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

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
19th
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 2.6%, up from 1.5% 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%
GoCD2.6%
Other89.7%
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

"Permission separations mean that we can grant limited permissions for each team or team member."
"In terms of value added it has more than achieved everything we wanted from it and more."
"GoCD's open-source nature is valuable."
"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."
"It has a user-friendly interface, which for free and open-source tools, the UI is really amazing and simple."
"The UI is colorful."
"After we switched to GO, each team can set-up their own delivery pipeline and run it themselves."
"Jenkins automated the build and test portion of the CI/CD pipeline."
"The solution is scalable and concurrent users have access to the platform."
"The most valuable feature of Jenkins is its continuous deployment. We can deploy to multi-cluster and multi-regions in the cloud."
"Jenkins is a great tool for continuous integration."
"Jenkins's open-based framework is very valuable."
"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."
"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."
"The tool must be more user-friendly."
"User management, Documentation, Advanced GUI functionality."
"It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified."
"Jenkins could improve by adding the ability to edit test automation and make time planning better because it is difficult."
"The enterprise version is less stable than the open-source version."
"And I don't care too much for the Jenkins user interface. It's not that user-friendly compared to other solutions available right now."
"Some kind of SaaS product would be helpful in providing organizational structure."
"The UI of Jenkins could improve."
"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of an Artifactory (Universal artifact repository manager)."
"I would like to have an integrated dashboard on top of it and a better UX to look at."
"They need more useful tutorials about how to write database related plugins."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution and it is inexpensive."
"It's an open-source and free tool."
"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."
"It could be cheaper because there are many solutions available in the market. We are paying yearly."
"The open-source version is free, but small companies would not be able to afford the cloud-based version."
"Jenkins is an open-source tool."
"The solution is one of the lowest costs compared to competitors."
"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."
"​It is free.​"
"It is a free product."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.
886,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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: April 2026.
886,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.