No. 15 of 52 ·Continuous Integration Software

Drone

Web · Windows · Linux · Self-hosted · API · paid plans from $299/mo

Freedom report

Three barsScore 6.5

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely3 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Drone is ranked #15 of 52 in continuous integration software on Freedom251. It runs on API, Linux, Self-hosted, Web, Windows. There is a free plan. A free trial is offered. Paid plans start at $299/mo.

Drone plans and pricing

All plans

Open Source Edition Free Free Apache 2.0 · single machine · embedded SQLite · lacks distributed and Kubernetes runners, organization and Vault secrets, cron scheduling, autoscaling, and extensions drone.io · 5 Oct 2026

Enterprise Edition $299/mo Starting at $299 per month Priced per developer · unlimited repositories · unlimited builds · unlimited servers · free for individuals, students, and organizations with under $1 million US dollars in annual gross revenue docs.drone.io · 5 Oct 2026

Compared on continuous integration software

Free plan: Yes
Paid from: $299/mo
Hosted option: Yes
Self-hosted runners: Yes
Pull request checks: Yes
Pipeline configuration: yaml
Artifact or dependency cache: Yes

Best Drone alternatives

See all 20

Two bars Codemagic Free tier No. 1$332.50/mo6.8 Two bars GitHub Codespaces Free tier No. 2$0.07/mo6.8 Two bars Appcircle Free tier No. 3Free6.7 Two bars Bitrise Free tier No. 4$89/mo6.7 Two bars AppVeyor Free tier No. 5$29/mo6.6 Two bars Bitbucket Pipelines Free tier No. 6$3.65/mo6.6

The record

Purpose: Drone is a self-service continuous integration platform for automating software builds and testing.
Pipelines: Pipelines are configured in a file committed to the Git repository, and each pipeline step runs inside an isolated Docker container.
Source control: Drone documents integrations with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, Gitee, GitLab, Gogs, Gitea, Bitbucket Cloud, and Bitbucket Server.
Plugins: The plugin marketplace describes community plugins for customizing continuous integration pipelines, including plugins for AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Slack, and other services.
Architecture: Drone uses a server and one or more standalone runners that poll the server for pipelines to execute.
Deployment: Drone’s website says it installs from a single binary and scales automatically.
Security: Drone supports AES-GCM encryption for secrets stored in its database, but encryption must be enabled before secrets are stored.
Configuration integrity: Drone can sign YAML configuration files and block a pipeline for manual approval if signature verification fails; Starlark and Jsonnet files cannot be signed and verified.
API: Drone provides a remote API that uses access tokens for authorization and lists official Go, JavaScript, and Node libraries.
Trial: The Enterprise Edition trial is free for up to 5000 builds.
Support: Drone documentation directs users to its community forum and chatroom for questions and comments.
Use case: The Open Source Edition is described as capable of complex pipelines and optimized for individuals and small teams.
Price from: $299/mo

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Continuous Integration Software in 2026#15 of 52
Best Game Build Automation Software in 2026#23 of 40

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Sources

drone.io· checked 5 Oct 2026
docs.drone.io/server/overview/· checked 5 Oct 2026
plugins.drone.io· checked 5 Oct 2026
docs.drone.io/server/storage/encryption/· checked 5 Oct 2026
docs.drone.io/signature/· checked 5 Oct 2026
docs.drone.io/api/overview/· checked 5 Oct 2026
docs.drone.io/enterprise/· checked 5 Oct 2026
docs.drone.io· checked 5 Oct 2026
drone.io/enterprise/opensource/· checked 5 Oct 2026