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Jenkins vs Visual Studio App Center: What are the differences?
Introduction
Jenkins and Visual Studio App Center are popular Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tools that are used in software development to automate the build, test, and deployment processes. While both tools aim to streamline the development and release workflows, there are key differences between Jenkins and Visual Studio App Center.
Integration with Development Tools: One major difference between Jenkins and Visual Studio App Center is their integration with development tools. Jenkins is highly configurable and can integrate with a wide range of development tools and technologies, making it a versatile choice for various projects. On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center is specifically designed to integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft development ecosystem, making it an ideal choice for projects developed using Microsoft technologies such as .NET and Xamarin.
Platform Support: Another key difference lies in the platform support offered by Jenkins and Visual Studio App Center. Jenkins is an open-source tool that can be installed on almost any operating system, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. It also offers extensive support for a wide range of programming languages and software platforms. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center is a cloud-based service provided by Microsoft and is primarily focused on native and mobile app development. It offers robust support for iOS, Android, Xamarin, and React Native platforms, making it an excellent choice for mobile app development projects.
Deployment Options: Both Jenkins and Visual Studio App Center support various deployment options, but they differ in terms of their native capabilities. Jenkins provides a wide range of plugins and extensions that allow developers to configure and customize their deployment pipelines as per their requirements. It supports various deployment methods, including FTP, SSH, and containerization tools like Docker. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center offers in-built support for app distribution, beta testing, and release management for mobile app platforms. It simplifies the deployment process for mobile apps and provides a centralized platform for managing app versions and releases.
User Interface and Ease of Use: Jenkins is known for its highly customizable user interface, which allows developers to create and configure their CI/CD pipelines using a web-based interface or by writing code (Jenkinsfile). While this flexibility is beneficial for experienced users, it can be overwhelming for beginners. Visual Studio App Center, on the other hand, provides a more user-friendly and intuitive user interface that makes it easier for developers to set up and manage their CI/CD processes without the need for extensive configuration.
Scalability and Infrastructure Management: Jenkins is a self-hosted tool, which means that it requires manual setup and maintenance of the infrastructure to run and scale the Jenkins server. It provides flexibility in terms of choosing the hardware, network, and storage configurations based on project requirements. Visual Studio App Center, being a cloud-based service, eliminates the need for infrastructure management as the hosting and scaling are handled by Microsoft. It offers a scalable and reliable infrastructure that can handle large-scale CI/CD workflows without the need for manual intervention.
Community and Support: Jenkins has a large and active community of users and contributors, which results in a vast array of plugins, extensions, tutorials, and community support available online. With its open-source nature, Jenkins benefits from continuous improvements and enhancements driven by the community. Visual Studio App Center, being a proprietary tool, has a smaller user community. However, it offers dedicated technical support from Microsoft, ensuring reliable assistance in case of any issues or challenges faced during the development and deployment process.
In summary, the key differences between Jenkins and Visual Studio App Center lie in their integration with development tools, platform support, deployment options, user interface, ease of use, scalability, infrastructure management, and community support. Depending on the project requirements, developers can choose between the versatility and extensive customization options offered by Jenkins or the seamless integration with the Microsoft development ecosystem and mobile app-specific features provided by Visual Studio App Center.
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.
If your source code is on GitHub, also take a look at Github actions. https://github.com/features/actions
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.
Google cloud build can help you. It is hosted on cloud and also provide reasonable free quota.
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 !
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.
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?"
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.
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 !
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
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.
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.
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).
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.
Pros of Jenkins
- Hosted internally523
- Free open source469
- Great to build, deploy or launch anything async318
- Tons of integrations243
- Rich set of plugins with good documentation211
- Has support for build pipelines111
- Easy setup68
- It is open-source66
- Workflow plugin53
- Configuration as code13
- Very powerful tool12
- Many Plugins11
- Continuous Integration10
- Great flexibility10
- Git and Maven integration is better9
- 100% free and open source8
- Slack Integration (plugin)7
- Github integration7
- Self-hosted GitLab Integration (plugin)6
- Easy customisation6
- Pipeline API5
- Docker support5
- Fast builds4
- Hosted Externally4
- Excellent docker integration4
- Platform idnependency4
- AWS Integration3
- JOBDSL3
- It's Everywhere3
- Customizable3
- Can be run as a Docker container3
- It`w worked3
- Loose Coupling2
- NodeJS Support2
- Build PR Branch Only2
- Easily extendable with seamless integration2
- PHP Support2
- Ruby/Rails Support2
- Universal controller2
Pros of Visual Studio App Center
- Show error issues for mobile devices1
- Slack integration1
- Bug tracking integration1
- For Mobile apps diagnostics and tracking1
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Cons of Jenkins
- Workarounds needed for basic requirements13
- Groovy with cumbersome syntax10
- Plugins compatibility issues8
- Lack of support7
- Limited abilities with declarative pipelines7
- No YAML syntax5
- Too tied to plugins versions4
Cons of Visual Studio App Center
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