Is CircleCI or GitHub Actions cheaper?

CircleCI has the lower entry price — CircleCI starts at $0/mo and GitHub Actions at $0/mo.

Does CircleCI or GitHub Actions support HIPAA?

HIPAA support — CircleCI: —; GitHub Actions: —. Confirm current scope with the vendor.

Best CI/CD · head-to-head

CircleCI vs GitHub Actions

A sourced, side-by-side comparison for ci/cd. CircleCI has the lower entry price. Every figure links to the public page it was captured from — the vendor's own wherever the vendor publishes the number, otherwise the named public source — with the date we captured it.

CircleCI has the lower entry price — CircleCI starts at $0/mo, GitHub Actions at $0/mo. Free tier: CircleCI Yes, GitHub Actions Yes. HIPAA: CircleCI —, GitHub Actions —.

As of 2026-09-02 · figures link to their source below

Side by side

CircleCI

$0/mo entry

Entry price$0/mo (Free)

Free tierYes

HIPAA (BAA)—

SOC 2Yes

GDPR—

Best forTeams needing fine-grained compute control across multiple resource classes

GitHub Actions

$0/mo entry

Entry price$0/mo (Free)

Free tierYes

HIPAA (BAA)—

SOC 2Yes

GDPRYes

Best forTeams already on GitHub who want zero-friction CI/CD

Sources — CircleCI: circleci.com (verified 2026-09-02) · GitHub Actions: github.com (verified 2026-09-02)

Key features

CircleCI: Credit-based compute model supporting Docker, Linux, Arm, macOS, Windows, and self-hosted runners; Test splitting and parallelism across multiple containers; Orbs reusable config packages for one-line integrations; First CI/CD tool with FedRAMP Tailored ATO; SOC 2 Type II certified with annual third-party pen testing

GitHub Actions: Native integration with GitHub repositories — no webhook setup required; 20,000+ community actions in GitHub Marketplace; Matrix builds across OS, runtime version, and environment combinations; Self-hosted runners support for on-premises or custom hardware; SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2, and FedRAMP Tailored ATO on Enterprise Cloud

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