Woodpecker CI

What is Woodpecker CI?

Woodpecker CI is an open source, self-hosted CI/CD engine that builds, tests, and deploys your code by running each pipeline step in its own container. You define pipelines as YAML in your repository, and Woodpecker executes them on every push, tag, or pull request. It began as a community fork of Drone CI and is licensed under Apache 2.0.

What is Woodpecker CI best for?

Woodpecker suits teams that want to run their own CI/CD without paying per build minute or per seat, especially those already self-hosting a Git forge like Gitea, Forgejo, or GitLab. Its tiny footprint — roughly 100 MB RAM for the server and 30 MB per agent at idle — makes it a good fit for small teams, homelabs, and privacy-conscious setups. Codeberg runs it in production.

What can Woodpecker CI do?

• Run pipeline steps in isolated Docker containers, each defined by an image and a list of shell commands.
• Execute builds through pluggable backends: Docker, Kubernetes, or a local backend for lightweight jobs.
• Split work into multiple workflows that can depend on each other, with conditional when rules and depends_on for parallel steps.
• Integrate natively with GitHub, Gitea, Forgejo, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Bitbucket Data Center as forges.
• Extend pipelines with community and core-maintained plugins for tasks like publishing artifacts, deploying, or sending notifications.
• Store data in SQLite by default, or switch to PostgreSQL or MySQL for larger deployments.
• Scale horizontally by attaching more agents to a single server.

Where does Woodpecker CI fall short?

Woodpecker is deliberately a CI/CD engine, not a full DevOps platform — there’s no issue tracking, code review, or artifact registry, so it relies on your forge for the rest. Its plugin ecosystem is smaller than Jenkins’ or the GitHub Actions marketplace, so niche integrations may need a custom plugin or a docker step. And because it descends from Drone, some Drone plugins and config work but not all, and migration guides only cover part of the gap.

Is Woodpecker CI free?

Yes — Woodpecker is completely free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license, with no paid tier, seat limits, or build-minute charges. The project states it “is and always will be totally free” and is funded through Open Collective and GitHub Sponsors. Your only costs are the servers you run it on.

What does Woodpecker CI replace?

Woodpecker stands in for hosted CI/CD services when you’d rather own the infrastructure. It’s a self-hosted CircleCI alternative and Travis CI alternative that avoids usage-based billing, a GitHub Actions alternative for teams not tied to GitHub, and a Buildkite alternative with no per-user pricing. Among open source options, it’s a lighter-weight counterpart to Jenkins.

FAQ

Is Woodpecker CI open source? Yes. Woodpecker is licensed under Apache 2.0, and the full source is on GitHub. It began as a community fork of Drone CI after Drone moved toward a more restrictive license.

Can I self-host Woodpecker CI for free? Yes. Self-hosting is the only way it runs, and it’s free with no paid edition. You run a server and one or more agents, typically via Docker or Kubernetes.

Is Woodpecker CI a good CircleCI or GitHub Actions alternative? For teams that want pipelines on their own hardware without per-minute or per-seat billing, yes. You trade a hosted control plane and large marketplace for full control, low resource use, and no vendor lock-in.

What do I need to run Woodpecker CI? A server process, at least one agent, and a supported forge (GitHub, Gitea, Forgejo, GitLab, or Bitbucket) for authentication and webhooks. It uses SQLite by default, so no separate database is required to start; add PostgreSQL or MySQL as you grow.