About Pipeline
Tekton is an open-source framework for creating CI/CD systems. It allows developers to build, test, and deploy across cloud providers and on-premise systems. The framework standardizes CI/CD tooling and processes across vendors, languages, and deployment environments.
Tekton provides built-in best practices for creating CI/CD systems quickly, with scalable, serverless, cloud-native execution. It abstracts the underlying implementation, allowing teams to choose their build, test, and deploy workflow based on requirements. It is an incubating CNCF project.
Key features
- Standardizes CI/CD tooling and processes across vendors, languages, and deployment environments
- Works with Jenkins, Jenkins X, Skaffold, Knative, and other CI/CD tools
- Scalable, serverless, cloud-native execution
- Abstracts underlying implementation for flexible workflow choices
Good fit for
- Building CI/CD systems
- Testing and deploying applications
Pipeline: questions and answers
- What is Pipeline used for?
- Pipeline is an open-source framework for creating CI/CD systems, allowing developers to build, test, and deploy across cloud providers and on-premise systems. It is a good fit for building CI/CD systems, and testing and deploying applications.
- Is Pipeline open source?
- Yes. Pipeline is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at tektoncd/pipeline and is written mainly in Go.
- Is Pipeline free?
- Yes. Pipeline is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- Can I self-host Pipeline?
- Yes. Pipeline can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
- What is Pipeline an alternative to?
- Pipeline is an open-source alternative to Google Cloud Build. Other open-source alternatives to Google Cloud Build include Jx, Screwdriver and Agola.
- Is Pipeline actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to Pipeline was on 13 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.17.0, published on 1 October 2026. The project has 9.1k stars on GitHub.
Open-source alternatives to Pipeline
See all
Jx
CI/CD & DevOps
Jenkins X provides automated CI+CD for Kubernetes with Preview Environments on Pull Reques
Apache-2.0vs Buildkite★ 4.7k
Screwdriver
CI/CD & DevOps
An open source build platform designed for continuous delivery.
OSSvs Buildkite★ 1k
Agola
CI/CD & DevOps
Agola: CI/CD Redefined
Apache-2.0vs Buildkite★ 1.6k
Gitea
CI/CD & DevOps
Gitea - Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development servic
MITvs Bitbucket★ 58k
Harness
CI/CD & DevOps
Harness Open Source is an end-to-end developer platform with Source Control Management, CI
Apache-2.0vs GitHub Actions★ 39k
Jenkins
CI/CD & DevOps
Jenkins automation server
MITvs CircleCI★ 27k
SaaS alternatives to Pipeline
See all
Google Cloud Build
CI/CD & DevOps
Serverless CI/CD service on Google Cloud for building and deploying artifacts
SaaS
Amazon ECR
Infrastructure & Containers
Managed container image registry on AWS
SaaS
Amazon ECS
Infrastructure & Containers
Managed container orchestration service on AWS
SaaS
Amazon EKS
Infrastructure & Containers
Managed Kubernetes control plane and worker nodes on AWS
SaaS
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Infrastructure & Containers
Enterprise automation platform for infrastructure, network and cloud provisioning
SaaS
AWS Fargate
Infrastructure & Containers
Serverless compute engine for running containers on AWS without managing servers
SaaS

