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Semaphore Pros and Cons: Top Advantages and Disadvantages

Quick AI Summary Based on G2 Reviews

Generated from real user reviews

Users highlight the exceptional customer support of Semaphore, noting quick responses and proactive assistance for their needs. (17 mentions)
Users commend Semaphore's ease of use, highlighting a seamless setup and intuitive user experience for beginners. (10 mentions)
Users value the fast support response from Semaphore, ensuring quick resolutions to their queries and issues. (10 mentions)
Users find Semaphore's easy integrations essential for smooth CI/CD pipeline implementation and effective workflow management. (8 mentions)
Users value the reliability of Semaphore, noting consistent performance and excellent support that enhances their experience. (8 mentions)
Users find the easy setup of Semaphore refreshing, allowing quick integration and efficient start for projects. (7 mentions)
Users find Semaphore's complexity daunting, with a steep learning curve and cumbersome setup, especially for newcomers. (3 mentions)
Users find difficult navigation challenging at times, but helpful documentation and support aid in overcoming obstacles. (3 mentions)
Users experience integration issues with Semaphore, particularly lacking support for tools like Terraform and complex deployment coordination. (3 mentions)
Users find the learning curve steep due to the UI complexity and reliance on shell commands, challenging for newcomers. (3 mentions)
Users find the limited GitHub integration restricting, wishing for more flexible login options and broader tool support. (3 mentions)
Users often face poor customer support due to limited availability, resulting in delays for urgent assistance. (3 mentions)
Users find the poor documentation inadequate for addressing unique requirements and infrastructure upgrades efficiently. (3 mentions)
Users find the confusing interface hampers usability, as essential information is often buried in clutter. (2 mentions)
Users find the poor UI of Semaphore challenging, with mobile issues and cluttered information affecting usability. (2 mentions)
Users note the poor UI design of Semaphore, highlighting issues with usability and information visibility. (1 mentions)

Top Pros or Advantages of Semaphore

1. Customer Support
Users highlight the exceptional customer support of Semaphore, noting quick responses and proactive assistance for their needs.
See 17 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Terry S.
TS

Terry S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"A good, solid reasonably-priced service with exceptional customer support"

What do you like about Semaphore?

My company has been using Semaphore for a few years now. In that time, we've aksed a few difficult questions, as we've had unusual requirements for ou

CS

Christopher S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"🚀 Super Smooth CI/CD with Stellar Support!"

What do you like about Semaphore?

Semaphore CI makes it incredibly easy to get started. With zero prior experience on the platform, I was able to spin up a working pipeline to build an

2. Ease of Use
Users commend Semaphore's ease of use, highlighting a seamless setup and intuitive user experience for beginners.
See 10 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Terry S.
TS

Terry S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"A good, solid reasonably-priced service with exceptional customer support"

What do you like about Semaphore?

My company has been using Semaphore for a few years now. In that time, we've aksed a few difficult questions, as we've had unusual requirements for ou

CS

Christopher S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"🚀 Super Smooth CI/CD with Stellar Support!"

What do you like about Semaphore?

Semaphore CI makes it incredibly easy to get started. With zero prior experience on the platform, I was able to spin up a working pipeline to build an

3. Helpful
Users value the fast support response from Semaphore, ensuring quick resolutions to their queries and issues.
See 10 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Verified User
U

Verified User

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.0/5

"Fast & Amazing Support"

What do you like about Semaphore?

Fast support response and taking initiative to solve the issue provided, where the support team took time to curate a custom solution to our submitted

Sean H.
SH

Sean H.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

5.0/5

"Cost-effective CI with great support"

What do you like about Semaphore?

Semaphore is cost effective and easy to configure. Any time that we need support, we usually have a response within minutes and a resolution within a

4. Easy Integrations
Users find Semaphore's easy integrations essential for smooth CI/CD pipeline implementation and effective workflow management.
See 8 mentions

See Related User Reviews

SJ

Sudhin J.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.5/5

"Good CI/CD tool with good support team"

What do you like about Semaphore?

Easy to use and integrate with our workflow. They have a good technical support team who are always ready to help. We had a few occations where we got

DT

Davor T.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

5.0/5

"It offers great abilities and it's easily customizable"

What do you like about Semaphore?

