Knapsack Pro
Knapsack Pro
GoCDhttps://www.gocd.org |
Jenkinshttps://jenkins.io |
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|---|---|---|
| Unique feature |
Free, open source CI/CD server |
Plugins |
| Type of product |
On Premise |
Self-hosted / On Premise |
| Offers a free plan |
YesFree, open source software. They provide some Enterprise add-ons and support at a cost though. |
YesFree, open source software |
| Predictable pricing |
YesFor the Enterprise plans, they specify very clear tiers depending on the number of pipelines (directly correlated with the size of the organization) |
YesJenkins is free software, the only costs are those assigned to running your infrastructure. |
| Support / SLA |
YesPaid support available for enterprise plans |
No (partial)No official support available, or SLAs. However, Jenkins' popularity ensures you'll find support in various places (official Jenkins forum, IRC, StackOverflow etc.) |
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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 |
Yes (partial)Jenkins allows builds to be run in parallel, but all builds share the same environment and there can be issues arising from shared resources such as the filesystem. |
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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 |
YesThey specify supporting tools like TLB (http://test-load-balancer.github.io/) which would require distributed builds. |
Yes (partial)Jenkins has a concept of master server and agents, for distributing builds, but setting that up requires quite a bit of manual work from a sysadmin, compared to other options. |
| Containers support / Build environment |
YesNative Docker and Kubernetes support |
No (partial)By default, Jenkins runs all builds in the same environment as the build server itself, which can lead to numerous issues and is generally not a good practice. Some plugins address this issue, but they need to be manually installed. |
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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) |
YesOne of the greatest things about GoCD is their Value Stream Map which allows tracing every pipeline through every stage, from code commit, to testing and deployment. They also offer various dashboards for seeing status at a glance. |
YesAvailable via the Blue Ocean project (part of Jenkins): https://jenkins.io/doc/book/blueocean/dashboard/#dashboard |
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Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on |
YesAllows managing users, assigning roles, and even defining user groups with specific rights for certain pipelines. |
NoIn practice, for Jenkins it usually means that there's someone solely in charge of the Jenkins instance (configuration, management). Collaboration features built into other similar products are lacking, as are governance features (no easy way to tell from Jenkins alone _who_ is responsabile for a broken build, for example), even if your Version Control Server of choice can give that information (via `git blame` for example). |
| Self-hosted option |
Yes |
YesJenkins is Open Source Software, and self-hosting is the only way to use it. |
| Hosted plans / SaaS |
No |
NoOnly available for self-hosting. |
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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. |
YesFairly advanced support, from config files (YML, Groovy, JSON, etc) to API and UI interface for building and managing pipelines. |
YesOffers extensive support for custom pipelines, either through the Jenkins Pipeline DSL, written in a Jenkinsfile, either through the Web UI. Also, their Blue Ocean project is a great tool for building pipelines: https://jenkins.io/projects/blueocean/ |
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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 |
YesHas ready-made integrations for standard reports such as JUnit test results. |
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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? |
YesWide array of plugins available: https://www.gocd.org/plugins/#artifact (although they seem to pride themselves on the fact that most common operations / needs are first class citizens, so no plugins needed) |
> 1000 community pluginsThanks to it's popularity, there's a large selection of available plugins for Jenkins. They can all be easily browsed over at https://plugins.jenkins.io/. The downside is that almost anything you want to do in Jenkins requires installing a plugin, even core functionality such as parsing output or checking out source code. |
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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. |
YesAvailable via plugins, such as the Gem repository poller: https://www.gocd.org/plugins/#package-repo |
Yes (Partial)RSpec and Cucumber test suites can be integrated into Jenkins thanks to the large pool of available plugins and Ruby gems. Jenkins only understands the JUnit format natively. |
| Specific language support: JavaScript |
YesAvailable via plugins, such as the npm repository poller: https://www.gocd.org/plugins/#package-repo |
Yes (Partial)Jest, AVA and other test suites can be integrated into Jenkins thanks to the large pool of available plugins and NPM packages. Jenkins only understands the JUnit format natively. |
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Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc) |
YesIntegrations are also available via plugins (for notifications, LDAP authorization, Elastic agents and more): https://www.gocd.org/plugins/#notification |
YesAllows integrations with other tools (ie: Slack, GitHub) or communication protocols (ie: email) via it's rich plugin suite |
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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 |
YesYou can build on top of GoCD in a variety of ways, from writing custom plugins to using the CCTray feed provided by it. |
YesFor use-cases that the +1k plugins don't cover, the Jenkins Remote API is yet another way to integrate Jenkins into your favorite tools or internal products. |
| Auditing |
Yes |
NoJenkins instances are really managed by a sole user with administrative privileges. This can lead to various issues when it comes to audit trails / accountability. |
| Additional notes |
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