Knapsack Pro

CodeShip vs AWS CodeBuild comparison of Continuous Integration servers
What are the differences between CodeShip and AWS CodeBuild?

CodeShip

https://codeship.com

AWS CodeBuild

https://aws.amazon.com/codebuild/
Unique feature

Runs on own infrastructure

AWS integration

Type of product

SaaS

SaaS

Offers a free plan

Yes

Free for up to 100 builds per month

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.

Predictable pricing

Yes

Clearly defined, calculator, expensive

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.

Support / SLA

Yes

Offers great dev support

Yes

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

Via easy Yaml config file, limited by the specs of the machine you have purchased

N/A

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

No

N/A

Containers support / Build environment

Yes

Native support for Docker

Yes

Builds run in specific-to-the-project, isolated environments

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

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.

Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on

Yes

Full with organization and teams management

Yes

Professional user management via AWS Identity and Access Management: https://aws.amazon.com/iam/

Self-hosted option

No

No

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

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

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.

N/A

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.

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

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

Fairly complete documentation on Ruby projects: https://documentation.codeship.com/pro/languages-frameworks/ruby/

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

Specific language support: JavaScript

Yes

Fairly complete documentation on Node.js projects: https://documentation.codeship.com/pro/languages-frameworks/nodejs/

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

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

Yes

Easy to integrate a bunch of 3rd party services, such as Code Climate, Codecov, Rancher, Pager Duty and many more: https://documentation.codeship.com/general/integrations/codeclimate/

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/)

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

Custom integrations are possible: https://documentation.codeship.com/general/integrations/custom-integration/

Yes

Amazon SDKs can be used to interact with CodeBuild

Auditing

N/A

Yes

Additional notes

CodeShip Pro gives you a lot more flexibility when defining your CI/CD process, plus you get your own AWS instance, so your build doesn't run on a shared server (this can be important for HIPAA or GDPR compliance, etc).

Like most things Amazon, it becomes more valuable as you acquire and integrate various Amazon solutions, not necesarily as a standalone tool.

CodeShip Parallelisation - Parallel Test Pipelines how to run Ruby & JavaScript tests faster

CodeShip parallelism integration

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