Get started / Evaluate
Evaluate on your own terms.
Check the fit, understand the costs, then run one real workflow in a private pilot. No sales call is required. If you get stuck, support starts by email.
Is Gondola a fit?
Check these four requirements before starting a trial.
No account, email address, or cloud connection is needed. These answers stay in this page and disappear when you leave.
Read the prerequisites →Understand both bills
Gondola software
USD $275 / year or USD $29 / month for one private GitHub organization.
The Business trial lasts 14 days and requires no card. Jobs and runner launches are not metered by Gondola within the licensed scope.
Compare all plan scopes →Your AWS infrastructure
You pay AWS separately, including during the trial. Controllers, networking, and other persistent resources can cost money even when no jobs run.
Estimate the whole deployment in your region. Runner limits and timeouts are not a guaranteed dollar cap.
Build your AWS estimate →One pilot, with clear checkpoints
Choose a non-production boundary and a private repository. Keep your existing CI available while you evaluate. Start the trial when the prerequisites and your AWS budget are ready.
- Get your setup bundle. Choose a plan, complete Checkout, and save the activation key and private setup JSON. Start Business; see Hobby and Enterprise.
- Deploy the pinned release. Follow the guided installation, which builds your configuration for controller v0.2.0 and module 0.2.2. Review the plan before creating resources.
- Run the first-build workflow. Use the generated, manually triggered smoke test. Confirm a successful GitHub job and that its disposable instance terminates.
- Try your actual workload. Move one representative Node, Go, or Docker job to the pilot label. Check dependencies and caching differences; Gondola is not a full copy of GitHub’s hosted Ubuntu image.
- Record the result. Compare total time to a completed build, failure behavior, AWS costs, and the work needed to operate it. The evaluation worksheet helps you keep the evidence in your own records.
What this page does not claim: the checklist is a procedure, not a recorded customer deployment or a performance result. Read the published release evidence and its limits before deciding what to trust in production.
Know what happens after the trial
If you keep Gondola
Confirm payment details in billing. After a paid period advances, download a later-expiring entitlement, update the existing AWS secret, and roll the controllers. Payment alone does not update running tasks.
Follow the renewal checklist →If you stop
Move workflows back, drain the pilot, and remove its infrastructure using the documented cleanup process. Canceling billing or letting the trial expire does not remove AWS resources.
Remove your pilot safely →Get unstuck without booking a call
Use the symptom guide to identify the next check. If that does not resolve it, send the prepared support checklist by email. Review it first and keep credentials, setup bundles, and raw infrastructure state out of your message.