Why GitHub Actions?

GitHub Actions has quickly become one of the most popular CI/CD platforms. In this lesson we will explore why so many engineering teams choose it, when an alternative might be a better fit, and how to set up your local environment so you can follow along with the course repository.

GitHub Actions adoption at a glance

Two industry surveys provide a useful snapshot of how teams are building and shipping software today:

• CNCF Annual Survey: Among cloud-native teams (many already invested in Kubernetes), GitHub Actions edges out other options, followed closely by Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, and Azure Pipelines.
• JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey: When widening the lens to the broader software industry, Jenkins still holds the top spot, but GitHub Actions lands comfortably in the second position ahead of GitLab CI/CD.

Strengths that keep teams on Actions

• Low friction for GitHub-hosted code: Pipelines live alongside your code; creating a workflow is as simple as committing a YAML file under .github/workflows/.
• Vibrant marketplace: Thousands of community-maintained actions help you automate everything from dependency caching to cloud deployments without re-writing common logic.
• Rapidly improving ecosystem: A large user base encourages tooling vendors—such as Namespace, the sponsor of this course—to deliver faster runners, deeper observability, and polished developer experiences.

When another platform might fit better

• Your source code lives elsewhere. GitLab CI/CD integrates tightly with GitLab-hosted repositories, and Bitbucket Pipelines does the same for Bitbucket.
• You need maximal pipeline expressiveness. Actions’ YAML syntax is simple by design, but complex workflows can become repetitive without reusable abstractions.
• You require richer analytics out of the box. GitHub’s built-in monitoring and debugging is serviceable, yet other platforms expose deeper telemetry without extra tooling.