TeamCity is alive and maintained by JetBrains. The licensing policy for On-Premises 2026.2 still gives the free Professional edition 3 build agents, up to 100 build configurations and 10 pipelines. Enterprise lifts the configuration cap and adds priority support, and TeamCity Cloud is the hosted version billed per committer.
Most people who leave do so over cost. A September 2025 JetBrains post ended the 50% renewal discount for On-Premises licences bought on or after November 3, 2025, so new Enterprise servers and agents renew at full list price every year. Others want CI that lives next to their code host, or no CI server to patch. The six options below start with the hosted ones. Prices are in US dollars.
Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Price | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | Repos already on GitHub | Free tier; $0.006 per Linux minute after | Linux, Windows, macOS runners; self-hosted |
| GitLab CI/CD | One app for code, CI and registry | Free; Premium $29 per user/month, yearly | GitLab.com, self-managed Linux |
| Jenkins | Free self-hosted CI with no agent limits | Free (MIT) | Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker |
| Buildkite | Your own agents with a hosted control plane | Free up to 5 users; Pro $30 per active user/month | Self-hosted agents, hosted Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Azure Pipelines | .NET and Windows shops on Azure | 1 free job; $40 or $15 per extra parallel job/month | Linux, Windows, macOS; self-hosted |
| CircleCI | Fast hosted builds billed by credits | Free 30,000 credits; Performance from $15/month | Linux, Windows, macOS, Arm; self-hosted runners |
GitHub Actions
If your code already sits on GitHub, Actions removes the webhook and VCS root setup TeamCity needs. Workflows are YAML files in the repository, and the marketplace covers most build steps a TeamCity meta-runner would handle. Self-hosted runners are free and do not count against your included usage, so you can keep the build machines you already own.
Each plan includes a monthly compute allowance. The Actions billing docs give Free plans $12 of compute, about 2,000 Linux minutes, and Team plans $18, about 3,000 Linux minutes, then charge $0.006 a minute on a 2-core Linux runner and $0.010 on Windows. Public repositories run on standard runners for free.
Best for: Teams on GitHub that want CI without running a separate server.
Pricing:
- Free plan: $12 of compute a month, about 2,000 Linux minutes
- Team: $4 per user per month, $18 of compute, about 3,000 Linux minutes
- Enterprise: $21 per user per month, $300 of compute, about 50,000 Linux minutes
- Linux 2-core $0.006, Windows $0.010, macOS $0.062 per minute; self-hosted runners free
Watch out for:
- macOS minutes cost about ten times Linux minutes, so iOS and Mac builds drain the allowance fast.
- TeamCity's snapshot dependencies have no one-click twin. Chaining workflows across repositories means wiring triggers or reusable workflows by hand in YAML.
Official site: GitHub Actions.
GitLab CI/CD
GitLab puts pipelines, merge requests, a container registry and security scanning in one product. A TeamCity shop that also pays for a separate Git host and artifact store can collapse all three. Runners install on Linux, Windows and macOS, and the same .gitlab-ci.yml works on GitLab.com and a self-managed instance.
The GitLab pricing page gives Free 400 compute minutes a month and Premium 10,000, with Premium at $29 per user per month billed annually. Self-hosted runners do not use those minutes. Our GitLab alternatives page covers lighter forges if the full suite is too much.
Best for: Teams that want CI, Git hosting and a registry from one vendor.
Pricing:
- Free: $0, 400 compute minutes a month, 5 users per private top-level group on GitLab.com
- Premium: $29 per user per month, billed annually, 10,000 minutes
- Ultimate: contact sales, 50,000 minutes
Watch out for:
- Self-managed GitLab is heavy. Its install requirements set 8 vCPU and 16 GB of RAM as the single-node baseline, much more than a TeamCity server for a small team.
- Premium is billed per user for everyone, not per build agent, so a large team with few builds pays more than it would for TeamCity.
Official site: GitLab CI/CD.
Jenkins
Jenkins is the free answer to TeamCity's agent pricing. It is MIT licensed, has no cap on agents or jobs, and runs on the same Windows and Linux machines your TeamCity agents use now. The LTS changelog lists 2.580.2 from October 28, 2026, tested on JDK 21 and 25.
Pipelines are Groovy-based Jenkinsfiles, which feel closer to TeamCity's Kotlin DSL than most YAML systems do. Plugins fill the gaps: there are plugins for most VCS hosts, test reports and cloud agents. That plugin model is also the main cost of running it.
Best for: Self-hosted teams that want unlimited agents for no licence fee.
Pricing:
- Free and open source, MIT licence
- Commercial support only through third-party vendors
Watch out for:
- Java 17 is no longer supported from Jenkins 2.555.1 on, so older build servers need a JDK upgrade first.
- Plugin upkeep is your job. Jenkins publishes regular security advisories for core and plugins, and a TeamCity admin used to bundled features will spend more time patching.
Official site: Jenkins.