The best thing I like is the support that's always polite and helpful. It offers a lot features that are handy for a developer like me. Integrating th

5. Reliability
Users value the reliability of Semaphore, noting consistent performance and excellent support that enhances their experience.
See 8 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Terry S.
TS

Terry S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"A good, solid reasonably-priced service with exceptional customer support"

What do you like about Semaphore?

My company has been using Semaphore for a few years now. In that time, we've aksed a few difficult questions, as we've had unusual requirements for ou

Verified User
U

Verified User

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"Outstanding Support and Great Service"

What do you like about Semaphore?

The support team is exceptional. They respond quickly, are incredibly knowledgeable, and clearly take the time to understand my issue in depth. Their

6. Easy Setup
Users find the easy setup of Semaphore refreshing, allowing quick integration and efficient start for projects.
See 7 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Terry S.
TS

Terry S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"A good, solid reasonably-priced service with exceptional customer support"

What do you like about Semaphore?

My company has been using Semaphore for a few years now. In that time, we've aksed a few difficult questions, as we've had unusual requirements for ou

CS

Christopher S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"🚀 Super Smooth CI/CD with Stellar Support!"

What do you like about Semaphore?

Semaphore CI makes it incredibly easy to get started. With zero prior experience on the platform, I was able to spin up a working pipeline to build an

Top Cons or Disadvantages of Semaphore

1. Complexity
Users find Semaphore's complexity daunting, with a steep learning curve and cumbersome setup, especially for newcomers.
See 3 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Michał M.
MM

Michał M.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.0/5

"Great support, good experience"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Clément J.
CJ

Clément J.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"Semaphore CI after 7 years of use: highly recommended"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Like many other CI solutions, YAML configuration can sometimes seem complex despite the graphical editor added in recent years. The documentation is v

2. Difficult Navigation
Users find difficult navigation challenging at times, but helpful documentation and support aid in overcoming obstacles.
See 3 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Mathias R.
MR

Mathias R.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.5/5

"Outstanding Support and Flexibility, with an Excellent Graph UI"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Although their graph UI is excellent, it is not obvious why a block didn't run, and when you have multiple skipped blocks, it does clutter the experie

DT

Davor T.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

5.0/5

"It offers great abilities and it's easily customizable"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Sometimes, I find it difficult to navigate through the documentation since there's a lot and it's not particularly within my field of work. Nonetheles

3. Integration Issues
Users experience integration issues with Semaphore, particularly lacking support for tools like Terraform and complex deployment coordination.
See 3 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Trevor R.
TR

Trevor R.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

4.0/5

"Affordable, good support, limited machines types/sizes"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Semaphore doesn't offer large machine types currently, and Linux ARM (which I needed) was in closed beta. They let me into the beta, but it took sever

Michał M.
MM

Michał M.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.0/5

"Great support, good experience"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

4. Learning Curve
Users find the learning curve steep due to the UI complexity and reliance on shell commands, challenging for newcomers.
See 3 mentions

See Related User Reviews

CS

Christopher S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"🚀 Super Smooth CI/CD with Stellar Support!"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Honestly, there’s very little to complain about. The only minor challenge I had was adjusting to their build script format, which is a bit different f

Michał M.
MM

Michał M.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.0/5

"Great support, good experience"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

5. Limited GitHub Integration
Users find the limited GitHub integration restricting, wishing for more flexible login options and broader tool support.
See 3 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Jose V.
JV

Jose V.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"Amazing tech, excellent support with human interaction"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Tied to Github login, would appreciate other means of login.

