Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

GNU Make vs Jenkins comparison

 

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
16th
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
4th
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 February 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 7.2%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jenkins7.2%
GNU Make1.7%
Other91.1%
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."
"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."
"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."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."
"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"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."
"The automated elements are easy to use and you can put them into your server."
"Jenkins is very user-friendly."
"Jenkins is very easy to use."
"Jenkins' most valuable feature is Pipeline."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its integration between different tools."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to connect with different tools and technologies."
"Has enabled full automation of the company."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Jenkins is an open-source solution, and people tend to stay on the same version for a long time. When you look for an answer on Google, you often find something that doesn't relate to your implementation. The plugins are both the aspect of Jenkins and also one of the worst because the plugins can have different versions, so it's hard to figure out how to solve the problems."
"Better and easy-to-use integration with Docker would be an improvement."
"Partition security for the workflow of projects is not yet an option."
"Jenkins could improve in areas related to Kubernetes and Docker container integration, like machine allocation of nodes and Marshaling integration improvements."
"Sometimes you have Jenkins restarting because of OOM errors."
"UI is quite outdated."
"In our case, we have several products built using Jenkins. It is quite difficult to navigate into the latest stable build in a given OS."
"A more user-friendly UI for creating pipelines would be helpful."
 

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."
"It is an open source."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"The tool is open-source."
"It is a free product."
"Jenkins is open source."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
"We are using the freeware version of Jenkins."
"​It is free.​"
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user184734 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at Facebook
Jan 22, 2015
I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.
Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

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 do you like most about Jenkins?
Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.
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.
 

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: February 2026.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.