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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
19th
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
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 10.0%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins10.0%
GNU Make1.7%
Other88.3%
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…
JI
Principal Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Efficient resource allocation and robust workflow with autoscaling capabilities
In Kubernetes, we use node-based architecture with nodes and pods and follow practices like RBAC and rollback. Multiple pods can run concurrently. We benefit from Kubernetes' ability to autoscale pods and use horizontal pod autoscalers to adjust the number of pods based on metrics like CPU or memory usage, ensuring efficient resource allocation and stability under load.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"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."
"I think this product has all you need."
"It can scale easily."
"GitHub linking is pretty good. We have a deployment application where we can run our tests and add various variables to be passed as assertions to those tests. This is pretty fluid with Jenkins."
"In this solution, you can write scripts and put job parameters in them with time and dates when to activate, create a web book that is automatically configured, and easily use automated elements with plenty of plugins to push your code into a target or container."
"The solution is scalable and has a large number of plugins that can help you scale it to your needs."
"Other than that, we're very happy with the product."
"Jenkins optimizes the CI/CD process, enhances automation, and ensures efficiency and management of our build and deployment pipeline."
"The auto-schedule feature is valuable. Another valuable feature is that Jenkins does not trigger a build when there is no change in any of the systems. Jenkins also supports most of the open-source plug-ins."
"Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes."
 

Cons

"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"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 does not provide traditional customer support."
"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."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"I sometimes face a bottleneck when installing the plugins on an offline machine. Mapping the dependencies and then installing the correct sequence of dependencies is a nightmare, and it took me two days to do it."
"Jenkins could improve by adding the ability to edit test automation and make time planning better because it is difficult. It should be easier to do."
"Performance-wise. This needs to be improved. Not only performance-wise, some functionality or some features can be added to Jenkins."
"Jenkins can improve by continuing to add additional plugins for all the new solutions that are coming out within the cloud sphere."
"Jenkins could improve in areas related to Kubernetes and Docker container integration, like machine allocation of nodes and Marshaling integration improvements."
"I would like them to provide space for people to have a central node that stores all the logs of workspace information in a distributed fashion to facilitate backup and restoration. Currently, everything is stored on one node, so you need to set up distributed storage or an endpoint that you can use for backing up your information."
"Provisioning of VMs during deployment."
"I would like to see even more integrations included in the next release."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GNU Make is free and open source software."
"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."
"Jenkins is open source."
"Jenkins is an open-source platform."
"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."
"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."
"It is an open source."
"The open-source version is free, but small companies would not be able to afford the cloud-based version."
"Jenkins is an open-source tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
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?
Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.
What needs improvement with Jenkins?
I do not have any notes for improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.