Verified User
A

Verified User

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

5.0/5

"A review for Semaphore CI"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Semaphore depends a lot on shell commands, which, I think might feel uncomfortable or intimidating to those new to scripting. Thus, I would say Semaph

6. Poor Customer Support
Users often face poor customer support due to limited availability, resulting in delays for urgent assistance.
See 3 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Trevor R.
TR

Trevor R.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

4.0/5

"Affordable, good support, limited machines types/sizes"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Semaphore doesn't offer large machine types currently, and Linux ARM (which I needed) was in closed beta. They let me into the beta, but it took sever

Terry S.
TS

Terry S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"A good, solid reasonably-priced service with exceptional customer support"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

For anyone who has an unusual requirement, the docs don't always cover every situation. This is usually easy to fix with a single email to the excelle

7. Poor Documentation
Users find the poor documentation inadequate for addressing unique requirements and infrastructure upgrades efficiently.
See 3 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Terry S.
TS

Terry S.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"A good, solid reasonably-priced service with exceptional customer support"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

For anyone who has an unusual requirement, the docs don't always cover every situation. This is usually easy to fix with a single email to the excelle

Clément J.
CJ

Clément J.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0/5

"Semaphore CI after 7 years of use: highly recommended"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Like many other CI solutions, YAML configuration can sometimes seem complex despite the graphical editor added in recent years. The documentation is v

8. Confusing Interface
Users find the confusing interface hampers usability, as essential information is often buried in clutter.
See 2 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Michał M.
MM

Michał M.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.0/5

"Great support, good experience"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Mathias R.
MR

Mathias R.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.5/5

"Outstanding Support and Flexibility, with an Excellent Graph UI"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Although their graph UI is excellent, it is not obvious why a block didn't run, and when you have multiple skipped blocks, it does clutter the experie

9. Poor UI
Users find the poor UI of Semaphore challenging, with mobile issues and cluttered information affecting usability.
See 2 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Michał M.
MM

Michał M.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.0/5

"Great support, good experience"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Mathias R.
MR

Mathias R.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.5/5

"Outstanding Support and Flexibility, with an Excellent Graph UI"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Although their graph UI is excellent, it is not obvious why a block didn't run, and when you have multiple skipped blocks, it does clutter the experie

10. Poor UI Design
Users note the poor UI design of Semaphore, highlighting issues with usability and information visibility.
See 1 mentions

See Related User Reviews

Michał M.
MM

Michał M.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.0/5

"Great support, good experience"

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Semaphore Reviews (191)

Reviews

Semaphore Reviews (191)

4.7
191 reviews
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Mathias R.
MR
Senior Software Engineer
Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
"Outstanding Support and Flexibility, with an Excellent Graph UI"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

SemaphoreCI offers incredible support; they are very responsive, and they keep you informed at all times.

Their configuration system is extremely flexible, which made it easy to configure the pipeline exactly to our needs.

We have a dynamically built pipeline, and SemaphoreCI is one of the few providers that could accommodate that - we use it every day. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Although their graph UI is excellent, it is not obvious why a block didn't run, and when you have multiple skipped blocks, it does clutter the experience a bit.

But because of the customizability, we could filter the blocks from being shown 'manually'. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

S. K.
SK
Infrastructure Lead
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"Fast and simple, but not flexible enough for advanced setups"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

It’s fast. You push code and get results quickly, which is what you want from CI. The config is clean, jobs run in parallel out of the box, and the UI is straightforward. Good experience for simple pipelines or container builds - basically, if you don’t need much customization, it just works.

Happy yo see it OpenSource. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

It gets in the way when you try to do anything non-trivial. Secrets handling is too basic, and dealing with multi-account AWS workflows is painful. You can’t really customize the environment the way you’d want, and debugging pipeline issues feels clunky - especially when you hit some edge cases with caching or parallel steps. It’s fine for simple stuff, but not great when you need real control. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

CS
Software Engineer / External Consultant
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"🚀 Super Smooth CI/CD with Stellar Support!"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

Semaphore CI makes it incredibly easy to get started. With zero prior experience on the platform, I was able to spin up a working pipeline to build and test my service in no time. Their "Getting Started" flow is one of the best I've seen — it's clear, structured, and genuinely helps you get up to speed fast. Integrating Semaphore into my existing repositories and services was seamless. I now use Semaphore daily as part of my customer's regular development workflow, and slowly migrating their pipelines over from another CI/CD provider. On top of that, the support team deserves a massive shoutout. They’ve consistently responded within 24 hours and always offer actionable solutions. It’s hands-down some of the best support I’ve ever received from a tech company. Their free tier is also incredibly generous compared to other CI/CD platforms — perfect for testing out the service or running smaller projects without a financial commitment. I've already recommended Semaphore to others and plan to use it on more projects in the future. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Honestly, there’s very little to complain about. The only minor challenge I had was adjusting to their build script format, which is a bit different from what I’m used to. But it’s not a big issue — the visual pipeline builder really helps smooth out that learning curve. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Mike V.
MV
Platform engineer
Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
"Amazing support, easy to setup and configure build pipelines"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

