmed | Login is through OAuth2 with your forge; no SAML or generic OIDC login documented in the pages read. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Not confirmed | Permissions follow the forge; repository admins get admin rights, settings and secrets are limited to owners. This is not a full RBAC system, and there is no paid tier. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Not confirmed | Not mentioned on any page read. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Free | Multiple users come in through the forge. Registration is closed by default and can be opened or restricted to certain organizations. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | The docs say Woodpecker handles schema migrations but not backups; the operator must back up the database. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Free | The server serves an API per the deployment overview and the project has no paid tier. The API reference was not fetched. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Not confirmed | No commercial support or SLA found; community channels only. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Teams that already use Gitea, Forgejo, GitHub or GitLab and want a lightweight, container-based CI engine they host themselves.
Why choose it over CircleCI
The project says it is and always will be free, with no paid tier and no per-seat or per-minute pricing. Pipeline steps run in Docker containers with plugins and multiple dependent workflows, and SQLite is the default database.
Where it falls short
There is no hosted service and no commercial support or SLA, so you run and upgrade it yourself. Authentication is delegated to the forge via OAuth2, and no SAML or audit logging was found. The server does not handle backups.
Open-source alternative to
- CircleCI — Woodpecker is a free, self-hosted container-based CI/CD engine that covers the same job as CircleCI's hosted pipelines.
Facts checked on against the project’s official repository, documentation and pricing pages. GitHub numbers update automatically. How we verify.