Does Semaphore have a free plan?

No free plan is listed on the vendor's pricing page. Semaphore is sold on usage-based pricing.

What are the main drawbacks of Semaphore?

The trade-offs we noted: Variable monthly cost: Machine minutes, artifact transfer, storage and optional services can all affect spend.; Platform boundary: Hosted Windows jobs are not listed; Windows is documented through self-hosted agents.; Operational burden shifts: Community or self-hosted deployment requires the customer to operate its own CI infrastructure..

When should you not use Semaphore?

Skip Semaphore if: Hosted Windows workers are required and self-hosting is not acceptable; Your procurement process requires a single fixed all-inclusive price; No owner can maintain pipeline YAML, secrets, agents and usage controls.

Developer Tools

Semaphore

Usage-priced CI/CD with cloud, self-hosted and open-source editions.

What it is

Semaphore is a CI/CD platform offered as a managed cloud service, a free open-source Community Edition and a commercial self-hosted Enterprise Edition. Cloud pipelines are stored as YAML under .semaphore, can use hosted or self-hosted agents, and are billed from compute, storage, transfer and optional support usage rather than one flat subscription.

Semaphore pricing

Semaphore does not publish a plan ladder we could verify. Usage-based pricing.

Prices read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-08-24. Vendors change plans without notice — check the source before you budget. Price verification log.

Key features

YAML pipelines
Connects dependency-aware blocks and jobs from files in the .semaphore directory.
Hosted and self-hosted agents
Runs jobs on listed cloud machines or customer-managed agent capacity.
Secrets
Injects governed environment variables or files into selected jobs and pipelines.
Promotions
Chains pipelines into release and deployment workflows with configurable conditions.

Strengths and trade-offs

What works well

Deployment choice: Offers managed cloud, open-source Community Edition and commercial self-hosted editions.
Repository pipelines: Defines connected blocks, dependencies, jobs and promotions in versioned YAML files.
Execution options: Cloud supports Linux, Docker and macOS agents, while self-hosted agents add customer-controlled machines.
Usage visibility: Current pricing publishes per-minute compute and separate artifact allowances and overages.

Where it falls short

Variable monthly cost: Machine minutes, artifact transfer, storage and optional services can all affect spend.
Platform boundary: Hosted Windows jobs are not listed; Windows is documented through self-hosted agents.
Operational burden shifts: Community or self-hosted deployment requires the customer to operate its own CI infrastructure.
Support tiers are separate: Advanced troubleshooting, response commitments and engineering assistance are paid additions.

Who it is for

Software teams seeking usage-priced cloud CI/CD or a Semaphore-compatible self-hosted path and willing to own pipeline and cost governance.

Pick it or skip it

Pick Semaphore if

Teams versioning multi-stage build, test and deployment workflows in YAML
Workloads that benefit from mixing hosted compute with customer-managed agents
Organizations able to forecast compute minutes, artifact usage and support needs

Skip it if

Hosted Windows workers are required and self-hosting is not acceptable
Your procurement process requires a single fixed all-inclusive price
No owner can maintain pipeline YAML, secrets, agents and usage controls

Our verdict

Choose Semaphore after pricing representative jobs and deciding who operates each agent; treat compute, artifacts and support as separate cost lines and verify edition-specific features before migration.

Frequently asked questions

Does Semaphore have a free plan?: No free plan is listed on the vendor's pricing page. Semaphore is sold on usage-based pricing.
Who is Semaphore best for?: Software teams seeking usage-priced cloud CI/CD or a Semaphore-compatible self-hosted path and willing to own pipeline and cost governance.
What are the main drawbacks of Semaphore?: The trade-offs we noted: Variable monthly cost: Machine minutes, artifact transfer, storage and optional services can all affect spend.; Platform boundary: Hosted Windows jobs are not listed; Windows is documented through self-hosted agents.; Operational burden shifts: Community or self-hosted deployment requires the customer to operate its own CI infrastructure..
When should you not use Semaphore?: Skip Semaphore if: Hosted Windows workers are required and self-hosting is not acceptable; Your procurement process requires a single fixed all-inclusive price; No owner can maintain pipeline YAML, secrets, agents and usage controls.

What we checked

Public APIOffers a documented API you can build against.Yes
Mobile appHas a native app for iOS or Android, not just a mobile website.No
Open source / self-hostableSource is open and the tool can be run on your own infrastructure.Yes
SSO (SAML)Supports SAML single sign-on on at least one plan.No

“Not checked” means exactly that — we have not verified it, and we do not guess.

Evidence and freshness

Status: Source listed, figures not recordedReviewed: 2026-08-24

Semaphore — Pricing ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: per-minute cloud compute, self-hosted usage price, included concurrency, free credits, artifact allowances and overages, support add-ons
Semaphore Docs — About Semaphore ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: Cloud edition, open-source Community Edition, commercial Enterprise Edition, self-hosting responsibility, API reference availability
Semaphore Docs — Pipelines ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: pipeline YAML, block dependencies, parallel blocks, promotions, cloud agent platforms, self-hosted agents, rerun behavior
Semaphore Docs — Secrets ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: environment-variable secrets, file secrets, job access, organization access, secret updates
Semaphore Docs — Self-hosted agents ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: customer-managed machines, agent setup, supported plans, agent requirements, job execution

Limit: Vendor pages and documentation were reviewed; ToolCompare did not open an account, run cloud or self-hosted jobs, install Community or Enterprise Edition, measure performance, inspect isolation, calculate a production bill or test support response times.

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