GNU Make Reviews

Vendor: GNU

4.2 out of 5

6 reviews
83% willing to recommend

510 followers

What is GNU Make?

Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

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GNU Make is the #16 ranked solution in top Build Automation solutions. PeerSpot users give GNU Make an average rating of 8.4 out of 10. GNU Make is most commonly compared to Jenkins: GNU Make vs Jenkins.

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

March 2025

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Helped 839,422 peers since 2012

Featured GNU Make reviews

reviewer2561757

Software at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

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…

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it_user1065

Senior Manager of Data Center at a integrator with 51-200 employees

Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files. Make enables the installation of a program on the nix (unix,linux) platform through a process of running the configure command followed by make and then make install command. It automatically determines which modules of a program to recompile and automatically compiles them. It works on makefile database and last modification time stamps to update particular modules. The GNU make reads the makefile in the current destination directory and begins processing rules. The make files from GNU make basically contain explicit rules, implicit rules, comments and directives.

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it_user790464

Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

Lack of any GUI, full-featured declarative syntax, wide adoption. 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.

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GNU Make mindshare

As of March 2025, the mindshare of GNU Make in the Build Automation category stands at 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

"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."
"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."

Room for Improvement

"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."
"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."