Knapsack Pro

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

Scrutinizer CI

https://scrutinizer-ci.com

Travis CI

https://travis-ci.org
Unique feature

Ongoing statical analysis

Build Matrix, ease of use, GitHub integration

Type of product

SaaS

SaaS, Self-hosted / On Premise

Offers a free plan

Yes

Free for open source projects

Yes

Free for open source projects
Predictable pricing

Yes

Three different paid monthly tiers

Yes

Clearly defined monthly plans, depending on concurrent jobs needed.
Support / SLA

N/A

Not specifically mentioned, probably not.

Yes

Available via email, or dedicated online interface for paid plans.
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

Yes

TravisCI makes it very easy to split your build into different stages which are then run in parallel (ie: run integration tests separate from the unit tests). TravisCI calls this a build matrix: https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/build-matrix/. You can also very easily split tests accross several VMs using the knapsack_pro gem.
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

TravisCI runs each build in a isolated virtual machine. Pre-build packages include a few which support specific languages (Ruby and JavaScript included) or other software (Git, various databases), but vanilla packages such as Ubuntu Trusty are also available.
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

Available by default in Travis (this is what most of the web UI consists of)
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.

N/A

Self-hosted option

No

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.

Yes

Pipelines as code (YML files)

No

Specifically built around GitHub pull requests. Pipelines can be defined, but parts of the process need to be implemented separatelly in GitHub.
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 (partial)

No persistent storage eliminates the possibility of code coverage reports on TravisCI alone. There is support for integrated 3rd parties such as Coveralls for reporting code coverage.
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

No plugin support in TravisCI, plugins for other tools

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/

Yes

TravisCI is designed to be a simple way to integrate CI/CD in your workflow so it has a couple of features aimed at specific languages, such as Ruby, starting from pre-built containers (with RVM already installed, for example) all the way to automatically running specific platform commands (such as detecting a Gemfile in the root of the project and automatically bundling dependencies). TravisCI also builds a Ruby SDK for easier use of the API.
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.

Yes

TravisCI is designed to be a simple way to integrate CI/CD in your workflow so it has a couple of features aimed at specific languages, such as Javascript, starting from pre-built containers (with node already installed, for example) all the way to automatically running specific platform commands (such as detecting a package.json in the root of the project and running npm test)
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

By default, TravisCI is built to work with GitHub. Additionally, there is strong support for 3rd party tools like Coveralls, BrowserStack, etc.
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

Offers a feature-rich API that allows both reading data, as well as triggering or cancelling builds.
Auditing

N/A

Unclear from the documentation, but most likely available.

N/A

Additional notes

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

How to run parallel tests on Scrutinizer CI and Travis CI
to execute 1-hour test suite in 2 minutes?

Without Knapsack Pro

you have to wait 20 minutes for slow tests running too long on the red node

Loading...

Run fast parallel CI build with Knapsack Pro

CI build completes work in only 10 minutes because Knapsack Pro ensures all parallel nodes finish work at a similar time

Loading...

You can even run 20 parallel nodes to complete your CI build in 2 minutes

How it works

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

Diagram that shows files distributed to 3 parallel CI nodes


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.

How to install it

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.

Do you know

Start using Knapsack Pro

Sign up and speed up your tests.

Get started free

Get faster feedback from Scrutinizer CI and Travis CI server

  • save time & money
  • deliver features faster
  • catch errors earlier
Knapsack Pro terminal

Travis CI build matrix feature how to use it for CI parallelisation

Travis CI parallelism integration

Introduction to CI parallelisation with Knapsack Pro

Run tests in parallel on Scrutinizer CI and Travis CI in the optimal way and avoid bottleneck parallel jobs.

Get started free

How much can you save with faster tests
on Scrutinizer CI and Travis CI?

minutes
$

Monthly you can save hours
and up to $
on faster development cycle.

Features that make your tests perform better

Discover all features or see
how to use Knapsack Pro with your CI

Trusted solution

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.

Devin Brown Software Engineer at Pivotal

This is a fantastic product, it's been a total game-changer for us.

Geoff Harcourt CTO at CommonLit

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!

Martin Sieniawski Software Engineer at Collage

Knapsack Pro has helped us build an insanely fast and scalable build pipeline with almost no setup or maintenance.

Tim Lucas Co-founder of buildkite.com

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.

Michael Amygdalidis Senior Software Engineer at Popular Pays

I've been playing with Queue Mode. Love it! Wow, I love how fast it goes.

Michael Menne CTO at humanagency.org

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 :)

Shannon Baffoni Senior Software Engineer
at Blue Bottle Coffee

See more testimonials

Start using Knapsack Pro with Scrutinizer CI or Travis CI

Sign up and speed up your tests.

Get started free