Knapsack Pro

Solano CI vs Google Cloud Build comparison of Continuous Integration servers
What are the differences between Solano CI and Google Cloud Build?

Solano CI

https://xebialabs.com/technology/solano-ci/

Google Cloud Build

https://cloud.google.com/cloud-build/
Unique feature

N/A

Security / speed

Type of product

N/A

SaaS

Offers a free plan

No

Their website only mentions a free trial

Yes

Google offers a generous 120 build-minutes per day plan, not including time spent waiting in the queue.

Predictable pricing

No

Very hard to get any information on pricing. It seems like they target enterprise clients only.

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

Yes

Even available as a paid add-on, for 24/7 phone support for example: https://cloud.google.com/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

N/A

They mention that by paralellizing tests they get a huge performance boost (10x to 80x) but details are severly lacking.

Yes

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

N/A

Containers support / Build environment

Yes

Yes

Native Docker and Packer support

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

The wording they use implies that this is possible.

Yes

Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on

N/A

Yes

Self-hosted option

N/A

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.

Hosted plans / SaaS

N/A

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

The wording they use suggests that this is possible.

Yes

Configurable via YML and/or JSON 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.

N/A

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?

N/A

Probably not, considering how non-transparent this product is.

Yes

There 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

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/A

N/A

Nothing specific as far as we can tell

Specific language support: JavaScript

N/A

Yes (partial)

npm, yarn and jasmine-node support via predefined Cloud Build steps.

Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc)

N/A

Yes

Various integrations available via custom Build Steps, as well as natively (Kubernetes, Docker, 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

N/A

Yes

REST API and comprehensive CLI tool, as well as a pub/sub system for build notifications.

Auditing

N/A

Yes

Additional notes

It seems like Solano CI has been retired, and the new solution is the XebiaLabs DevOps Platform, but which integrates Jenkins and Travis, among others: https://xebialabs.com/products/devops-platform-overview/

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.

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