Jenkins vs TeamCity vs Travis CI

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Jenkins

58.2K
49.7K
+ 1
2.2K
TeamCity

1.1K
1.1K
+ 1
316
Travis CI

26.4K
6.7K
+ 1
1.7K

Jenkins vs TeamCity vs Travis CI: What are the differences?

Introduction:

When it comes to CI/CD tools, Jenkins, TeamCity, and Travis CI are popular choices for automating software development processes. Each tool has its own set of features and advantages, making them suitable for different use cases.

  1. Architecture: Jenkins is an open-source automation server with a vast plugin ecosystem that supports various integrations and customizations. TeamCity, on the other hand, is a proprietary CI/CD tool developed by JetBrains that offers a more streamlined user interface and easy setup for smaller teams. Travis CI is a cloud-based CI service that focuses on simplicity and quick setup for GitHub projects.

  2. Scalability: Jenkins can be scaled horizontally to handle multiple build agents and pipelines, making it suitable for large enterprises with complex build requirements. TeamCity provides better out-of-the-box scalability features, such as build chains and build configurations, making it easier to manage and scale CI/CD workflows. Meanwhile, Travis CI offers a more simplified approach to scaling with limited customization options compared to Jenkins and TeamCity.

  3. Integration: Jenkins offers extensive integration capabilities through its vast plugin ecosystem, enabling users to connect with various tools and services seamlessly. TeamCity provides built-in integrations with popular version control systems and IDEs, streamlining the setup process for developers. Travis CI focuses on tight integration with GitHub repositories, making it a preferred choice for projects hosted on the platform.

  4. Pricing: Jenkins is a free and open-source tool, making it a cost-effective option for organizations with budget constraints. TeamCity comes with a licensing fee based on the number of build agents, making it more suitable for teams willing to invest in a comprehensive CI/CD solution. Travis CI offers a free tier for open-source projects but charges for private repositories and additional build concurrency.

  5. Customization: Jenkins allows extensive customization through its plugin ecosystem and scriptable pipeline definitions, giving users full control over their CI/CD workflows. TeamCity offers a more opinionated approach with predefined build steps and templates, making it easier for beginners to set up their pipelines. Travis CI provides a straightforward configuration process through its YAML-based configuration file, offering a balance between flexibility and simplicity.

  6. Community Support: Jenkins has a large and active community that contributes plugins, documentation, and support resources, making it easier for users to troubleshoot issues and extend the platform's functionality. TeamCity has a smaller but dedicated user base, with official support from JetBrains ensuring prompt assistance and updates. Travis CI benefits from GitHub's community, with a focus on user-friendly documentation and seamless GitHub integration for easy adoption.

In Summary, Jenkins, TeamCity, and Travis CI offer distinct features in terms of architecture, scalability, integration, pricing, customization, and community support, catering to different requirements and preferences in the CI/CD landscape.

Advice on Jenkins, TeamCity, and Travis CI
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.

See more
Replies (1)
Recommends
on
GitHubGitHub

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

See more
Mohammad Hossein Amri
Chief Technology Officer at Planally · | 3 upvotes · 518.3K 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.

See more
Replies (1)
Ankit Malik
Software Developer at CloudCover · | 1 upvotes · 501K 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.

See more
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 !

See more
Replies (1)
Maxi Krone
Cloud Engineer at fme AG · | 2 upvotes · 420.2K 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.

See more
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?"

See more
Replies (6)
Dustin Falgout
Senior Developer at Elegant Themes · | 13 upvotes · 574.7K 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.

See more
Peter Thomas
Distinguished Engineer at Intuit · | 9 upvotes · 888.2K 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 !

See more
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

See more
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.

See more
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.

See more
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).

See more
Decisions about Jenkins, TeamCity, and Travis CI
A Stolze
Engineering Team Lead at DCMN GmbH · | 7 upvotes · 69.1K views

Github Actions allowed us to drop previous CI/CD technologies like Jenkins or AWS CodeBuild. The main advantages for us are: - The Infrastructure-as-Code approach of Github Actions enables us to keep CI/CD configurations next to the code. - Github as a single platform for repositories and CI/CD simplifies our stack and effort to manage it on the daily basis.

TVcloud Team <3 Github Actions

See more
Pedro Gil Carvalho
Head of Engineering at Lengoo GmbH · | 6 upvotes · 73.2K 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.

See more
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.

See more

When choosing a tool to help automate our CI/CD, the decision came down to GitHub Actions (GA) or TravisCI. Both are great, but the team has more experience with GA. Given GAs broad support of languages and workflows, it's hard to go wrong with this decision. We will also be using GitHub for version control and project management, so having everything in one place is convenient.

See more
Stephen Badger | Vital Beats
Senior DevOps Engineer at Vital Beats · | 2 upvotes · 228.6K 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.

See more

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.

See more

We were long time users of TravisCI, but switched to CircleCI because of the better user interface and pricing. Version 2.0 has had a couple of trips and hiccups; but overall we've been very happy with the continuous integration it provides. Continuous Integration is a must-have for building software, and CircleCI continues to surprise as they roll out ideas and features. It's leading the industry in terms of innovation and new ideas, and it's exciting to see what new things they keep rolling out.

