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…
AllenUmlas - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at Etisalat
Streamlines the CI/CD process with its user-friendly interface, extensive plugin ecosystem and efficient automation capabilities
Jenkins is incredibly user-friendly, so I haven't encountered any difficulties using it. It's the only product I've used for automation, but I find it to be very intuitive and effective. Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes. We're leveraging Jenkins to automate tasks related to Telco, particularly in upgrading the manual orchestration. It's a critical tool for streamlining our operations.

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."
"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."
"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."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"It's very easy to learn."
"Jenkins is a CI/CD tool and is the most robust tool."
"It's very useful when you want to automate different processes from beginning to end."
"We really appreciate that this solution is plug and play. When coding in the version control system, this product completes the build process automatically."
"Has a good interface, is reliable and saves time."
"The deployment of traditional Jenkins is easy."
"Very easy to understand for newcomers."
"The most valuable feature of Jenkins is its open source."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The documentation could be more friendly, and more examples of how to use it."
"Jenkins could improve by allowing more scripting languages. We need to use Groovy scripting and it is difficult to debug and it is not ideal for creating file scripts. We tried to search for assistance but we did not find much help."
"I do not have any notes for improvement."
"Support should be provided at no cost, as there is no free support available for any of the free versions."
"Tasks such as deployment, cloning, database switchover, and all other database missions and tasks are being done through Jenkins. If a job does not go through, at times the error message does not clearly indicate what caused the failure. I have to escalate it to the Jenkins DevOps team just to see what caused the failure. If the error message is clear, then I wouldn't have to escalate the issue to different teams."
"Adding support for OIDC and internal user databases simultaneously would improve Jenkins."
"Jenkins takes a long time to create archive files."
"It would be helpful if they had a bit more interactive UI."
 

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 an open-source tool."
"The pricing for Jenkins is free."
"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."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."
"​It is free.​"
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.
882,813 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
18%
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 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.
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.
882,813 professionals have used our research since 2012.