Runners and Executors: The Engines of GitLab CI/CD
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Which Executor Should You Choose?
I could be a bit quick to say "it depends" but it really does! The choice of executor depends on your specific requirements, your team technical maturity, and the complexity of your CI/CD pipelines. Here is a table inspired by the official GitLab documentation that summarizes the key features and considerations for each executor:
| Feature | SSH | Shell | VirtualBox | Parallels | Docker | Docker Autoscaler | Instance | Kubernetes | Custom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clean Build Environment for Every Build | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | conditional (4) | ✓ | conditional (4) |
| Reuse Previous Clone if it Exists | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | conditional (4) | ✗ | conditional (4) |
| Runner File System Access Protected | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
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