Travis CI vs GitHub Actions with compiler.dev runners

Travis CI was the default CI for open source in the 2010s, and many repositories still carry a .travis.yml. It is still operating as of October 2026, but most of its old audience moved to GitHub Actions, which sits inside the same place the code lives. If you have an old Travis setup, the practical question is how to move it. This page covers what Travis offers today and how the two compare.

What Travis CI is today

The facts we could verify from Travis CI's own pages (checked October 2026):

• The service is live. Its blog announced a new look and site in June 2025 ("Welcome to the New Travis CI"), described as a branding and site update, not a pricing change.
• Its billing documentation describes two plan types. Concurrency-based plans are a fixed-price subscription with a set number of concurrent jobs, and standard Linux, Windows and FreeBSD jobs are included. Usage-based plans spend credits per started build minute and also charge per unique user who triggers builds.
• Standard Linux costs 10 credits per minute on the usage rate table, Windows is double, and larger VMs and GPU builds cost more. Unused paid credits expire after 12 months.
• The docs say free trial plans are currently unavailable. When offered, a trial gave 10,000 credits (about 1,000 Linux minutes) for 14 days.
• Open source: Travis may grant a separate pool of OSS-only credits, case by case, on request to support, usable only for public repositories.

On the pricing page Ubuntu x64 is listed at $0.0075 per minute for 2 vCPU and $0.015 for 4 vCPU, Ubuntu ARM from $0.003 to $0.012 per minute, macOS at $0.09 per minute for 4 vCPU, and $0.0025 per minute for self-hosted. That page and the credit docs are not entirely consistent about units, so confirm with Travis before you budget. We cannot comment on its ownership or roadmap and leave that out.

Side by side

Where Travis is genuinely better

• Partner queue architectures. Travis supports IBM ppc64le and s390x builds, free for open source repositories per its docs. If you ship software for those architectures and need native test runs, that is hard to match on Actions hosted runners.
• Enterprise self-hosted edition. Travis offers a self-hosted Enterprise product, which suits some on-premise needs.
• It already works. If an old pipeline is stable, finishes quickly and your team is happy, migration is a cost with a modest return. Do not migrate just to follow a trend.
• Mixed-OS matrix with FreeBSD. Listed in its concurrency plans; Actions does not offer FreeBSD runners natively.

The case for GitHub Actions on faster runners

Most Travis users are on GitHub. Actions removes the second login, the app permission grant and the status-check indirection. Pull requests, required checks, merge queue and Dependabot work directly. The marketplace is much larger and actively maintained, which matters for security updates to setup-* steps.

Speed is solved through the runner. compiler.dev runs the same workflows on 8 vCPU / 16 GB machines, a fresh VM per job, at $0.012 per minute. In our benchmarks against GitHub-hosted runners, the SvelteKit + FastAPI + Postgres + Redis stack went from 3m46s to 2m18s and the Spring Boot (Maven) + Kafka stack from 1m54s to 1m12s. We did not benchmark Travis. See GitHub Actions pricing for free-tier details and pricing for ours.

Migration sketch

A common .travis.yml:

language: python
python:
  - "3.11"
  - "3.12"
cache: pip
install:
  - pip install -r requirements.txt
script:
  - pytest -q
after_success:
  - codecov

The GitHub Actions equivalent:

name: ci
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: [self-hosted, Linux, compiler-ci]
    strategy:
      matrix:
        python: ["3.11", "3.12"]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: ${{ matrix.python }}
          cache: pip
      - run: pip install -r requirements.txt
      - run: pytest -q
      - uses: codecov/codecov-action@v4

Migration steps:

1. Run Travis's lifecycle (install, script) as ordered steps. before_install, after_success become plain steps; use if: success() where needed.
2. Turn the language version list into a matrix, see matrix builds.
3. Move encrypted variables into GitHub secrets. Travis-encrypted values cannot be decrypted by Actions, so re-add them.
4. Replace deploy: providers with actions or scripts.
5. Run both for a week, then delete .travis.yml and revoke the Travis app.

Start the runner side from the GitHub App.

FAQ

Is Travis CI still around?

Yes. As of October 2026 its site and docs are live, and it has published a site refresh in 2025. It is no longer the default choice it was for open source.

Is Travis CI free for open source?

Not automatically. Its docs say OSS-only credits may be granted case by case on request, and that free trials are currently unavailable. Check with Travis support.

Is GitHub Actions free for public repositories?

Public repositories use standard runners free of charge, and private repositories get a monthly allowance, see GitHub Actions pricing.

Can I migrate automatically?

GitHub offers the Actions Importer tool for a range of CI systems, including Travis. Treat its output as a draft and review each workflow.