In the ever-growing ecosystem of infrastructure and software development, where tools like Kubernetes introduce complexity and hyperscalers welcome sprawl, it's more important to have your SDLC buttoned up and as efficient as possible. CI/CD, one of Cycle's noble sidekicks, is important in kicking off the SDLC, and having a tool that gets the job done without introducing extra complexity or constraint is paramount.

When speaking to companies, one of the largest software initiatives, aside from “we need a Kubernetes alternative,” that we hear—has been, “we need to update CI/CD” or “Our integration process is manual, our approval process is manual, everything is manual and updates cause downtime.”

It's important to us as a modern DevOps tool to help make sure our customers are in the best position possible when adopting Cycle, which includes the automation of the DevOps lifecycle, which usually starts with CI/CD.

What is CI/CD?

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment is a DevOps practice that helps to automate the process of build, test, and deploying code. Most CI/CD tools were created to speed up this sometimes very manual process. Some of the earliest CI/CD practices start with tools like Jenkins, an open source tool still used today, that ignited CI adoption around 2000.

CI/CD continued to gain steam in the mid-2000s through the 2010s with the introduction of modern tools that require less manual setup and maintenance. You'd be hard-pressed to find a DevOps team today without some semblance of a CI/CD process.

Here at Cycle, we pick up around the deployment part of CI/CD. Once you build and test your code and validate it's ready for deployment, Cycle can pick up the code from your repository or CI tool.

Top 5 CI/CD Tools

1. GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions is by far the most common CI tool that we see teams here at Cycle using. GitHub has a track record of serving enterprise and SMB teams at various stages in development. Being native to GitHub source control provides tight coupling to a user's repository, making it a relatively easy tool to get started with. Due to the large community and ease of integration, Actions is a good first choice for anyone running small or large workloads. However, those outside of the GitHub ecosystem may not find it a great fit.

Key features:

• Hosted Runners
• Matrix builds
• Live Logs
• Secret Store
• Multi-Container Testing

The integration with GitHub Actions and Cycle is seamless, making it easy to deploy to bare metal or cloud infrastructure, without the need for Helm, Kubernetes, or custom YAML.

Our team has made an official Cycle.io Pipeline Runner Action, which allows you to:

1. Trigger a Cycle Pipeline 2. Pass variables 3. Track execution step‑by‑step with detailed logging

2. GitLab

GitLab is another popular choice among the Cycle community, offering an AI‑driven comprehensive DevSecOps experience. With an emphasis on enterprise security, GitLab partners with companies looking for a secure all‑in‑one solution. Tightly coupled with their source code management, the build-test-deploy experience is relatively seamless.

Key features:

• Integration with Code Repository
• Issue Tracking
• Security Scanning
• Automatic Deployments

Integration with Cycle:

1. GitLab Runner builds and tests your code
2. Pushes your Docker image to a registry (e.g., GHCR, Docker Hub)
3. Calls Cycle's API or triggers a Cycle Pipeline via webhook to deploy to a Cycle environment

Cycle handles the infrastructure, networking, service orchestration, and deployments behind the scenes.

3. CircleCI

CircleCI focuses on making CI/CD easy and incredibly fast. The tool is highly configurable and provides “orbs” (preconfigured YAML packages) for easy integrations. CircleCI excels in speed of delivery and developer experience, making it a great choice for fast‑moving teams with diverse use cases.

Key features:

• Orbs
• Concurrency and Parallelism
• Runners
• SSH
• Source Control Agnostic

Using Cycle's API or Pipelines, we see many workflows leveraging CircleCI.

4. TeamCity

TeamCity, developed by JetBrains, focuses on developer productivity and deep IDE integration (e.g., IntelliJ). It handles complex, enterprise‑level concerns and is often chosen for legacy codebases, tight security requirements, or advanced pipeline needs.

Key features:

• Smart Build Triggers
• Build Optimization
• IDE Integration
• Powerful RBAC

5. Buildkite

Buildkite lets you run pipelines on your own infrastructure while using Buildkite's cloud‑based UI and orchestration layer. Its hybrid CI/CD model caters to teams that need robust, scalable pipelines with the flexibility to run on self‑hosted infrastructure or in the cloud.

Key features:

• Hybrid CI/CD
• Scalable Agents
• Observability
• Flexible Pipelines

Buildkite pairs well with teams focused on edge or on‑prem deployments, especially with Cycle's Virtual Provider feature.

Wrapping Up

There's a plethora of CI/CD tools in the market today—some require more maintenance, some are faster, some claim to be more user‑friendly. The key is ensuring the tool fits your team's goals. We see the same assumption with Kubernetes: “It must work well for us,” but that's often not the case.

CI/CD automates and tests the initial part of your DevOps lifecycle, which is critical for developer experience. Introduce friction at the gate and you'll have unhappy developers. Pair an awesome CI tool with Cycle, and the process from build to deploy becomes seamless and friction‑free. Choose wisely!