Buildkite
Buildkite splits CI in two. You run the agents on your own machines, as you do with TeamCity, and Buildkite hosts the web interface, scheduler and logs. Nobody on your team patches a CI server, and source code never has to leave your network.
The Buildkite pricing page lets the free plan run up to 10 concurrent jobs for 5 users. Pro costs $30 per active user per month, includes 10 agents, then charges $3.50 per extra agent a month. Hosted Linux agents are also on offer from $0.004 per vCPU minute.
Best for: Larger engineering teams that want self-hosted agents without a self-hosted server.
Pricing:
- Free: $0, up to 5 users, 10 concurrent jobs, 2,000 Linux vCPU minutes a month
- Pro: $30 per active user per month, up to 50 users, 10 agents included, $3.50 per extra agent a month
- Enterprise: custom, 30-user minimum
Watch out for:
- Per-user pricing adds up. Fifty developers on Pro cost $1,500 a month before any extra agents, more than a TeamCity Enterprise server with several agents.
- Free has no hosted Mac, Windows or Linux ARM64 minutes.
Official site: Buildkite.
Azure Pipelines
Many TeamCity users build .NET on Windows. Azure Pipelines covers that case natively, with Microsoft-hosted Windows agents, MSBuild and VSTest tasks, and links to Azure Boards and Repos. It also builds code hosted on GitHub or Bitbucket, so you do not have to move repositories.
Pricing is per parallel job rather than per user. The Azure DevOps pricing page includes one free Microsoft-hosted job with 1,800 minutes a month and one free self-hosted job with unlimited minutes. Each extra hosted job costs $40 a month and each extra self-hosted job $15.
Best for: .NET and Windows teams that already pay for Azure.
Pricing:
- Free: 1 Microsoft-hosted parallel job (1,800 minutes a month) and 1 self-hosted job
- Extra Microsoft-hosted job: $40 per month, unlimited minutes
- Extra self-hosted job: $15 per month
- Azure DevOps Basic: first 5 users free, then $6 per user per month
Watch out for:
- The free hosted job stops each run at 60 minutes, and the grant only applies after you link an Azure subscription, per Microsoft's parallel jobs docs.
Official site: Azure Pipelines.
CircleCI
CircleCI suits teams that want hosted builds with strong caching and test splitting and have no wish to own agents. Docker, Linux VM, Arm and Windows executors are all available, and macOS for Apple builds. Self-hosted runners exist too, for jobs that must stay on your network.
Billing is by credits. The CircleCI pricing page gives Free 30,000 credits a month for 5 active users, about 3,000 minutes on a Linux Medium machine at 10 credits a minute. Performance starts at $15 a month, billed monthly, and extra credits cost $15 per 25,000.
Best for: Product teams that want fast hosted builds and pay by usage.
Pricing:
- Free: $0, 30,000 credits a month, 5 active users, 30 concurrent jobs
- Performance: from $15 per month, billed monthly, $15 per extra 25,000 credits
- Scale: custom, billed annually
Watch out for:
- Free credits expire at the end of each month and do not roll over.
- Credit costs vary by machine size, so budgeting takes more work than TeamCity's flat per-agent price.
Official site: CircleCI.
How to choose
| If you need | Pick |
|---|---|
| CI next to code that already lives on GitHub | GitHub Actions |
| Replace the CI server, Git host and registry at once | GitLab CI/CD |
| Unlimited self-hosted agents with no licence fee | Jenkins |
| Keep your own agents but stop running the server | Buildkite |
| .NET builds on Windows with cheap self-hosted concurrency | Azure Pipelines |
| Hosted builds for a small team, paid by usage | CircleCI |
When to stay with TeamCity
Stay on TeamCity if the free Professional licence covers you. Three agents and 100 build configurations are enough for many small teams, and nothing else here gives you build chains, test history and a Kotlin DSL in one free install. If you need more, compare the real cost first: Enterprise runs about $2,399 a year with 3 agents, and older licences bought before November 3, 2025 still renew at half price if you renew within a month of expiry. Moving dozens of build configurations to YAML is weeks of work.
Frequently asked questions
Is TeamCity free?
The On-Premises Professional edition is free with 3 build agents, 100 build configurations and 10 pipelines. You can buy extra agents for it, and each one raises the configuration limit by 10. TeamCity Cloud and On-Premises Enterprise are paid.
How much does TeamCity Cloud cost?
TeamCity Cloud is billed per committer. It starts at $45 a month for the minimum 3 committers, then $15 per extra committer. JetBrains' support article says each committer slot includes 8,000 build credits, and people who make fewer than 10 commits a month do not need a slot.
What is the best free alternative to TeamCity?
Jenkins, if you will run the server yourself. It has no agent limit and no paid tier. If you would rather not host anything, GitHub Actions on public repositories and CircleCI's 30,000 monthly credits are the most generous free hosted options in this list.
Is Jenkins better than TeamCity?
Neither is better across the board. TeamCity bundles test history, build chains and a polished interface, and it needs few plugins. Jenkins is free at any scale and has a larger plugin catalogue, but you maintain those plugins and their security fixes yourself.
