AI visibility report
AI visibility report for Depot in CI/CD & Build Systems.
Outside the top three on 19 of the 25 prompts buyers actually ask.
Buildkite is cited on 7 of those losses.
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Track Depot across these prompts daily.
Start free trialStill absent from 99.3% of tracked prompt responses
Top-3 citations across 150 prompt × platform pairs
Peer Ranking
Key Metrics
Platform Breakdown
Perplexity
ChatGPT
Gemini Search
Google AI Mode
Bing Copilot
GrokHow to read this. Depot appears in 0.7% of tracked prompt responses. Presence is absolute coverage; share of voice is relative citation share; sentiment measures tone only when the brand appears.
Where Depot is losing
Prompts where competitors are visible and Depot is not.
These prompt-level losses are the first prompts to track and repair.
Where Depot is winning1
Which build tools offer remote caching for large polyglot monorepos — and what kind of build time reduction is realistic?
Avg # 7.0 · 1 platform
Where Depot is losing5
Which modern cloud-native CI platforms make it easiest to migrate from a self-hosted build setup without breaking existing workflows?
Competitors on 5 platforms
Track this promptWhich CI platforms support GPU-dependent ML training jobs in a build pipeline without requiring self-hosted runners?
Competitors on 4 platforms
Track this promptWhich managed CI/CD providers offer the strongest SLAs and uptime track record for teams evaluating reliability before committing?
Competitors on 3 platforms
Track this promptWhich enterprise build systems handle dynamic pipeline generation best — generating jobs based on which packages changed in a monorepo?
Competitors on 2 platforms
Track this promptWhat CI platforms give engineering teams the best tools for debugging flaky tests and intermittent pipeline failures in a cloud environment?
Competitors on 2 platforms
Track this prompt
Track Depot daily before the next report refresh.
Track these gapsResearch dossierCapabilities, use cases, sources, reviews, pricing, and FAQ
Overview
Depot is a build acceleration platform founded in 2022 and backed by Y Combinator, Felicis, and Pioneer Fund. It offers remote container builds, GitHub Actions runners, a new programmable CI engine (Depot CI), distributed remote caching, a container registry, and agent sandboxes—all designed to dramatically reduce CI build times and infrastructure costs. Depot's container build service replaces the standard docker build command with remote, emulation-free Intel and Arm builders featuring fully managed persistent NVMe-backed caching. Its GitHub Actions runners provide 30% faster CPUs and 10x faster cache at roughly half the cost of GitHub-hosted runners. Depot CI, launched in early 2026, is a performance-first CI engine built for the AI-accelerated software development era. Customers report build time reductions ranging from 2x to 55x and CI cost reductions of 50% or more.
Depot is a managed build acceleration platform providing remote Docker container builds, high-performance GitHub Actions runners, a new CI engine (Depot CI), distributed remote caching, a container registry, and agent compute sandboxes. It operates as a transparent layer on top of existing CI workflows, requiring minimal configuration changes while delivering step-change improvements in build speed and cost efficiency.
Key Facts
- Founded
- 2022
- HQ
- United States
- Founders
- Kyle Galbraith, Jacob Gillespie
- Employees
- 10-50
- Funding
- ~$14.1M
- Customers
- Hundreds of companies (not publicly spec
- Status
- Private
Target users
Key Capabilities10
- Remote container builds with emulation-free native Intel and Arm (Graviton4) hardware
- Fully managed persistent NVMe-backed layer caching, shared across the entire team
- GitHub Actions runner replacement with 30% faster CPUs, 10x faster networking, unrestricted concurrency
- Depot CI: programmable CI engine with parallel steps, SSH debugging, built-in caching, and per-second billing
- Distributed remote caching for Bazel, Go, Gradle, Turborepo, sccache, Pants, and Maven
- Multi-platform (linux/amd64, linux/arm64) image builds without QEMU emulation
- Depot Managed: self-hosted data plane deployed inside customer's own AWS account
- Agent sandboxes for AI coding agents (Claude Code and others)
- Container registry (Depot Registry) with integrated build acceleration
- Build API with gRPC, Connect, and HTTP/JSON support for platform-level programmatic builds
Key Use Cases7
- Accelerating slow Docker image builds in CI and local development
- Reducing GitHub Actions costs while increasing runner speed and cache throughput
- Building multi-architecture (Intel + Arm) container images without emulation overhead
- Sharing persistent build cache across distributed engineering teams
- Replacing slow legacy CI pipelines with a performance-first CI engine (Depot CI)
- Providing compute sandboxes for AI coding agents running in automated loops
- Running container builds programmatically via API on behalf of platform customers
Depot customer outcomes
55x faster Docker builds (193 min → 3 min)
PostHog reduced Docker build times from 193 minutes to 3 minutes and 26 seconds using Depot container builds and GitHub Actions runners. The team also saved approximately 44 days of build time over an average two-week period across ~118,000 GitHub Actions jobs.
