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GoCD 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

GoCD
Ranking in Build Automation
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (18th), Release Automation (13th)
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 GoCD is 2.4%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 7.3%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins7.3%
GoCD2.4%
Other90.3%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Nishant Narayan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Architect at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Simplifies the pipeline process, but the access control system needs enhancement
One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified. The folder structure is another aspect that could be enhanced, as all jobs are displayed on a single page without the clear organization seen in Jenkins. Implementing a more structured approach to organizing jobs would improve user experience. AI could simplify job creation. For example, instead of manually editing pipelines as code, an AI tool could allow users to input variables and automatically generate the required jobs. It would help reduce human errors, such as issues that arise from incorrect edits in large code files.
Mahdi Mallaki - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GoCD's open-source nature is valuable."
"In terms of value added it has more than achieved everything we wanted from it and more."
"Permission separations mean that we can grant limited permissions for each team or team member."
"It has a user-friendly interface, which for free and open-source tools, the UI is really amazing and simple."
"After we switched to GO, each team can set-up their own delivery pipeline and run it themselves."
"The most notable aspect is its user interface, which we find to be user-friendly and straightforward for deploying and comprehending pipelines. We have the ability to create multiple pipelines, and in addition to that, the resource consumption is impressive."
"The UI is colorful."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its integration between different tools."
"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."
"Has enabled full automation of the company."
"The most beneficial thing is being able to do everything with just one click, which was not possible previously when any changes needed to be carried out manually."
"GitHub linking is pretty good. We have a deployment application where we can run our tests and add various variables to be passed as assertions to those tests. This is pretty fluid with Jenkins."
"Different types of jobs, such as Pipeline, Build, Freestyle, Maven, etc."
"Jenkins allows us to automate deployment, so I no longer have to do it manually."
"Having builds and test tasks triggered on commit helps not to break the product."
 

Cons

"GO doesn't come with a lot of out of the box features like other tools, don't expect that you can get it to work by clicking the NEXT button."
"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."
"The aspect that requires attention is the user management component. When integrating with BitLabs and authenticating through GitLab, there are specific features we desire. One important feature is the ability to import users directly from GitLab, along with their respective designations, and assign appropriate privileges based on that information. Allocating different privileges to users is a time-consuming process for us."
"It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified."
"User management, Documentation, Advanced GUI functionality."
"The tool must be more user-friendly."
"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."
"Its schedule builds need improvement. It should have scheduling features in the platform rather than using external plug-ins."
"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."
"Jenkins is not an easy solution to use and the configuration is not simple."
"We cannot change the ownership of any directory or file or any kind of directory."
"The onboarding of Jenkins should be smoother, and it should have more pipelines available as it's deployed on many different servers."
"Jenkins could improve by adding the ability to edit test automation and make time planning better because it is difficult."
"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."
"Partition security for the workflow of projects is not yet an option."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution and it is inexpensive."
"It's an open-source and free tool."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"Jenkins is open source."
"We are using the freeware version of Jenkins."
"Jenkins is a free open-source server."
"The open-source version is free, but small companies would not be able to afford the cloud-based version."
"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."
"Jenkins is open source and free."
"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with GoCD?
One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be sim...
What is your primary use case for GoCD?
The solution helps us deploy microservices across multiple environments.
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

 

Also Known As

Adaptive ALM, Thoughtworks Go
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ancestry.com, Barclay Card, AutoTrader, BT Financial Group, Gamesys, Nike, Vodafone, Haufe Lexware, Medidata, Hoovers
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Find out what your peers are saying about GoCD vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.