Knapsack Pro

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

Scrutinizer CI

https://scrutinizer-ci.com

AWS CodeBuild

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

Ongoing statical analysis

AWS integration

Type of product

SaaS

SaaS

Offers a free plan

Yes

Free for open source projects

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

Three different paid monthly tiers

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

N/A

Not specifically mentioned, probably not.

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

Automated parallalelization for code analysis, as well as support for running tasks in parallel

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

N/A

Unclear from the documentation (probably not)

N/A

Containers support / Build environment

Yes

Tests run in isolated containers. Docker support available.

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

Besides classic CI overview, they also provide static code analysis insights, which is a differentiator for Scrutinizer

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

Additional seats available for every plan at $14.90 per seat, per month.

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

Pipelines as code (YML files)

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.

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.

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?

No

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

Code analysis (automated code reviews) are available for Ruby, as well as specific documentation for setting up a Ruby project: https://scrutinizer-ci.com/docs/guides/ruby. Frameworks like Ruby on Rails are supported. They also provide tools like bundler-audit, for identifying vulnerable gems: https://scrutinizer-ci.com/docs/tools/ruby/bundler-audit/

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

Automated code reviews are available for Javascript as well as specific documentation for setting up a Node.js project: https://scrutinizer-ci.com/docs/guides/javascript. Typescript is also supported.

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

Light integration with third party systems, mainly code management frameworks like GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab.

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

Comprehensive REST API available: https://scrutinizer-ci.com/docs/api/

Yes

Amazon SDKs can be used to interact with CodeBuild

Auditing

N/A

Unclear from the documentation, but most likely available.

Yes

Additional notes

The code analysis features seem great, the offer for similar tools is quite light. Seems similar to lgtm.com

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

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