55% reduction in GitHub Actions spend; 25% throughput increase
JaneApp's Delivery Engineering team cut GitHub Actions spending by 55%, achieved 2.4x faster key end-to-end test jobs, and increased engineering build throughput by 25% after migrating to Depot runners and container builds.
6x faster builds; 50% reduction in GitHub Actions spend
Bastion achieved 6x faster Rust Docker image builds and 3x faster Go Docker image builds, while halving their GitHub Actions spend and doubling PR throughput after adopting Depot container builds, runners, and cache.
Recent Trend
How AI describes Depot1
Depot ( `depot.dev` ): Focuses heavily on accelerating Docker builds and general CI/CD workflows.
Which CI platforms or techniques reduce pipeline cold-start times most effectively when using ephemeral containerized runners?
Most cited sources1
Alternatives in CI/CD & Build Systems6
Depot positions itself as a build acceleration layer that sits on top of or alongside existing CI providers rather than a full CI replacement (though its new Depot CI product now challenges that framing).
- Its core differentiation is raw speed and cost reduction: managed remote BuildKit for Docker images (up to 40x faster), high-performance GitHub Actions runners at half the cost of GitHub-hosted runners, and distributed remote caching—all with minimal setup.
- Unlike GitHub Actions, CircleCI, or Buildkite, Depot's founding thesis is that build infrastructure is a dedicated performance problem, not a workflow orchestration problem.
- Its per-second billing, emulation-free native Intel and Arm builders, fully managed persistent NVMe-backed cache, and Depot CI (a new programmable CI engine built performance-first for the AI-assisted coding era) collectively make it the only vendor in the vertical whose entire product surface area is organized around eliminating compute bottlenecks.
Reviews
Praised
- Dramatic build speed improvements (2x–55x reported)
- Easy, minimal-change integration (often one line in workflow file)
- Proactive, hands-on support from founders and engineers via Slack
- Platform stability — 'just works' with no ongoing maintenance
- Significant CI cost savings (up to 55% reported)
- Emulation-free native Arm and Intel multi-platform builds
- Shared persistent team cache with no tarball overhead
- Continuous platform improvements that benefit customers automatically
Criticized
- Early-stage submodule build failures (reported resolved)
- Very few third-party reviews available (low G2 review volume)
- Depot CI is newly launched and GitHub Actions compatibility is the primary supported syntax
- GPU builds and bring-your-own-AWS require highest (custom-priced) Business plan
Depot has a 5.0/5 rating on G2 from 3 reviews (limited sample size). Reviews on G2, Product Hunt, and AWS Marketplace consistently highlight dramatic build speed improvements (2x–55x), ease of integration (often a single-line change), exceptional proactive technical support from founders and engineers directly via Slack, and stability of the platform once configured. Negative feedback is rare and minor, mostly referencing early-stage edge cases (e.g., submodule build failures) that were resolved by the team. Social proof on the product website from engineers at PostHog, JaneApp, Bastion, Formbricks, Better Stack, and others reinforces the speed and cost-savings narrative.
Pricing
Depot offers three tiers. Developer ($20/month): 1 user, 500 Docker build minutes, 2,000 Depot CI minutes, 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes, 25 GB cache storage, community Discord support. Startup ($200/month): unlimited users, 5,000 Docker build minutes, 20,000 Depot CI minutes, 20,000 GitHub Actions minutes, 250 GB cache, email support, RBAC, macOS M2 runners; optional SSO add-on at $500/month. Business (custom pricing): GPU-enabled builds, dedicated AWS infrastructure, static IPs, AWS PrivateLink, SSO/SAML/SCIM, audit logging, Slack Connect, AWS Marketplace billing. Additional usage is billed at $0.00005/second/vCPU for Depot CI, $0.004/minute for GitHub Actions, $0.04/minute for Docker builds, and $0.20/GB/month for cache storage. A 7-day free trial is available with no credit card required.
Limitations
- Depot CI is a newly launched product (2026) and GitHub Actions workflow compatibility is its primary supported syntax, with GitLab CI compatibility noted in the docs but the engine is early-stage.
- The GitHub Actions runner product is GitHub-specific and does not replace runners for GitLab CI or Bitbucket.
- Custom regions, dedicated infrastructure, GPU builds, AWS PrivateLink, SSO/SAML/SCIM, audit logging, and bring-your-own-AWS-account deployment are restricted to the Business (custom-priced) plan. macOS M2 runners are only available on the Startup plan and above.
- The Developer plan is limited to a single user.
- At the time of research, G2 has only 3 published reviews, indicating limited third-party review coverage.
- One G2 reviewer noted early-stage issues with builds failing when git submodules changed, though this was reportedly resolved by the Depot team.
