Buddy

Buddy is a continuous delivery platform for teams coordinating builds, tests, and releases across varied environments. It is particularly well suited to teams shipping mobile apps that need deployment controls as well as pipeline automation. The broad workflow coverage is a strength, but low concurrency on entry plans can constrain busy teams.

Overview

Teams can define pipelines through a visual interface, YAML, or generated code, and trigger them from events involving services such as GitHub, AWS, and Slack. Buddy combines that flexibility with agent-based or agentless deployments, manual approvals, one-click rollback, and role-based access controls. This makes it a stronger fit for teams managing a release process than for those seeking only a basic build runner.

Build actions can run in containers on Intel or ARM using Linux, Windows, macOS, or NixOS. Visual testing covers Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, Figma, and Storybook, including multi-browser testing through Buddy’s NPM CLI. The range accommodates varied build and test setups, although the plans’ concurrency caps may slow teams that need multiple jobs running at once.

Key features

Pipeline configuration: UI, YAML, and generated code give teams different ways to define workflows, while event triggers connect pipeline starts to services such as GitHub, AWS, and Slack.

Deployment controls: Manual approvals and one-click rollback add checks around releases; agent and agentless deployment options provide different ways to reach targets.

Visual testing: Support for Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, Figma, and Storybook, plus multi-browser testing via the NPM CLI, makes Buddy relevant to teams incorporating visual checks into delivery.

Integrations and security: Documented integrations include AWS, Azure, Bitbucket, Cloudflare, DockerHub, GitHub, GitLab, Google Cloud, Jira, Shopify, Slack, and Snyk. Security controls include IP blocking, custom roles, group permissions, SAML 2.0, audit logs, enforced 2FA, and SOC 2 Type II certification.

Mobile delivery: Buddy supports mobile targets, signing management, store submission, and hosted macOS, making it a candidate for teams automating mobile release workflows.

Pricing

Buddy uses a freemium model. Free costs nothing and allows one seat, one concurrent job, 300 pipeline GB-minutes, 1 GB of pipeline cache, 300 sandbox CPU-minutes, and 730 sandbox GB-hours. That can suit an individual exploring a modest workflow, but the one-seat and one-job caps limit its usefulness for a team. The free tier excludes 2FA and Sandboxes; a free workspace may be frozen after 60 days without account login and terminated if no action is taken within the following 30 days.

Pro costs €29 a month, billed monthly. It raises the allowance to two seats, 3,000 pipeline GB-minutes, 10 GB cache, and 7,300 sandbox GB-hours, while retaining one concurrent job and 300 sandbox CPU-minutes. It fits a small team that needs more capacity than Free but can work through a single job at a time.

Hyper costs €99 a month, billed monthly. It includes five seats, two concurrent jobs, 6,000 pipeline GB-minutes, 20 GB cache, 300 sandbox CPU-minutes, 14,600 sandbox GB-hours, advanced permissions, and SAML and OIDC SSO. The higher price is most defensible for teams needing stronger access controls or a second concurrent job; it still has a five-seat cap.

A cloud trial lasts 14 days, starts when the workspace is created, and includes Hyper plan features. The on-premise trial lasts 30 days. Buddy can also run on a customer’s infrastructure behind a firewall, an option for organizations that need to keep delivery tooling within their own environment.

Platforms

Buddy is available via web and API, with Linux, macOS, Windows, and self-hosted options. Its agent runs on Linux x64 and ARM64, macOS ARM64, and Windows x64. Build containers support Intel and ARM across Linux, Windows, macOS, and NixOS, and hosted macOS is available.

Who it's for

Buddy is a good fit for software teams that want one configurable pipeline system for building, visual testing, deployment, and release controls, especially teams shipping to mobile stores. Its self-hosted option suits organizations that want to run it behind their firewall. A solo user can start on Free, but teams should weigh the seat and concurrency limits against their workload before choosing a plan.

Pros and cons

Pro: UI, YAML, and generated-code pipelines let teams choose how they define workflows rather than forcing one configuration style.

Pro: Rollback, approvals, role controls, and a broad security feature set support managed release processes.

Pro: Mobile signing, store submission, and hosted macOS cover needs that a general build pipeline alone may not address.

Con: Free and Pro both permit only one concurrent job, which can make parallel delivery a reason to move to Hyper.

Con: Free is limited to one seat and excludes 2FA and Sandboxes, so it is a poor long-term fit for teams needing those capabilities.

Con: The free workspace inactivity policy creates an operational risk for occasional users who do not log in regularly.

Alternatives

Mobile CI/CD Software and Game Build Automation Software are useful starting points for comparing tools in those categories.

For a mobile-focused alternative, Bitrise has a free Hobby plan for a team of one, with build credits intended for a small project a few times per month. Consider it if that narrow free allowance matches your mobile project better than Buddy’s pipeline and sandbox quotas.

Codemagic offers a free plan with one team member, 500 build minutes refilled monthly, and one parallel build. It is worth comparing if those explicit monthly build-minute and parallel-build allowances suit your workload.

TeamCity has a free on-premises Professional plan with unlimited users, three build agents, and 100 build configurations. It may suit teams prioritizing those on-premises limits over Buddy’s workflow and deployment controls.

Bitbucket Pipelines offers a free plan for up to five users, unlimited public and private repositories, 1 GB of LFS storage, and 50 build minutes per month. It is an alternative when that repository and user allowance is a better fit for the work.

Buildkite has a free plan for up to five users and ten concurrent jobs, with up to 2,000 Linux vCPU minutes per month. Teams that need substantially more concurrency on a free plan may want to compare it with Buddy.

Capawesome Cloud, GitHub Codespaces, and Azure Test Plans are also alternatives to consider.

Verdict

Choose Buddy if your team needs configurable pipelines that carry builds through visual testing and deployment, especially for mobile releases, and you value self-hosting or release controls. Its main trade-off is constrained concurrency on Free and Pro, alongside Free’s missing 2FA and Sandboxes. Teams that need multiple jobs in flight or more seats should compare Hyper’s limits and price with alternatives before committing.