Knapsack Pro
Knapsack Pro
AppVeyorhttps://www.appveyor.com |
Github Actionshttps://github.com/features/actions |
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|---|---|---|
| Unique feature |
Supports NuGet packages / Windows build environment
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Best GitHub integration possible
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| Type of product |
SaaS / On Premise
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SaaS / On Premise
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| Offers a free plan |
Yes Free SaaS plan for open source projects. There is also a free on premise version, but it's quite limited (1 user, 1 team, community support) |
Yes The on premise plan (not yet available) will be free, 2000 build minutes included in the free cloud plan. Completely free plan for open source projects. |
| Predictable pricing |
Yes Very simple pricing plans: 3 options for the SaaS version, two options for the on premise option. No variable pricing. |
Yes (partial) While it's clear what the cost is (priced per build-minute), figuring out costs can be a hassle, especially as the price can vary quite a bit depending on commits to the project. One advantage for GitHub Actions is that the tiers define a maximum amount of minutes, so it's easier to predict the final cost. You can also purchase aditional runners with pricing dependent on the platform (MacOS, Linux, Windows) |
| Support / SLA |
Yes All paid on premise plans offer support, as well as the two higher priced SaaS plans. Only community support available for the free on premise version and the lowest SaaS tier. |
Yes Community support available for any tier, unclear at what point and if dedicated support is available. Safe to assume that eneterprise clients can access technical support. |
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Paralellism
Every CI servers tends to address this differently (parallel, distributed, build matrix). Some of it is just marketing, and some is just nuance. For this table, parallel means that tasks can be run concurrently on the same machine, distributed means that tasks can be scaled horizontally, on multiple machines How to split tests in parallel in the optimal way with Knapsack Pro |
Yes Allows splitting tests to run on different VMs in parallel. |
Yes Matrix builds allow concurrent jobs, even multi-platform. |
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Distributed builds
distributed means that tasks can be scaled horizontally, on multiple machines How to split tests in parallel in the optimal way with Knapsack Pro |
N/A
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N/A No specific mention, but given the fact that tasks can be run on multiple platforms, it's likely that distributed builds are also available. |
| Containers support / Build environment |
Yes Runs every build in a VM, and it offers several options depending on the plan (SaaS or self-hosted) as well sa personal preference. |
Yes Linux, macOS, Windows, and containers, or run directly in a VM. |
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Analytics / Status overview
Analytics and overview referrs to the ability to, at a glance, see what's breaking (be it a certain task, or the build for a specific project) |
Yes The dashboard is not as great as for other options in the market, but allows seeing project status at a glance. |
Yes Minimal status overview definitely available, with live logs and GitHub integration. Unclear how far it goes. |
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Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on |
Yes Allows creating teams and assigning roles. There is some integration with GitHub Teams but the concepts are different which might be tricky depending on how the GitHub project is managed, for instance. |
N/A Unclear from the available documentation |
| Self-hosted option |
Yes
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Yes Coming soon, not available yet. |
| Hosted plans / SaaS |
Yes
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Yes
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Build pipelines
A continuous delivery pipeline is a description of the process that the software goes through from a new code commit, through testing and other statical analysis steps all the way to the end-users of the product. |
Yes There is a single predefined possible pipeline, which defines various hooks (such as before_build / after_build). The pipeline can be configured via the UI or via an appveyor.yml file. The two are mutually exclusive, so it's either one or the other. |
Yes Called GitHub Action Workflows, they are defined in separate Docker containers, using the YAML syntax (they used to support HCL, but they're migrating away from that) |
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Reports
Reports are about the abilty to see specific reports (like code coverage or custom ones), but not necesarily tied in into a larger dashboard. |
Yes Notifications are highly configurable, but visual reports such as code coverage is not easy to implement. |
N/A Unclear from the available documentation |
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Ecosystem
Besides the official documentation and software, is there a large community using this product? Are there any community-driven tools / plugins that you can use? |
N/A
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Yes Thanks to the large following, GitHub Actions already enjoys a wide varierty of available pre-made workflows, which you can browse right on the homepage: https://github.com/features/actions |
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Specific language support: Ruby
Some CI servers have built-in support for parsing RSpec or Istanbul output for example and we mention those. Some others make it even easier by detecting Gemfiles or package.json and automate parts of the process for the developer. |
Yes Many Ruby gems use AppVeyor as their CI server of choice. Among the features for Ruby are the pre-installed Ruby versions on both Windows and Ubuntu servers, as well as the appveyor-worker gem which makes it easy to report status during the build process. |
Yes Unclear how, but they mention Ruby support specifically on the homepage |
| Specific language support: JavaScript |
Yes Comes with node.js and io.js versions pre-installed. Also offers documentation on npm integration on their website. |
Yes Unclear how, but they mention Javascript (Node.js) support specifically on the homepage |
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Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc) |
Yes Probably the most notable aspect here is the large array of deployment integrations available (from simple FTP uploads to Azure servers or NuGet packages). |
Yes Integrations made possible via the shared third party workflows available (AWS, Azure, Zeit, Kubernetes and many more) |
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API
Custom integreation is available, via an API or otherwise, it's mentioned separately as it allows further customization than any of the Ecosystem/Integration options |
Yes Offers a basic CRUD REST API for querying projects and builds as well as a real-time Build Worker API which can send updates on build status. |
N/A Unclear at the moment, but assume GitHub Actions will be integrated with the GitHub GraphQL API (one of the more mature GraphQL API implementations available) |
| Auditing |
N/A
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N/A
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| Additional notes |
Very Windows oriented |
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