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GNU Make vs Jenkins comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

GNU Make
Ranking in Build Automation
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 10.5%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins10.5%
GNU Make1.7%
Other87.8%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

JC
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Enhances productivity with efficient dependency handling and a straightforward setup
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for tasks like compiling C++ code. In the industry, AI developers, for example, use GNU Make in their work…
HG
Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Automated pipelines have halved deployment time and allow developers to focus only on coding
The best features that Jenkins offers me are high customizability along with the support of Groovy language, which allows me to write my own functions and logic to deploy applications and configure the pipeline according to my use case. Its high integration capability with many plugins is also a significant advantage. For example, we have certain cloud functions running on Google Cloud Run, and we deploy those in the form of containers. Jenkins is highly integratable with Docker through plugins, so we installed those plugins in Jenkins and provided the credentials and logic for execution. Additionally, we have a Bitbucket environment and AWS deployments where we also use Jenkins' strong AWS plugins to deploy resources effectively. Thanks to these plugins, it's easy to deploy rather than creating custom logic. I have covered pretty much everything about the features of Jenkins.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Makefiles are extremely easy to work with using any preferred editor. GNU Make can be run directly from the terminal, not requiring any time wasted on clicking."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"I think this product has all you need."
"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it. Not having it, developers would probably have to resort to doing everything manually or via shell scripts."
"Full-featured syntax allows building strategies as simple or as complex as one wishes, and declarative approach fits the task really well. Wide adoption also means that everybody knows what GNU Make is and how to use it."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."
"We can schedule anything with Jenkins, which is useful for deployment or anything that requires scheduling. It also has multiple plugins we can use for Maven, JUnit, etc."
"Has a good interface, is reliable and saves time."
"I have found the following features extremely helpful: It is open source and user-friendly, it can deploy code instantly and generate test reports, the requirements for continuous integration and continuous deployment can be configured manually, integration work is automated, and it can be integrated with other major tools."
"Jenkins' stability is good, and we haven't had any issues with downtime."
"The performance is fine, and with the huge chunk of connectors that it has, you can literally connect to anything and add anything in the pipeline, with connector parts seamlessly able to integrate into different products and systems."
"Jenkins is a great tool for continuous integration."
"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."
"The initial setup is pretty simple."
 

Cons

"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."
"GNU Make requires using the Tab symbol as the first symbol of command line for execution. In some text editors this can be problematic, as they automatically insert spaces instead of tabs."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"Jenkins is not an easy solution to use and the configuration is not simple. They can improve the solution by adding a graphical interface that is more user-friendly."
"The solution can be improved by introducing a handbook describing the variety of plugins that are available and what each one is used for."
"For this solution to be a 10, it has to be a lot more stable. Maybe the public version of Jenkins is stable, but in our case it's not stable."
"They should improve the Version Control tracking system in Jenkins."
"In my opinion, there is an issue with the scalability. After Jenkins has big count of jobs, it begins to lose performance and you need to start one more server with a separate Jenkins and migrate some jobs there."
"The scriptwriting process could be improved in this solution in the future."
"Jenkins could improve the integration with other platforms."
"There is no way for the cloud repositories to trigger Jenkins."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."
"GNU Make is free and open source software."
"​It is free.​"
"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."
"The solution is one of the lowest costs compared to competitors."
"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."
"The solution is open source."
"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."
"I used the free OSS version all the time. It was enough for all my needs."
"In our company, we do pay for the licensing of the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GNU Make?
GNU Make is a free solution that comes with Linux, which positively impacts operational costs by eliminating licensing fees.
What needs improvement with GNU Make?
I am not familiar enough with it to suggest any specific new features or areas for improvement. It occupies its niche well.
What is your primary use case for GNU Make?
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for task...
How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?
When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?
We are using a community version of Jenkins and did not purchase it through the AWS Marketplace. The main cost for using Jenkins is related to the server it is hosted on and the allocated capacity....
What needs improvement with Jenkins?
Jenkins has many outdated plugins, and several are paid, which can be unnecessary. Better plugin maintainability is needed, and given the AI advancements today, AI support in Jenkins would be benef...
 

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Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.