CircleCI vs Docker Compose

Overview

CircleCI

Stacks14.5K

Followers7.1K

Votes974

Docker Compose

Stacks22.3K

Followers16.5K

Votes501

GitHub Stars36.4K

Forks5.5K

CircleCI vs Docker Compose: What are the differences?

Introduction: In the world of web development, developers often come across various tools and technologies that aid in the process of building and deploying applications. Two popular tools in this domain are CircleCI and Docker Compose. It is essential to understand the key differences between these two tools to make an informed decision based on the specific requirements of a project.

Deployment Mechanism: CircleCI is a continuous integration and deployment tool that automates the process of testing and deploying code changes. It provides a platform for building and testing code in a controlled environment before deploying it to production. On the other hand, Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. It simplifies the process of running multiple Docker containers together, making it easier to manage complex applications.
Scalability: CircleCI is a cloud-based platform that offers scalability by providing different pricing plans based on the needs of the project. It can handle large workloads by distributing the tasks across multiple machines. In contrast, Docker Compose is more focused on simplifying the development and deployment of containerized applications on a single host machine. It may not be as scalable as CircleCI in terms of handling large-scale deployments.
Environment Management: CircleCI allows developers to define the environment in which their code will be built and tested. This helps in ensuring consistency across different stages of the development pipeline. Docker Compose, on the other hand, enables developers to define the environment for running multiple containers together. It allows for composing complex applications with dependencies, but the management of the environment is more focused on the runtime rather than the development process.
Flexibility and Customization: CircleCI offers a range of configuration options to customize the build and deployment process according to the specific requirements of the project. It provides a flexible platform for developers to tailor the CI/CD pipeline to meet their needs. Docker Compose, on the other hand, simplifies the process of running multi-container applications but may lack the same level of customization options as CircleCI. Developers have more control over the configuration in CircleCI compared to Docker Compose.
Version Control Integration: CircleCI integrates seamlessly with popular version control systems like GitHub and Bitbucket. It automatically triggers builds whenever changes are pushed to the repository, streamlining the workflow for developers. Docker Compose, on the other hand, is more focused on container management and orchestration rather than integration with version control systems. While Docker Compose can be used in conjunction with version control, it does not offer the same level of integration as CircleCI.

In Summary, understanding the key differences between CircleCI and Docker Compose is crucial for choosing the right tool based on the specific requirements of a project.

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Advice on CircleCI, Docker Compose

Dustin

Senior Developer at Elegant Themes

Apr 18, 2019

Reviewon

CircleCI

We use CircleCI because of the better value it provides in its plans. I'm sure we could have used Travis just as easily but we found CircleCI's pricing to be more reasonable. In the two years since we signed up, the service has improved. CircleCI is always innovating and iterating on their platform. We have been very satisfied.

607k views607k

Comments

Somnath

Engineering Leader at Altimetrik Corp.

Jun 25, 2020

Needs adviceon

CircleCI

Drone.io

GitHub Actions

I am in the process of evaluating CircleCI, Drone.io, and GitHub Actions to cover my #CI/ #CD needs. I would appreciate your advice on comparative study w.r.t. attributes like language-Inclusive support, code-base integration, performance, cost, maintenance, support, ease of use, ability to deal with big projects, etc. based on actual industry experience.

Thanks in advance!

1.82M views1.82M

Comments

Felipe

May 24, 2020

Needs advice

My website is brand new and one of the few requirements of testings I had to implement was code coverage. Never though it was so hard to implement using a #docker container.
Given my lack of experience, every attempt I tried on making a simple code coverage test using the 4 combinations of #TravisCI, #CircleCi with #Coveralls, #Codecov I failed. The main problem was I was generating the .coverage file within the docker container and couldn't access it with #TravisCi or #CircleCi, every attempt to solve this problem seems to be very hacky and this was not the kind of complexity I want to introduce to my newborn website.
This problem was solved using a specific action for #GitHubActions, it was a 3 line solution I had to put in my github workflow file and I was able to access the .coverage file from my docker container and get the coverage report with #Codecov.

