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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 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

"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."
"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."
"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 a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"I think this product has all you need."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."
"The most valuable features I have found are it can integrate other services as a plugin."
"Jenkins is a great solution if you're looking at automation because it reduces manual work and improves performance."
"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."
"Jenkins is a very mature product."
"The most valuable features of Jenkins are creating builds, and connecting them with Sonar for Sonar analysis, and additionally we connect it with other vulnerability tools such as WhiteSource which is useful."
"Jenkins is stable, user-friendly, and helps with continuous integration. As of today, I can't see any tool that's better than Jenkins."
"Jenkins has greatly improved the time it takes to deliver a software package to the market."
"It's fantastic. I like it, and I have no problem with it."
 

Cons

"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"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 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."
"There are a lot of things that they can try to improvise. They can reduce a lot of configurations. It is currently supporting Groovy for scripting. It would be really good if it can be improvised for Python because, for most of the automation, we have Python as a script. It would be good if can also support Python. We have a lot of Android builds. These Android builds can be a part of Jenkins. It can have some plug-ins or configurations for Android builds. There should also be some internal matrix to check the performance. We also want to have more REST API support, which is currently not much in Jenkins. We are not able to get more information about running Jenkins. More REST API support should be provided."
"They need to improve their documentation."
"The scriptwriting process could be improved in this solution in the future."
"The user interface could be updated a little."
"Developer documentation for plugins, plugin development, integrations: Sometimes it’s tricky to do pretty obvious things."
"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."
"Adding support for OIDC and internal user databases simultaneously would improve Jenkins."
"I would like to have an integrated dashboard on top of it and a better UX to look at. The dashboard could be better in terms of integration with other tools. We should be able to have a single pane of glass across all the tools that we use where Jenkins is the pipeline. This can be a very good upgrade to it."
 

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."
"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."
"In our company, we do pay for the licensing of the solution."
"It could be cheaper because there are many solutions available in the market. We are paying yearly."
"There is no cost. It is open source."
"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."
"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."
"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."
"Jenkins is a free open-source server."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
17%
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.
911,473 professionals have used our research since 2012.