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GNU Make vs Jenkins comparison

GNU and Jenkins are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GNU is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0, while Jenkins is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. GNU holds a 1.9% mindshare in BA, compared to Jenkins’s 7.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of GNU users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Jenkins users who would recommend it.
GNU Make
Read 6 GNU Make reviews
  • 720 Views
  • 677 Comparison Views
83% willing to recommend
Jenkins
Read 92 Jenkins reviews
  • 4,645 Views
  • 4,506 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GNU Make and Jenkins compete in automation and build management. Jenkins has an advantage with its extensive plugin ecosystem and CI/CD capabilities.

Features: GNU Make is known for handling dependency graphs and rules efficiently. It supports static pattern rules for source compilation and integrates with third-party dependency builders. Jenkins features an extensive set of plugins, offers advanced CI/CD functionalities, and integrates with various tools, enhancing its extensibility.

Room for Improvement: GNU Make could enhance its GUI and modernize its declarative syntax to support advanced automation needs. Jenkins requires improvements in initial configuration complexity and its extensive reliance on plugins can make troubleshooting time-consuming. Better native support features could streamline workflows.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GNU Make is easy to install, requiring minimal configuration and providing a lightweight solution. Jenkins demands more setup effort, but benefits from comprehensive documentation and community support, offering scalable orchestration suitable for large projects.

Pricing and ROI: Both GNU Make and Jenkins are open source without direct setup costs. GNU Make provides a reliable ROI for simple builds. Jenkins offers scalability and automation efficiencies, which justify potential higher initial investments in configuration and maintenance.

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To learn more, read our detailed GNU Make vs. Jenkins Report (Updated: April 2026).
Buyer's Guide
GNU Make vs. Jenkins
April 2026
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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 April 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 7.7%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins7.7%
GNU Make1.9%
Other90.4%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

JC
Josh Call
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…
Read full review
Mahdi Mallaki - PeerSpot reviewer
Mahdi Mallaki
Senior Devops Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has a community of plugin providers but needs improvement in Kubernetes integration
Integrating Jenkins with other tools or solutions has presented some challenges. For instance, when attempting to integrate Jenkins with Kubernetes, I encountered numerous errors, which took several days to resolve. In Jenkins, adding a feature typically involves incorporating the repository feature separately. Jenkins lacks built-in Git repository functionality, necessitating an external Git repository to store Jenkins manifests. In contrast, GitLab offers an integrated Git repository and pipeline runner, streamlining the process. One improvement for Jenkins could be integrating a Git server, simplifying the management of CI/CD pipelines. Currently, with Jenkins, modifying pipeline manifests requires navigating to a separate Git repository. In GitLab, however, manifest changes can be made directly within the repository.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"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."
"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."
"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."
More GNU Make pros
"I like that you can find a wide range of plugins for Jenkins."
"It is open source, flexible, scalable, and easy to use. It is easy to maintain for the administrator. It is a continuous integration tool, and its enterprise version is quite mature. It has good integrations and plug-ins. Azure DevOps can also be integrated with Jenkins."
"The automated elements are easy to use and you can put them into your server."
"Jenkins is a great tool for continuous integration."
"A lot of support material exists via a single web search of exactly what you're looking for."
"We used it for all continuous integration parts, like automation testing, deployment, etc."
"The most valuable features are Jenkins Pipelines for ALM and full Deploy Cycle."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to connect with different tools and technologies."
More Jenkins pros
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"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."
"One area for improvement would be the UI, which currently looks quite outdated and requires the user to go through too many steps."
"For automation tests, Jenkins nodes some times experience instability."
"The disadvantage of Jenkins is writing Groovy scripts."
"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."
"UI is quite outdated."
"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."
"The onboarding of Jenkins should be smoother, and it should have more pipelines available as it's deployed on many different servers."
More Jenkins cons
 

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."
"The tool is open-source."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."
"This is an open-source solution for the basic features. However, if an organization wishes to include specific functionality, outside of the basic package, there are extra costs involved."
"There is no cost. It is open source."
"Jenkins is a free open-source server."
"It is a free product."
More Jenkins pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise57
 

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.
See all answers
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.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Jenkins?
I do not have any notes for improvement.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time
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Tekton vs GNU Make
Compared 7% of the time
GitLab vs GNU Make Logo
GitLab vs GNU Make
Compared 6% of the time
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GitLab vs Jenkins
Compared 8% of the time
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Compared 5% of the time
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Compared 5% of the time
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Compared 5% of the time
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Compared 4% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Build Automation
March 2026
GNU Make reportDownload GNU Make product report
Buyer's Guide
Jenkins
April 2026
Jenkins reportDownload Jenkins product report
 

Overview

Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.
GNU

Jenkins is an award-winning application that monitors executions of repeated jobs, such as building a software project or jobs run by cron.

Jenkins
 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Buyer's Guide
GNU Make vs. Jenkins
April 2026
Free Report: GNU Make vs. Jenkins
Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
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