198k views198k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

CircleCI	Docker Compose
Continuous integration and delivery platform helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Offers a modern software development platform that lets teams ramp.	With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.
Language-Inclusive Support;Custom Environments;Flexible Resource Allocation;SSH Or Local Builds For Easy Debugging;Improved Caching;Unmatched Security;Parallelism;Insights	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 36.4K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 5.5K
Stacks 14.5K	Stacks 22.3K
Followers 7.1K	Followers 16.5K
Votes 974	Votes 501
Pros & Cons
Pros 226 Github integration 177 Easy setup 153 Fast builds 94 Competitively priced 74 Slack integration Cons 12 Unstable 6 Scammy pricing structure 0 Aggressive Github permissions	Pros 123 Multi-container descriptor 110 Fast development environment setup 79 Easy linking of containers 68 Simple yaml configuration 60 Easy setup Cons 9 Tied to single machine 5 Still very volatile, changing syntax often
Integrations
dotCloud GitHub Xcode Azure Container Service Slack Heroku JavaScript Node.js Python Amazon EC2	Docker

What are some alternatives to CircleCI, Docker Compose?

Jenkins

In a nutshell Jenkins CI is the leading open-source continuous integration server. Built with Java, it provides over 300 plugins to support building and testing virtually any project.

Travis CI

Free for open source projects, our CI environment provides multiple runtimes (e.g. Node.js or PHP versions), data stores and so on. Because of this, hosting your project on travis-ci.com means you can effortlessly test your library or applications against multiple runtimes and data stores without even having all of them installed locally.

Codeship

Codeship runs your automated tests and configured deployment when you push to your repository. It takes care of managing and scaling the infrastructure so that you are able to test and release more frequently and get faster feedback for building the product your users need.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

TeamCity

TeamCity is a user-friendly continuous integration (CI) server for professional developers, build engineers, and DevOps. It is trivial to setup and absolutely free for small teams and open source projects.

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Drone.io

Drone is a hosted continuous integration service. It enables you to conveniently set up projects to automatically build, test, and deploy as you make changes to your code. Drone integrates seamlessly with Github, Bitbucket and Google Code as well as third party services such as Heroku, Dotcloud, Google AppEngine and more.

wercker

Wercker is a CI/CD developer automation platform designed for Microservices & Container Architecture.

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Related Comparisons

CircleCI vs Docker Compose: What are the differences?

Deployment Mechanism: CircleCI is a continuous integration and deployment tool that automates the process of testing and deploying code changes. It provides a platform for building and testing code in a controlled environment before deploying it to production. On the other hand, Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. It simplifies the process of running multiple Docker containers together, making it easier to manage complex applications.
Scalability: CircleCI is a cloud-based platform that offers scalability by providing different pricing plans based on the needs of the project. It can handle large workloads by distributing the tasks across multiple machines. In contrast, Docker Compose is more focused on simplifying the development and deployment of containerized applications on a single host machine. It may not be as scalable as CircleCI in terms of handling large-scale deployments.
Environment Management: CircleCI allows developers to define the environment in which their code will be built and tested. This helps in ensuring consistency across different stages of the development pipeline. Docker Compose, on the other hand, enables developers to define the environment for running multiple containers together. It allows for composing complex applications with dependencies, but the management of the environment is more focused on the runtime rather than the development process.
Flexibility and Customization: CircleCI offers a range of configuration options to customize the build and deployment process according to the specific requirements of the project. It provides a flexible platform for developers to tailor the CI/CD pipeline to meet their needs. Docker Compose, on the other hand, simplifies the process of running multi-container applications but may lack the same level of customization options as CircleCI. Developers have more control over the configuration in CircleCI compared to Docker Compose.
Version Control Integration: CircleCI integrates seamlessly with popular version control systems like GitHub and Bitbucket. It automatically triggers builds whenever changes are pushed to the repository, streamlining the workflow for developers. Docker Compose, on the other hand, is more focused on container management and orchestration rather than integration with version control systems. While Docker Compose can be used in conjunction with version control, it does not offer the same level of integration as CircleCI.

In Summary, understanding the key differences between CircleCI and Docker Compose is crucial for choosing the right tool based on the specific requirements of a project.

CircleCI vs Docker Compose

Overview