AWS CodeBuild vs Jenkins

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AWS CodeBuild vs Jenkins: What are the differences?

Introduction

AWS CodeBuild and Jenkins are two popular tools used for continuous integration and deployment in software development. While both serve the same purpose, there are several key differences between them.

  1. Platform Integration: AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is tightly integrated with other AWS services like AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeDeploy, and AWS CodePipeline. Jenkins, on the other hand, is an open-source tool that can be installed on various platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux, and can be integrated with a variety of tools and services.

  2. Scalability and Flexibility: AWS CodeBuild allows developers to easily scale their build environments by specifying the required compute resources through the use of build specifications. It also offers pre-configured compute types and provides the flexibility to run builds in a containerized environment. Jenkins, while it can be scaled manually, requires additional setup and management for running on multiple instances or within a clustered environment.

  3. Pricing and Cost: AWS CodeBuild uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, where users are charged based on the number of build minutes consumed and any additional compute resources used. Jenkins, being an open-source tool, is free to use but requires infrastructure and maintenance costs for running and managing the Jenkins server.

  4. Managed Service vs Self-Managed: AWS CodeBuild is a managed service, meaning that it takes care of the underlying infrastructure and maintenance tasks such as patching, scaling, and security. Jenkins, on the other hand, requires manual setup, configuration, and maintenance by the user or system administrators.

  5. Integration with CI/CD Pipelines: AWS CodeBuild integrates seamlessly with other AWS services like AWS CodePipeline, offering a complete CI/CD pipeline solution. Jenkins, being a standalone tool, requires additional configuration and setup to integrate with various CI/CD tools and services.

  6. Built-in Monitoring and Logging: AWS CodeBuild provides built-in monitoring and logging features, allowing developers to easily view the status and logs of their build processes through the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI. Jenkins requires additional setup and configuration for enabling monitoring and logging, which may involve the use of plugins or external tools.

In Summary, AWS CodeBuild offers a fully managed and integrated solution with scalable and flexible build environments, while Jenkins provides a self-managed and highly customizable option with extensive integration possibilities but requires additional setup and maintenance efforts.

Advice on AWS CodeBuild and Jenkins
Needs advice
on
Azure PipelinesAzure Pipelines
and
JenkinsJenkins

We are currently using Azure Pipelines for continous integration. Our applications are developed witn .NET framework. But when we look at the online Jenkins is the most widely used tool for continous integration. Can you please give me the advice which one is best to use for my case Azure pipeline or jenkins.

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
GitHubGitHub

If your source code is on GitHub, also take a look at Github actions. https://github.com/features/actions

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Mohammad Hossein Amri
Chief Technology Officer at Planally · | 3 upvotes · 491.3K views
Needs advice
on
GoCDGoCD
and
JenkinsJenkins

I'm open to anything. just want something that break less and doesn't need me to pay for it, and can be hosted on Docker. our scripting language is powershell core. so it's better to support it. also we are building dotnet core in our pipeline, so if they have anything related that helps with the CI would be nice.

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Replies (1)
Ankit Malik
Software Developer at CloudCover · | 1 upvotes · 474K views
Recommends
on
Google Cloud BuildGoogle Cloud Build

Google cloud build can help you. It is hosted on cloud and also provide reasonable free quota.

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Needs advice
on
ConcourseConcourse
and
JenkinsJenkins

I'm planning to setup complete CD-CD setup for spark and python application which we are going to deploy in aws lambda and EMR Cluster. Which tool would be best one to choose. Since my company is trying to adopt to concourse i would like to understand what are the lack of capabilities concourse have . Thanks in advance !

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Replies (1)
Maxi Krone
Cloud Engineer at fme AG · | 2 upvotes · 392.8K views
Recommends
on
ConcourseConcourse

I would definetly recommend Concourse to you, as it is one of the most advanced modern methods of making CI/CD while Jenkins is an old monolithic dinosaur. Concourse itself is cloudnative and containerbased which helps you to build simple, high-performance and scalable CI/CD pipelines. In my opinion, the only lack of skills you have with Concourse is your own knowledge of how to build pipelines and automate things. Technincally there is no lack, i would even say you can extend it way more easily. But as a Con it is more easy to interact with Jenkins if you are only used to UIs. Concourse needs someone which is capable of using CLIs.

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Needs advice
on
JenkinsJenkinsTravis CITravis CI
and
CircleCICircleCI

From a StackShare Community member: "Currently we use Travis CI and have optimized it as much as we can so our builds are fairly quick. Our boss is all about redundancy so we are looking for another solution to fall back on in case Travis goes down and/or jacks prices way up (they were recently acquired). Could someone recommend which CI we should go with and if they have time, an explanation of how they're different?"

