No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
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 August 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 9.9%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins9.9%
GNU Make1.7%
Other88.4%
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

"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"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."
"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"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."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"Jenkins's open-based framework is very valuable."
"Jenkins allows us to automate deployment, so I no longer have to do it manually."
"The deploying and assessing of the development of our code and our application has been really useful, it's getting a bit easier for us to use Jenkins, and it is really helping us."
"I highly recommend Jenkins, it is my favourite CI/CD system."
"We use Jenkins for everything, empowering developers to have the confidence to deploy their solutions themselves into production instead of asking us as an operations guide."
"It is open source, flexible, scalable, and easy to use."
"Jenkins is a CI/CD tool and is the most robust tool."
"We chose this solution because it is in line with the budget and customer preferences."
 

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."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"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."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"There might be unnecessary overheads if you're trying to use Jenkins for very simple deployments."
"Upgrading and maintaining plugins can be painful, as sometimes upgrading a plugin can break functionality of another plugin that a job is dependent on."
"Jenkins takes a long time to create archive files."
"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."
"It does not have a very user-friendly interface."
"The UI of Jenkins could improve."
"The enterprise version is less stable than the open-source version."
"This solution could be improved by removing the storage of unnecessary data such as the history of test deployments that were unsuccessful."
 

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 could be cheaper because there are many solutions available in the market. We are paying yearly."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."
"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."
"The tool is open-source."
"It is a free product."
"The solution is one of the lowest costs compared to competitors."
"The solution is open source."
"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
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: August 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.