Knapsack Pro
Knapsack Pro
AWS CodeBuildhttps://aws.amazon.com/codebuild/ |
Gitlab CIhttps://about.gitlab.com/product/continuous-integration/ |
|
|---|---|---|
| Unique feature |
AWS integration
|
AutoDev Ops / Allows keeping code management and CI in the same place
|
| Type of product |
SaaS
|
SaaS / On Premise
|
| Offers a free plan |
Yes The AWS free-tier includes 100 build-minutes per month, on their smallest machine. It's unclear, but it seems like this applies only to the first year of service. |
Yes Very generous free plans for both the SaaS version as well as the on premise version. |
| Predictable 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. |
Yes Clear and affordable pricing for both SaaS and self-hosted versions. |
| Support / SLA |
Yes
|
Yes All paid plans include next business day support. |
|
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 |
N/A
|
Yes Easily configure jobs you want to be run in parallel via the YML config file (gitlab-ci.yml) |
|
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
|
Yes
|
| Containers support / Build environment |
Yes Builds run in specific-to-the-project, isolated environments |
Yes The Docker Container Registry is integrated into GitLab by default |
|
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 Offers minimal information built in, but allows integrations with tools such as CloudWatch (another Amazon product), or streaming build information to your own API, for more in-depth analysis. |
Yes
|
|
Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on |
Yes Professional user management via AWS Identity and Access Management: https://aws.amazon.com/iam/ |
Yes
|
| Self-hosted option |
No
|
Yes
|
| Hosted plans / SaaS |
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
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 As it's usually the case with Amazon, CodeBuild simply provides the 'build' part of a true CI/CD system, while pipelines are managed via CodePipeline, another Amazon product: https://aws.amazon.com/codepipeline/pricing/?nc=sn&loc=3 |
Yes Defined via YML config files |
|
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 Offers minimal information built in, but allows integrations with tools such as CloudWatch (another Amazon product), or streaming build information to your own API, for more in-depth analysis. |
Yes
|
|
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
|
Yes
|
|
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. |
No (partial) The environments available on CodeBuilt include Ruby pre-installed: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codebuild/latest/userguide/build-env-ref-available.html, but that seems to be as far as specific support goes |
Yes Although not built into GitLab CI by default, the Docker support allows solving any Ruby specific need that may arise. |
| Specific language support: JavaScript |
No (partial) The environments available on CodeBuilt include Node pre-installed: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codebuild/latest/userguide/build-env-ref-available.html, but that seems to be as far as specific support goes |
Yes Although not built into GitLab CI by default, the Docker support allows solving any Javascript specific need that may arise. |
|
Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc) |
Yes CodeBuild builds can be connected to sources such as GitHub or BitBucket, but being an Amazon Service, the deepest integrations are with other Amazon Code services (CodePipeline, CodeDeploy, and others: https://aws.amazon.com/products/developer-tools/) |
Yes Plenty of third party integrations available throughout GitLab, most notably Kubernetes and GitHub, but also plenty of others: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/README.html |
|
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 Amazon SDKs can be used to interact with CodeBuild |
Yes Provides a REST API and a (new) GraphQL API, with plans to maintain the GraphQL API only going forward. Allows doing almost anything that can be done via the interface, at least in terms of CI needs. |
| Auditing |
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Additional notes |
Like most things Amazon, it becomes more valuable as you acquire and integrate various Amazon solutions, not necesarily as a standalone tool. |
The Auto DevOps feature might be interesting to people looking for a very hands-off experience with getting a CI/CD process up and running https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/ |