Bitbucket Pipelines vs AppVeyor comparison of Continuous Integration servers

	Bitbucket Pipelines https://bitbucket.org/product/features/pipelines	AppVeyor https://www.appveyor.com
Unique feature	Best Jira integration possible	Supports NuGet packages / Windows build environment
Type of product	SaaS / On Premise	SaaS / On Premise
Offers a free plan	Yes Offers a very modest free cloud plan, limited to 5 users, 50 minutes of build time per month and 1GB storage. There's no free self-hosted version, but they do offer a $10 one-time payment plan for 10 users (build time and storage is only limited by your infrastructure)	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)
Predictable pricing	Yes Pricing is based on amount of users for both the cloud and on premise versions. The cloud offering has different tiers depending on build times and storage.	Yes Very simple pricing plans: 3 options for the SaaS version, two options for the on premise option. No variable pricing.
Support / SLA	Yes Dedicated tehnical support.	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.
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	Yes Allows splitting tests to run on different VMs in parallel.
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 Documentation is unclear, but it's reasonable to assume that distributed builds for the on premise version are not an issue.	N/A
Containers support / Build environment	Yes	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.
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 Excellent overview and contextual feedback.	Yes The dashboard is not as great as for other options in the market, but allows seeing project status at a glance.
Management support How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on	Yes	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.
Self-hosted option	Yes	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	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.
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	Yes Notifications are highly configurable, but visual reports such as code coverage is not easy to implement.
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?	Yes Large collection of available apps: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/apps-and-integrations-675189068.html	N/A
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 Clear, concise documentation on setting up a Ruby project with Bitbucket pipelines: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/ruby-with-bitbucket-pipelines-872005618.html	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.
Specific language support: JavaScript	Yes Clear, concise documentation on setting up a Javascript project with Bitbucket pipelines: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/javascript-node-js-with-bitbucket-pipelines-873891287.html	Yes Comes with node.js and io.js versions pre-installed. Also offers documentation on npm integration on their website.
Integrations 1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc)	Yes Large collection of available integrations: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/apps-and-integrations-675189068.html	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).
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	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.
Auditing	Yes	N/A
Additional notes	There's some confusion regarding Bitbucket Pipelines and Bamboo, where they overlap and where not. Atlassian discontinued their Bamboo Cloud offering ~3 years ago, so at a high-level they are different products in that regard. What can be said about both is that they are top-tier tools for high-demand engineering teams, especially valuable as long as the other tools in the Atlassian suite are adopted (Bitbucket is a must for Bitbucket pipelines, being just one if it's features, but other tools like Jira are not to be dismissed either). It does seem like Bitbucket Pipelines is the more mature product of the two though.	Very Windows oriented

Bitbucket Pipelines

https://bitbucket.org/product/features/pipelines

AppVeyor

https://www.appveyor.com

Unique feature

Best Jira integration possible

Supports NuGet packages / Windows build environment

Type of product

SaaS / On Premise

Offers a free plan

Yes

Offers a very modest free cloud plan, limited to 5 users, 50 minutes of build time per month and 1GB storage. There's no free self-hosted version, but they do offer a $10 one-time payment plan for 10 users (build time and storage is only limited by your infrastructure)

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)

Predictable pricing

Yes

Pricing is based on amount of users for both the cloud and on premise versions. The cloud offering has different tiers depending on build times and storage.

Yes

Very simple pricing plans: 3 options for the SaaS version, two options for the on premise option. No variable pricing.

Support / SLA

Yes

Dedicated tehnical support.

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.

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.

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

Documentation is unclear, but it's reasonable to assume that distributed builds for the on premise version are not an issue.

N/A

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.

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

Excellent overview and contextual feedback.

Yes

The dashboard is not as great as for other options in the market, but allows seeing project status at a glance.

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.

Self-hosted option

Yes

Hosted plans / SaaS

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

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.

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.

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?

Yes

Large collection of available apps: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/apps-and-integrations-675189068.html

N/A

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

Clear, concise documentation on setting up a Ruby project with Bitbucket pipelines: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/ruby-with-bitbucket-pipelines-872005618.html

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.

Specific language support: JavaScript

Yes

Clear, concise documentation on setting up a Javascript project with Bitbucket pipelines: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/javascript-node-js-with-bitbucket-pipelines-873891287.html

Yes

Comes with node.js and io.js versions pre-installed. Also offers documentation on npm integration on their website.

Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc)

Yes

Large collection of available integrations: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/apps-and-integrations-675189068.html

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).

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.

Auditing

Yes

N/A

Additional notes

There's some confusion regarding Bitbucket Pipelines and Bamboo, where they overlap and where not. Atlassian discontinued their Bamboo Cloud offering ~3 years ago, so at a high-level they are different products in that regard. What can be said about both is that they are top-tier tools for high-demand engineering teams, especially valuable as long as the other tools in the Atlassian suite are adopted (Bitbucket is a must for Bitbucket pipelines, being just one if it's features, but other tools like Jira are not to be dismissed either). It does seem like Bitbucket Pipelines is the more mature product of the two though.

Very Windows oriented

Bitbucket Pipelines vs AppVeyor comparison of Continuous Integration servers
What are the differences between Bitbucket Pipelines and AppVeyor?