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Replies (6)
Dustin Falgout
Senior Developer at Elegant Themes · | 13 upvotes · 543.6K views

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.

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Peter Thomas
Distinguished Engineer at Intuit · | 9 upvotes · 853.5K views
Recommends
on
Travis CITravis CI
at

As the maintainer of the Karate DSL open-source project - I found Travis CI very easy to integrate into the GitHub workflow and it has been steady sailing for more than 2 years now ! It works well for Java / Apache Maven projects and we were able to configure it to use the latest Oracle JDK as per our needs. Thanks to the Travis CI team for this service to the open-source community !

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Recommends
on
Google Cloud BuildGoogle Cloud Build

I use Google Cloud Build because it's my first foray into the CICD world(loving it so far), and I wanted to work with something GCP native to avoid giving permissions to other SaaS tools like CircleCI and Travis CI.

I really like it because it's free for the first 120 minutes, and it's one of the few CICD tools that enterprises are open to using since it's contained within GCP.

One of the unique things is that it has the Kaniko cache, which speeds up builds by creating intermediate layers within the docker image vs. pushing the full thing from the start. Helpful when you're installing just a few additional dependencies.

Feel free to checkout an example: Cloudbuild Example

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Recommends
on
Travis CITravis CI

I use Travis CI because of various reasons - 1. Cloud based system so no dedicated server required, and you do not need to administrate it. 2. Easy YAML configuration. 3. Supports Major Programming Languages. 4. Support of build matrix 6. Supports AWS, Azure, Docker, Heroku, Google Cloud, Github Pages, PyPi and lot more. 7. Slack Notifications.

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Oded Arbel
Recommends
on
GitLab CIGitLab CI

You are probably looking at another hosted solution: Jenkins is a good tool but it way too work intensive to be used as just a backup solution.

I have good experience with Circle-CI, Codeship, Drone.io and Travis (as well as problematic experiences with all of them), but my go-to tool is Gitlab CI: simple, powerful and if you have problems with their limitations or pricing, you can always install runners somewhere and use Gitlab just for scheduling and management. Even if you don't host your git repository at Gitlab, you can have Gitlab pull changes automatically from wherever you repo lives.

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Recommends
on
BuildkiteBuildkite

If you are considering Jenkins I would recommend at least checking out Buildkite. The agents are self-hosted (like Jenkins) but the interface is hosted for you. It meshes up some of the things I like about hosted services (pipeline definitions in YAML, managed interface and authentication) with things I like about Jenkins (local customizable agent images, secrets only on own instances, custom agent level scripts, sizing instances to your needs).

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Decisions about AWS CodeBuild and Jenkins
Pedro Gil Carvalho
Head of Engineering at Lengoo GmbH · | 6 upvotes · 67.5K views

We replaced Jenkins with Github Actions for all our repositories hosted on Github. GA has two significant benefits for us compared to an external build tool: it's simpler, and it sits at eye level.

Its simplicity and smooth user experience makes it easier for all developers to adopt, giving them more autonomy.

Sitting at eye level means it's completely run and configured right alongside the code, so that it's easier to observe and adjust our builds as we go.

These two benefits have made "the build" less of a system engineer responsibility and more of a developer tool, giving developers more ownership from code to release.

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Kirill Mikhailov

Jenkins is a friend of mine. 😀

There are not much space for Jenkins competitors for now from my point of view. With declarative pipelines now in place, its super easy to maintain them and create new ones(altho I prefer scripted still). Self-hosted, free, huge community makes it the top choice so honestly for me it was an easy pick.

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Stephen Badger | Vital Beats
Senior DevOps Engineer at Vital Beats · | 2 upvotes · 215.7K views

Within our deployment pipeline, we have a need to deploy to multiple customer environments, and manage secrets specifically in a way that integrates well with AWS, Kubernetes Secrets, Terraform and our pipelines ourselves.

Jenkins offered us the ability to choose one of a number of credentials/secrets management approaches, and models secrets as a more dynamic concept that GitHub Actions provided.

Additionally, we are operating Jenkins within our development Kubernetes cluster as a kind of system-wide orchestrator, allowing us to use Kubernetes pods as build agents, avoiding the ongoing direct costs associated with GitHub Actions minutes / per-user pricing. Obviously as a consequence we take on the indirect costs of maintain Jenkins itself, patching it, upgrading etc. However our experience with managing Jenkins via Kubernetes and declarative Jenkins configuration has led us to believe that this cost is small, particularly as the majority of actual building and testing is handled inside docker containers and Kubernetes, alleviating the need for less supported plugins that may make Jenkins administration more difficult.

