Knapsack Pro
Knapsack Pro
Gitlab CIhttps://about.gitlab.com/product/continuous-integration/ |
Heroku CIhttps://www.heroku.com/continuous-integration |
|
|---|---|---|
| Unique feature |
AutoDev Ops / Allows keeping code management and CI in the same place |
Heroku Flow |
| Type of product |
SaaS / On Premise |
SaaS |
| Offers a free plan |
YesVery generous free plans for both the SaaS version as well as the on premise version. |
No (partial)For CI only, the cost starts at $10 for pipeline, plus a variable amount depending on how long the build runs for (prorated per second). The servers used for CI cost $250 for a full month, which means you get about 3 hours for $1. For hosting, there's a free tier, limited to 1 web/1 worker with 512 MB RAM. One of the more annoying limitations is that free dynos are put into sleep mode after 30 min. of inactivity, which increases loading times considerably. |
| Predictable pricing |
YesClear and affordable pricing for both SaaS and self-hosted versions. |
YesClearly defined, offers a calculator. |
| Support / SLA |
YesAll paid plans include next business day 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 |
YesEasily configure jobs you want to be run in parallel via the YML config file (gitlab-ci.yml) |
YesUp to 16 nodes. You can ask Heroku support to enable up to 32 parallel dynos. |
|
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 |
Yes |
N/A |
| Containers support / Build environment |
YesThe Docker Container Registry is integrated into GitLab by default |
YesBuilds run in isolation on new dynos (Heroku containers). Wide support via buildpacks: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/buildpacks |
|
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 |
YesGreat visual overview built-in. |
|
Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on |
Yes |
YesOne of the more mature solutions for teams on the market, Heroku Teams is available for free for 1-5 people, and comes at a cost for 6+ team members: https://www.heroku.com/pricing#team-comparison. Allows setting roles and app-level permissions with ease. |
| Self-hosted option |
Yes |
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. |
YesDefined via YML config files |
YesVery easy and intuitive process that allows defining a pipeline from code commit, to code review (review apps), user acceptance testing and production deployment, via Heroku Flow. Works best if the project is also hosted on Heroku. |
|
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 |
|
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 |
YesWide array of 3rd party add-ons available via Heroku Elements: https://elements.heroku.com/addons. Custom buildpacks are also available for almost any stack you might be using (over 5500 buildpacks available at the moment) |
|
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. |
YesAlthough not built into GitLab CI by default, the Docker support allows solving any Ruby specific need that may arise. |
YesAlthough not specifically built in to Heroku, it's guaranteed that any Ruby specific need that might arise would be solved via add-ons, buildpacks or other integrations available. |
| Specific language support: JavaScript |
YesAlthough not built into GitLab CI by default, the Docker support allows solving any Javascript specific need that may arise. |
YesAlthough not specifically built in to Heroku, it's guaranteed that any Javascript specific need that might arise would be solved via add-ons, buildpacks or other integrations available. |
|
Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc) |
YesPlenty 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 |
YesThe strongest built-in integrations are with GitHub and Slack (ChatOps) but even allows integrating 3rd party CI servers in the workflow if you so require, among others. |
|
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 |
YesProvides 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. |
YesOffers a feature rich API that allows CRUD operations on the most important features, such as promoting an app to production, or inspecting a specific pipeline. |
| Auditing |
Yes |
Yes |
| Additional notes |
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/ |
|
you have to wait 20 minutes for slow tests running too long on the red node
CI build completes work in only 10 minutes because Knapsack Pro ensures all parallel nodes finish work at a similar time
You can even run 20 parallel nodes to complete your CI build in 2 minutes
Step 1
Install Knapsack Pro client in your project
Step 2
Update your CI server config file to run tests in parallel with Knapsack Pro
Step 3
Run a CI build with parallel tests using Knapsack Pro
Knapsack Pro in Queue Mode splits tests in a dynamic way across parallel CI nodes to ensure each CI node finishes work at a similar time. Thanks to that, your CI build time is as fast as possible. It works with many supported CI servers.
| Programming Language | Supported test runners | Installation guide | Knapsack Pro Library README / Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby | RSpec, Cucumber, Minitest, test-unit, Spinach, Turnip | Install | knapsack_pro gem |
| JavaScript | Cypress.io | Install | @knapsack-pro/cypress |
| JavaScript | Jest | Install | @knapsack-pro/jest |
| JavaScript / TypeScript | Any test runner in JavaScript | How to build native integration with Knapsack Pro API to run tests in parallel for any test runner | @knapsack-pro/core |
| Any programming language | Any test runner | How to build a custom Knapsack Pro API client from scratch in any programming language | - |
Do you use other programming language or test runner? Let us know.
Run tests in parallel on Gitlab CI and Heroku CI in the optimal way and avoid bottleneck parallel jobs.
Get started free
Monthly you can save hours
and up to $
on faster development cycle.
Dynamic tests allocation across Gitlab CI and Heroku CI parallel jobs. Autobalance tests to get the optimal test suite split betweeen CI nodes.
Network issues? Not a problem, run tests anyway! Auto switch to the fallback mode to not depend on Knapsack Pro API.
Ruby: RSpec, Minitest, Test::Unit, Cucumber, Spinach, Turnip.
JavaScript: Cypress.io, Jest
API: Use native integration with Knapsack Pro API to run tests in parallel for any test runner
Other languages: How to build a custom Knapsack Pro API client from scratch in any programming language
Do you use different programming language or test runner? Let us know in the poll
Join the teams optimizing their tests with Knapsack Pro.
We've been really enjoying Knapsack Pro, it's been saving us a ton of time.
My team at @GustoHQ recently added @KnapsackPro to our CI. It's pretty sweet... It makes your builds faster _and_ (this is almost the better bit) more consistent! Thank you for the awesome tool!
— Stephan Hagemann (@shageman) September 26, 2022
This is a fantastic product, it's been a total game-changer for us.
We are using CircleCI and we noticed that builds were being limited by the slowest parallelized container. Knapsack Pro was really easy to setup and we saw huge improvements right away. Thank you for making this tool!
🛠How to run 7 hours of tests in 4 minutes using 100 parallel Buildkite agents and @KnapsackPro’s queue mode: https://t.co/zbXMIyNN8z
— Buildkite (@buildkite) March 29, 2017
Knapsack Pro has helped us build an insanely fast and scalable build pipeline with almost no setup or maintenance.
Knapsack Pro saves us hours of engineer waiting time every week, and is the best solution for keeping our tests load balanced that we've used to date.
I've been playing with Queue Mode. Love it! Wow, I love how fast it goes.
Awesome to see @NASA speeds up tests with #knapsack gem in https://t.co/GFOVW22dJn project! https://t.co/2GGbvnbQ7a #ruby #parallelisation
— KnapsackPro (@KnapsackPro) April 6, 2017
I just logged into my account expecting it to say that I needed to add a credit card and was so surprised and delighted to see the trial doesn't count usage by calendar days but by testing days! This is incredible! I love it!!!
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate that small but very huge feature. Thank you for being so thoughtful :)