nektos/act
Local CI runner in Developer tools
Lets people run GitHub Actions workflows locally for fast feedback without pushing to GitHub. Critics say it only approximates the real environment and often fails on complex workflows.
Lets people run GitHub Actions workflows locally for fast feedback without pushing to GitHub. Critics say it only approximates the real environment and often fails on complex workflows.
37 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 18
- approval share
- 51%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Runs GitHub Actions workflows locally
“Community software like act and Forgejo/Gitea Actions have made it a lot easier to run GitHub Actions workflows without involving GitHub”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “GitHub postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions” “Just like you can run bash locally, you can run act and reproduce whatever Github trigger you need.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “AI-Generated GitHub Copilot "Autofix" Allowed Compromise of Snowflake's Jira” “Lets you run your actions locally. I've had significant success with it for fast local feedback.”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “I Hate GitHub Actions with Passion” - Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “GitHub Actions Is Slowly Killing Your Engineering Team”
- Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Launch a Debugging Terminal into GitHub Actions”
Fast local feedback loop
“It's generally very helpful - someone else mentioned here the fundamental problem is lack of a tight feedback loop.”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “I Hate GitHub Actions with Passion” “Lets you run your actions locally. I've had significant success with it for fast local feedback.”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “I Hate GitHub Actions with Passion” Reproduces CI problems locally
“Just like you can run bash locally, you can run act and reproduce whatever Github trigger you need.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “AI-Generated GitHub Copilot "Autofix" Allowed Compromise of Snowflake's Jira” “`act` should help most teams reproducing CI locally.”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “GitHub Actions Is Slowly Killing Your Engineering Team”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to replicate real environment
“Not until you try to use it do you realize it's almost impossible to recreate any moderately complex workflow.”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “I Hate GitHub Actions with Passion” “I remember it NOT being a direct stand in locally. Like it covered 80% of use cases.”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “I Hate GitHub Actions with Passion” “I have had a hard time replicating simple set ups with this.”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Launch a Debugging Terminal into GitHub Actions” - Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “I Hate GitHub Actions with Passion”
Known compatibility gaps
“Usually due to steps/scripts that use github-internal APIs, but afaict far from always.”
Comment from 26 May 2026 in “GitHub Actions down again today” “Even an established and well-maintained project like Act has known compatibility issues”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Trylle – The Next-Gen Git Platform for Modern Teams” “it still isn't an 100% drop-in replacement”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “I Hate GitHub Actions with Passion” Setup and Docker pull failures
“I had extremely bad experience trying to setup act on my Macbook.”
Comment from 26 May 2026 in “GitHub Actions down again today” “it failed to pull the docker images and I gave up”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “TanStack NPM Packages Compromised” “for us it wasn't working most of the time”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “GitHub Actions has a package manager, and it might be the worst”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nektos/actThis page | 19 | 18 | 51% | 10 | — | — |
| SelfCI | 6 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
34 of the 39 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“act can hell with actions”
“Their CI story is sad because it's based on act”
“We implement the official runner protocol 100% unlike act/gitea/forgejo”
“Just like you can run bash locally, you can run act and reproduce whatever Github trigger you need.”
“act(much like Forgejo/Gitea) try to behaviorally emulate how your workflows run in docker containers.”
“Act has never been in my opinion super great, but it's also been several years since I've checked in to revisit the project.”
“Even an established and well-maintained project like Act has known compatibility issues”
“the ACT is a much less miserable format”
“ACT underperformed in most cases.”
“ACT and Diffusion Policy both make it pretty feasible to start on real data only.”
“I think I only got in to a decent college on the strength of my SAT and ACT scores.”
“Usually due to steps/scripts that use github-internal APIs, but afaict far from always.”
“I have tried to use act many times, and many times I've failed.”
“I had extremely bad experience trying to setup act on my Macbook.”
“it failed to pull the docker images and I gave up”
“which uses https://github.com/nektos/act under the hood.”
“you have any remote resources that are needed during build”
“`act` should help most teams reproducing CI locally.”
“Not until you try to use it do you realize it's almost impossible to recreate any moderately complex workflow.”
“It in no way "just works", but instead requires writing actions knowing that they'll run on Act.”
“it didn't work well enough to be worth it”
“Lets you run your actions locally. I've had significant success with it for fast local feedback.”
“It's generally very helpful - someone else mentioned here the fundamental problem is lack of a tight feedback loop.”
“it still isn't an 100% drop-in replacement”
“it's linux-only (as of the last time I looked), you can run it on macOS but you can't run macOS runners”
“I never got it to replicate GitHub actions environment”
“I remember it NOT being a direct stand in locally. Like it covered 80% of use cases.”
“however, it has many shortcomings”
“I have had a hard time replicating simple set ups with this.”
“run your actions locally using the excellent”
“Community software like act and Forgejo/Gitea Actions have made it a lot easier to run GitHub Actions workflows without involving GitHub”
“for us it wasn't working most of the time”
“an ‘act’ that didn’t work”
“You should really check out (pun intended) `act`”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.