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Jenkins is a pretty flexible, complete tool. Especially I love the possibility to configure jobs as a code with Jenkins pipelines.

CircleCI is well suited for small projects where the main task is to run continuous integration as quickly as possible. Travis CI is recommended primarily for open-source projects that need to be tested in different environments.

And for something a bit larger I prefer to use Jenkins because it is possible to make serious system configuration thereby different plugins. In Jenkins, I can change almost anything. But if you want to start the CI chain as soon as possible, Jenkins may not be the right choice.

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Pros of AWS CodeBuild
Pros of Jenkins
  • 7
    Pay per minute
  • 5
    Parameter Store integration for passing secrets
  • 4
    Integrated with AWS
  • 3
    Streaming logs to Amazon CloudWatch
  • 3
    Bit bucket integration
  • 2
    GitHub Webhooks support
  • 2
    AWS Config and Config rule integration for compliance
  • 2
    VPC PrivateLinks to invoke service without internet
  • 1
    Windows/.NET support
  • 1
    Jenkins plugin integration
  • 1
    Ondemand scaling of build jobs
  • 1
    Scheduled builds with CloudWatch Events integration
  • 1
    Local build debug support
  • 1
    Native support for accessing Amazon VPC resources
  • 1
    Docker based build environment
  • 1
    Support for bringing custom Docker images
  • 1
    Fully managed (no installation/updates, servers to mai
  • 1
    PCI, SOC, ISO, HIPAA compliant
  • 1
    Full API/SDKs/CLI support
  • 1
    YAML based configuration
  • 1
    Great support (forums, premium support, SO, GitHub)
  • 1
    Perpetual free tier option (100 mins/month)
  • 1
    GitHub Enterprise support
  • 523
    Hosted internally
  • 469
    Free open source
  • 318
    Great to build, deploy or launch anything async
  • 243
    Tons of integrations
  • 211
    Rich set of plugins with good documentation
  • 111
    Has support for build pipelines
  • 68
    Easy setup
  • 66
    It is open-source
  • 53
    Workflow plugin
  • 13
    Configuration as code
  • 12
    Very powerful tool
  • 11
    Many Plugins
  • 10
    Continuous Integration
  • 10
    Great flexibility
  • 9
    Git and Maven integration is better
  • 8
    100% free and open source
  • 7
    Slack Integration (plugin)
  • 7
    Github integration
  • 6
    Self-hosted GitLab Integration (plugin)
  • 6
    Easy customisation
  • 5
    Pipeline API
  • 5
    Docker support
  • 4
    Fast builds
  • 4
    Hosted Externally
  • 4
    Excellent docker integration
  • 4
    Platform idnependency
  • 3
    AWS Integration
  • 3
    JOBDSL
  • 3
    It's Everywhere
  • 3
    Customizable
  • 3
    Can be run as a Docker container
  • 3
    It`w worked
  • 2
    Loose Coupling
  • 2
    NodeJS Support
  • 2
    Build PR Branch Only
  • 2
    Easily extendable with seamless integration
  • 2
    PHP Support
  • 2
    Ruby/Rails Support
  • 2
    Universal controller

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Cons of AWS CodeBuild
Cons of Jenkins
  • 2
    Poor branch support
  • 13
    Workarounds needed for basic requirements
  • 10
    Groovy with cumbersome syntax
  • 8
    Plugins compatibility issues
  • 7
    Lack of support
  • 7
    Limited abilities with declarative pipelines
  • 5
    No YAML syntax
  • 4
    Too tied to plugins versions

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What is AWS CodeBuild?

AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed build service that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces software packages that are ready to deploy. With CodeBuild, you don’t need to provision, manage, and scale your own build servers.

What is 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.

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What are some alternatives to AWS CodeBuild and Jenkins?
AWS CodePipeline
CodePipeline builds, tests, and deploys your code every time there is a code change, based on the release process models you define.
Apache Maven
Maven allows a project to build using its project object model (POM) and a set of plugins that are shared by all projects using Maven, providing a uniform build system. Once you familiarize yourself with how one Maven project builds you automatically know how all Maven projects build saving you immense amounts of time when trying to navigate many projects.
GitLab CI
GitLab offers a continuous integration service. If you add a .gitlab-ci.yml file to the root directory of your repository, and configure your GitLab project to use a Runner, then each merge request or push triggers your CI pipeline.
AWS CodeDeploy
AWS CodeDeploy is a service that automates code deployments to Amazon EC2 instances. AWS CodeDeploy makes it easier for you to rapidly release new features, helps you avoid downtime during deployment, and handles the complexity of updating your applications.
AWS CodeStar
Start new software projects on AWS in minutes using templates for web applications, web services and more.
See all alternatives