Open Build Service
Shares rank 17 of 20 CI/CD services by recommenders
Free build service for packaging software for several distros, with a public instance for hosting repos. Caveat: hard to implement, with little documentation.
Free build service for packaging software for several distros, with a public instance for hosting repos. Caveat: hard to implement, with little documentation.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not 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
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 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
Free public instance for hosting repos
“generously free public instance of the Open Build Service that you can easily use to host your own repos”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “AURpocalypse now: a look at the recent AUR attacks” Builds packages for several distros
“allows you to create packages and repos for a handful of distros”
Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “I hate packaging my software for Linux” Good at detecting when rebuilds are needed
“It's pretty good at figuring out if something needs rebuilding”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Isn't WSL2 just a VM?” Isolated build environment without network
“the build environment doesn't allow a network and binaries are not allowed as far as I know”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “AURpocalypse now: a look at the recent AUR attacks”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to implement, sparse documentation
“it was so hard to implement with so few documentation”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Distropack: Build once make it available on all Linux distros”
Other CI/CD services people recommend
The four most recommended other CI/CD services, with 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | 234 | 741 | 24% | 12 | 2 yrs21 owners | — |
| Jenkins | 67 | 57 | 54% | 9 | — | — |
| GitLab CI | 56 | 25 | 69% | 11 | 3 yrs9 owners | Approved |
| Dagger | 43 | 23 | 65% | 10 | — | — |
| Open Build ServiceThis page | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“allows you to create packages and repos for a handful of distros”
“the build environment doesn't allow a network and binaries are not allowed as far as I know”
“generously free public instance of the Open Build Service that you can easily use to host your own repos”
“it was so hard to implement with so few documentation”
“It's pretty good at figuring out if something needs rebuilding”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.