Google Cloud Buildhttps://cloud.google.com/cloud-build/ |
Dronehttps://drone.io |
|
---|---|---|
Unique feature |
Security / speed |
Customization |
Type of product |
SaaS |
SaaS / On Premise |
Offers a free plan |
YesGoogle offers a generous 120 build-minutes per day plan, not including time spent waiting in the queue. |
YesThe cloud version is free for open source projects. Also offers a free plan for any project, with a limit of 5000 builds per year. The on-premise version is available as a Docker image. |
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. |
YesPredictable pricing based on number of users and repositories. They have a calculator to help determine cost. |
Support / SLA |
YesEven available as a paid add-on, for 24/7 phone support for example: https://cloud.google.com/support/ |
N/AIt's not clear what their support commitment is. They have a fairly active community on Discourse, for community 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 |
Yes |
YesPipeline task configuration allows running tasks 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 |
YesPipelines can be configured to run on multiple machines, although they recommend that to be an option only if paralellizing tasks and scaling vertically doesn't suffice. They even support multi-platform distribution (ie: running tasks on various operating systems) |
Containers support / Build environment |
YesNative Docker and Packer support |
YesBy default, they offer Docker support for the CI/CD job runners. |
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 |
Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on |
Yes |
YesThey offer in-depth documentation for user and server management. A lot of it can be done via the drone CLI tool, which seems to be the focal point of the docs. |
Self-hosted option |
No (partial)While there's no self hosted variant, they provide a local Cloud Build image which allows you to build locally, very valuable for debugging. |
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. |
YesConfigurable via YML and/or JSON files. |
YesEasily configurable pipelines via YML 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 |
N/A |
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? |
YesThere are predefined images built for Cloud Build, which can be integrated right away in your build process. Some of them are first party: https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/cloud-builders and others are community contributed: https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/cloud-builders-community |
YesDrone CI allows integrating plugins into the CI/CD process. They have a list of available community plugins and provide documentation on building your own. Plugins are Docker containers which plug directly into the CI/CD process. |
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. |
N/ANothing specific as far as we can tell |
No (partial)No specific support, but they do provide sufficient documentation on getting a Ruby project up and running, including a multi-platform example. |
Specific language support: JavaScript |
Yes (partial)npm, yarn and jasmine-node support via predefined Cloud Build steps. |
No (partial)No specific 1st party support, but the plugin marketplace features an NPM authoring and an NPM authentication plugin. |
Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc) |
YesVarious integrations available via custom Build Steps, as well as natively (Kubernetes, Docker, etc.) |
YesIntegrates well with source code management platforms (1st party support for GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket) as well as other systems via 3rd party plugins. |
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 |
YesREST API and comprehensive CLI tool, as well as a pub/sub system for build notifications. |
YesDrone provides a feature-rich REST API, as well as an official Go SDK for it. |
Auditing |
Yes |
Yes |
Additional notes |
Not unlike other Google tools, there's a strong emphasis on allowing developers to build on top of the service. Becomes more valuable if you're using other Google Cloud services as well. |
The fact that Drone works with any source code manager, as well as the fact that it can run tasks on multiple platforms makes it stand out from the rest. Very nifty! |