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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

"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"I think this product has all you need."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"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."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."
"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."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"The most valuable features of Jenkins are the integration of automatic scripts for testing and the user's ability to use any script."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to connect with different tools and technologies."
"Jenkins's open-based framework is very valuable."
"From a deployment perspective, we don't require any passwords or any permissions and all, everything we can do from Jenkins, and whenever something fails we have the facility to check the logs so we can find the solutions and fix things, plus the initial setup is simple, the stability is good, the dashboards are very good, the solution has been very easy to use, and it offers very good, very clear documentation that is laid out well and easy to explain to a new user."
"The most valuable features of Jenkins are the integration with GitHub, and the automation for deployment."
"Distributed execution of build and test jobs."
"I highly recommend Jenkins, it is my favourite CI/CD system."
"We've achieved continuous integration and delivery on all our commits, securing the quality of all of our products on their main branches."
 

Cons

"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable 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."
"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."
"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"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."
"It would help if they offered more integrations."
"It would be helpful if they had a bit more interactive UI."
"Jenkins can be improved, but it's difficult for me to explain. The initial setup could be more straightforward. If you connect Jenkins with bookings and lockouts, it can be challenging."
"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's UI can use a facelift and the logs can use more detailed information."
"The onboarding of Jenkins should be smoother, and it should have more pipelines available as it's deployed on many different servers."
"I think the logs could be improved so that anyone using the build for the first time gets a better view as to how it's performing, what the data is, and what processing is occurring."
"They need to improve their documentation."
 

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."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
"The solution is open source."
"In our company, we do pay for the licensing of the solution."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"Jenkins is a free open-source server."
"​It is free.​"
"Jenkins is open source and free."
"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
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.
912,788 professionals have used our research since 2012.