The accessibility and flexibility of configuring our Semaphore instances helped us reduce our CI/CD pipelines to under 10 minutes on average. Also, a shout out to the support team - the support team is always very forthcoming and quick to respond. Generally very happy with Semaphore as our CI/CD provider. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

There are occasional hiccups with the agents responding slowly and the occasional outage - but these usually get resolved really quickly by the team. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Clément J.
CJ
CTO / Co-CEO
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"Semaphore CI after 7 years of use: highly recommended"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

What I like about Semaphore is that it’s an independent European company with its own data centers. The bare metal servers deliver excellent performance, cutting our times in half, which shortens our feedback loop and significantly improves developer productivity. Also reduces costs by 2 as we need half the time to run CI ! The new flaky test detection tool is also very useful, and their pricing remains highly competitive compared to other providers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Like many other CI solutions, YAML configuration can sometimes seem complex despite the graphical editor added in recent years. The documentation is very comprehensive but can feel endless due to the platform’s almost limitless possibilities. I’ve had to contact support two or three times over the past five years for specific configuration questions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Fredrik August M.
FM
Head of DevOps
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"Painless, intuitive, fast and cheap CI"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

It's cheap, it's easy to understand and the suppport team is quick to assist if you need help. We've previously used CircleCI which we found to be the opposite of all these. The UI is also modern and you easily get to what you want. The deployments feature is something I've been searching long and hard for, but haven't found anything else without severely impacting simplicity/ease-of-use. We use Semaphore CI every day, and perform 10+ releases a day to our environments and we have not had any problems yet. It was also very easy to get started as we just connected our GitHub Org, imported the relevant users and got to work on the pipeline files. That step was also a lot easier thanks to the graphical interface which guides you a little bit while you're getting used to the format. Honestly after trying GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Octopus, Jenkins, and more, this clearly stands out to me as the better option. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

I wish the UI would be a little bit faster at times. And that the dynamic template resolution step when you use deployment parameters was a little faster. We're trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of our CI and losing 10 seconds to this is a little frustrating. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

FW
Lead Backend Developer
Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
"Reliable with awesome support"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

The product integrates well into our CI/CD setup. The web UI stays out of your way and you can resort to CLI for everything you might need (besides analytics, I think). The ability to spin up the environments and ssh into it to debug potential issues makes it easy to spot issues. The documentation is fine, and above all - their support is human, swift and reliable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

A feature that is in the pipeline (afaik) is to rerun indivdual steps instead of a whole workflow. This is obviously tricky (need to reset artifacts and cache etc) but would save some time on long flaky ci runs (that you should not have, but ... probably have). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Health, Wellness and Fitness
UH
Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
"Fast & Amazing Support"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

Fast support response and taking initiative to solve the issue provided, where the support team took time to curate a custom solution to our submitted request ! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

The lack of some permission management which would replace some workarounds being implemented. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

DT
Frontend Developer
Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
"It offers great abilities and it's easily customizable"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

The best thing I like is the support that's always polite and helpful. It offers a lot features that are handy for a developer like me. Integrating these features into our processes works really good most of the time! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Sometimes, I find it difficult to navigate through the documentation since there's a lot and it's not particularly within my field of work. Nonetheless, this does not happen often and the customer support is always there to help! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Trevor R.
TR
Software Developer
Computer Software
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"Affordable, good support, limited machines types/sizes"
What do you like best about Semaphore?

Semaphore was easy to get started with and is one of the lower priced CI/CD platforms. When I need access to beta features or my usage triggered abuse detection, support was quick to respond and helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Semaphore?

Semaphore doesn't offer large machine types currently, and Linux ARM (which I needed) was in closed beta. They let me into the beta, but it took several days because their support is on European business hours and I'm in the US. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.