See more

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.

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of Jenkins
Pros of TeamCity
Pros of Travis CI
  • 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
    Github integration
  • 7
    Slack Integration (plugin)
  • 6
    Easy customisation
  • 6
    Self-hosted GitLab Integration (plugin)
  • 5
    Docker support
  • 5
    Pipeline API
  • 4
    Fast builds
  • 4
    Platform idnependency
  • 4
    Hosted Externally
  • 4
    Excellent docker integration
  • 3
    It`w worked
  • 3
    Customizable
  • 3
    Can be run as a Docker container
  • 3
    It's Everywhere
  • 3
    JOBDSL
  • 3
    AWS Integration
  • 2
    Easily extendable with seamless integration
  • 2
    PHP Support
  • 2
    Build PR Branch Only
  • 2
    NodeJS Support
  • 2
    Ruby/Rails Support
  • 2
    Universal controller
  • 2
    Loose Coupling
  • 61
    Easy to configure
  • 37
    Reliable and high-quality
  • 32
    User friendly
  • 32
    On premise
  • 32
    Github integration
  • 18
    Great UI
  • 16
    Smart
  • 12
    Free for open source
  • 12
    Can run jobs in parallel
  • 8
    Crossplatform
  • 5
    Chain dependencies
  • 5
    Fully-functional out of the box
  • 4
    Great support by jetbrains
  • 4
    REST API
  • 4
    Projects hierarchy
  • 4
    100+ plugins
  • 3
    Personal notifications
  • 3
    Free for small teams
  • 3
    Build templates
  • 3
    Per-project permissions
  • 2
    Upload build artifacts
  • 2
    Smart build failure analysis and tracking
  • 2
    Ide plugins
  • 2
    GitLab integration
  • 2
    Artifact dependencies
  • 2
    Official reliable support
  • 2
    Build progress messages promoting from running process
  • 1
    Repository-stored, full settings dsl with ide support
  • 1
    Built-in artifacts repository
  • 1
    Powerful build chains / pipelines
  • 1
    TeamCity Professional is FREE
  • 0
    High-Availability
  • 0
    Hosted internally
  • 506
    Github integration
  • 388
    Free for open source
  • 271
    Easy to get started
  • 191
    Nice interface
  • 162
    Automatic deployment
  • 72
    Tutorials for each programming language
  • 40
    Friendly folks
  • 29
    Support for multiple ruby versions
  • 28
    Osx support
  • 24
    Easy handling of secret keys
  • 6
    Fast builds
  • 4
    Support for students
  • 3
    The best tool for Open Source CI
  • 3
    Hosted
  • 3
    Build Matrices
  • 2
    Github Pull Request build
  • 2
    Straightforward Github/Coveralls integration
  • 2
    Easy of Usage
  • 2
    Integrates with everything
  • 1
    Caching resolved artifacts
  • 1
    Docker support
  • 1
    Great Documentation
  • 1
    Build matrix
  • 1
    No-brainer for CI
  • 1
    Debug build workflow
  • 1
    Ubuntu trusty is not supported
  • 1
    Free for students
  • 1
    Configuration saved with project repository
  • 1
    Multi-threaded run
  • 1
    Hipchat Integration
  • 0
    Perfect

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Jenkins
Cons of TeamCity
Cons of Travis CI
  • 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
  • 3
    High costs for more than three build agents
  • 2
    Proprietary
  • 2
    User-friendly
  • 2
    User friendly
  • 8
    Can't be hosted insternally
  • 3
    Feature lacking
  • 3
    Unstable
  • 2
    Incomplete documentation for all platforms

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

- No public GitHub repository available -
- No public GitHub repository available -

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.

What is 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.

What is 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.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Jobs that mention Jenkins, TeamCity, and Travis CI as a desired skillset
What companies use Jenkins?
What companies use TeamCity?
What companies use Travis CI?

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Jenkins?
What tools integrate with TeamCity?
What tools integrate with Travis CI?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

Mar 24 2021 at 12:57PM

Pinterest

GitJenkinsKafka+7
3
2190
GitJenkinsGroovy+4
4
2763
Dec 4 2019 at 8:01PM

Pinterest

KubernetesJenkinsTensorFlow+4
5
3325
GitHubPythonReact+42
49
40866
What are some alternatives to Jenkins, TeamCity, and Travis CI?
CircleCI
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.
Bamboo
Focus on coding and count on Bamboo as your CI and build server! Create multi-stage build plans, set up triggers to start builds upon commits, and assign agents to your critical builds and deployments.
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.
Puppet Labs
Puppet is an automated administrative engine for your Linux, Unix, and Windows systems and performs administrative tasks (such as adding users, installing packages, and updating server configurations) based on a centralized specification.
Ansible
Ansible is an IT automation tool. It can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as continuous deployments or zero downtime rolling updates. Ansible’s goals are foremost those of simplicity and maximum ease of use.
See all alternatives