Frequently asked questions
Topic coverageCoverage by buyer topic
Topic Coverage
Prompt-Level Results
| Prompt | ChatGPT | Gemini Search | Google AI Mode | Perplexity | Bing Copilot | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capability0/5 cited (0%) | ||||||
Which enterprise build systems handle dynamic pipeline generation best — generating jobs based on which packages changed in a monorepo? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI/CD platforms have the best native support for running iOS and Android mobile builds without needing self-hosted runners? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI platforms support GPU-dependent ML training jobs in a build pipeline without requiring self-hosted runners? | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI/CD platforms support multi-cloud and hybrid deployment targets without tying you to a single cloud provider? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which build systems enforce consistent dependency versions and prevent supply chain issues at the build stage? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Developer Experience0/5 cited (0%) | ||||||
Which CI tools let developers run the exact same pipeline definitions locally for a tight local feedback loop before pushing? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which build systems handle incremental builds and caching best for large TypeScript monorepos to avoid rebuilding unchanged packages? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What CI platforms give engineering teams the best tools for debugging flaky tests and intermittent pipeline failures in a cloud environment? | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What tools help teams manage secrets and environment variables safely across many CI/CD pipelines without duplicating configuration? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which YAML-based CI systems have the lowest learning curve for developers new to pipeline-as-code? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Integrations & Ecosystem0/5 cited (0%) | ||||||
Which build systems integrate best with artifact registries and container image repositories for versioning and promotion across environments? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What security scanning and SAST tools integrate best into an existing build pipeline without significantly increasing build times? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI/CD platforms have the best integrations for sending build failure notifications to project management tools and chat platforms? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI providers make pipeline migration easiest — are there any portable pipeline standards that reduce lock-in when switching? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI/CD platforms have the deepest native integrations with container orchestration clusters and serverless deployment targets? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Performance & Reliability1/5 cited (20%) | ||||||
Which build tools offer remote caching for large polyglot monorepos — and what kind of build time reduction is realistic? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Your brand was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which managed CI/CD providers offer the strongest SLAs and uptime track record for teams evaluating reliability before committing? | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI platforms scale best to handle hundreds of concurrent pipelines during peak hours without queueing delays? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which CI platforms or techniques reduce pipeline cold-start times most effectively when using ephemeral containerized runners? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What tools or approaches let you benchmark build execution speed across different CI platforms for the same test suite? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Setup & First Run0/5 cited (0%) | ||||||
Which CI platforms make it easiest to configure parallel test execution for a Node.js project from scratch? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
What's the fastest CI/CD platform to set up for a monorepo with 15 microservices? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which managed CI platforms have the smoothest onboarding experience when migrating a team of 30 engineers from a self-hosted system? | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
I'm evaluating fully managed CI/CD services versus self-hosted build systems for a startup — what are the key trade-offs and what should I look at? | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Which modern cloud-native CI platforms make it easiest to migrate from a self-hosted build setup without breaking existing workflows? | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | A competitor was cited | Neither your brand nor a competitor was cited |
Turn this matrix into daily prompt monitoring.
Track prompt changesVertical Ranking
| # | Brand | PresencePres. | Share of VoiceSoV | DocsDocs | BlogBlog | MentionsMent. | Avg PosPos | Sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CircleCI | 11.3% | 21.1% | 2.0% | 5.3% | 48.0% | #4.2 | +0.40 |
| 2 | Buildkite | 9.3% | 24.8% | 6.0% | 0.0% | 27.3% | #3.0 | +0.50 |
| 3 | GitHub | 8.0% | 16.5% | 4.7% | 1.3% | 69.3% | #3.7 | +0.48 |
| 4 | Harness | 6.0% | 13.8% | 0.7% | 3.3% | 18.0% | #4.3 | +0.37 |
| 5 | GitLab | 4.7% | 9.2% | 2.0% | 2.0% | 67.3% | #3.9 | +0.36 |
| 6 | Semaphore | 2.7% | 6.4% | 0.0% | 2.7% | 6.7% | #3.9 | +0.59 |
| 7 | TeamCity | 2.0% | 2.8% | 0.0% | 2.0% | 0.0% | #7.7 | +0.37 |
| 8 | Earthly | 1.3% | 2.8% | 1.3% | 0.0% | 0.7% | #2.3 | +0.45 |
| 9 | Dagger | 0.7% | 1.8% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 4.0% | #2.5 | +0.70 |
| 10 | Depot | 0.7% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 0.7% | 0.7% | #7.0 | +0.60 |
| 11 | Azure Pipelines | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | — | — |
| 12 | CloudBees | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.7% | — | — |
| 13 | Jenkins | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 36.7% | — | — |
| 14 | Nx | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 12.0% | — | — |
| 15 | Travis CI | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.3% | — | — |
| 16 | Turborepo | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.3% | — | — |
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