Bamboo vs GNU Make comparison

Atlassian and GNU are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Atlassian is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0, while GNU is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. Atlassian holds a 4.3% mindshare in BA, compared to GNU’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 78% of Atlassian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of GNU users who would recommend it.

Bamboo

Read 23 Bamboo reviews

1,865 Views
1,772 Comparison Views

78% willing to recommend

GNU Make

Read 6 GNU Make reviews

412 Views
396 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Bamboo

GNU Make

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GNU Make and Bamboo are products competing in build automation and continuous integration. GNU Make holds an edge in simplicity and cost-effectiveness, while Bamboo stands out for its comprehensive features making it suitable for larger projects.

Features: GNU Make is efficient in automating build processes with its rule-based build paradigm and dependency management, making it ideal for smaller projects. It supports third-party integrations and nested makefile usage. Bamboo, meanwhile, offers continuous integration, delivery, and deployment capabilities with support for multiple platforms. It integrates well with the Atlassian ecosystem, providing numerous tools for modern software development.

Room for Improvement: GNU Make could benefit from an enhanced graphical user interface and broader support for non-standard makefile names. Additional features for improved integration with third-party tools would enhance its appeal. Bamboo might improve by reducing its complexity to simplify ease of use, enhancing integration with non-Atlassian products, and offering more competitive pricing options to broaden its market base.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GNU Make offers straightforward deployment with its open-source model but relies on user expertise and self-service support. Bamboo provides a comprehensive deployment experience with dedicated professional support, valuable for environments needing integrated services and fast troubleshooting.

Pricing and ROI: GNU Make provides a low-cost entry as a free open-source tool, ideal for small to medium projects. Bamboo's higher initial setup and subscription costs are justified by its extensive features and better long-term ROI for enterprise use, enhancing productivity for larger teams.

To learn more, read our detailed Bamboo vs. GNU Make Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Bamboo vs. GNU Make

December 2025

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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

Bamboo

Ranking in Build Automation

10th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GNU Make

Ranking in Build Automation

16th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Bamboo is 4.3%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GNU Make is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Bamboo	4.3%
GNU Make	1.5%
Other	94.2%

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Christo Louw

Director at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Automation has streamlined build and deployment workflows and provides clear project reporting

Regarding improvements for Bamboo, I can't think of anything right now. Bamboo is serving the purpose that we needed it for. I would say pipelines for model building could be an area of focus. However, I can't really comment on that because I haven't looked at Bamboo to assist with machine learning pipelines. If they haven't focused on building MLOps pipelines, that's definitely an area where they could assist businesses. I haven't looked at what Bamboo offers for MLOps, so it's possible that they've already built in features. Machine learning and AI are in big demand at the moment. If they haven't focused too much on MLOps, that's probably where they can improve.

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Josh Call

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Bamboo's integration with the rest of Atlassian's tech tools, like Jira, helps manage the end-to-end development and release process."

"Bamboo was used extensively in our organization for PCA compliance."

"The main benefits Bamboo provides for me and my team are the automation to pick up code changes and automate the deployments, building images."

"The most valuable features of Bamboo are its performance and UI. Additionally, there are a lot of useful plugins, integration with other solutions, such as Bitbucket and Jira, and a helpful online community."

"We use Bamboo to automate all our test builds and deployments. It integrates with tools like the ReportPortal to help us check and evaluate processes. When we initiate commands, it automatically checks for scaling issues or failures related to new code. Based on these evaluations, it provides reports in the ReportPortal, helping us decide whether to implement changes."

"It's one of the best solutions in this line of work. We have many Atlassian products. We use Bamboo, JIRA, Service Desk, and some other Atlassian plugins. We like that it's easy to integrate into each other. It's a suite of services."

"The tool is useful for continuous deployment."

"One of the big things that made us choose Bamboo, is it seamlessly integrates its APIs into NetSuite, which is our main ELP system."

More Bamboo 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."

"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."

"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."

Cons

"Integrating workflows with other platforms can be challenging. The capabilities of these platforms sometimes fall short compared to others. Initially, it was difficult for us because the plugins were very limited."

"From my personal experience regarding scalability and the ability to scale, I find that sometimes the agents run out of resources and then it takes quite a while to get additional infrastructure."

"Bamboo is a bit complicated to use compared to other solutions, such as GitLab. You have to integrate different actions that are difficult that could be made easier."

"It should be much easier to use. It shouldn't require a lot of reading to be able to use it. It should have just two or three screens rather than hundreds of screens requiring a lot of clicking. It also requires a lot of integration. It has a steep learning curve. It takes a lot of time to understand and put in the data. There is also no proper training."

"The tool is not capable of using YAML efficiently."

"Bamboo’s technical support services, in terms of speed of response, need improvement."

"Bamboo can improve by providing more with scripting, such as they have with Jenkins. Bamboo is more UI-driven at this time, Jenkins is going in that direction too."

"The performance around the deployment feature could be improved."

More Bamboo cons

"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 does not provide traditional customer support."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The server products for small teams used to offer excellent pricing. However, Atlassian has since changed the offering and the pricing is more expensive. I do still think the solution offers good value for money."

"The price of Bamboo is reasonable."

"I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten."

"There is a subscription required to use Bamboo."

"If Bamboo could provide more flexibility on pricing, that would help. On the agent side, if you want to increase the number of agents it should be less expensive. If they can provide some better pricing model, it will help, whether we are going to use it or are already using it."

"I rate the solution's pricing a three out of five."

"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."

"GNU Make is free and open source software."

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Comparison Review

it_user217035

Senior iOS Developer at a media company with 5,001-10,000 employees

May 27, 2015

Bamboo vs. Jenkins

A biased and subjective comparison of Bamboo and Jenkins as CI servers for mobile development, based on practical experience with both. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (Delivery, Distribution) has been around for quite a while. But surprisingly enough on a global scale it pretty…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Government

13%

Computer Software Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	9

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Bamboo?

Bamboo's integration with the rest of Atlassian's tech tools, like Jira, helps manage the end-to-end development and release process.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Bamboo?

I rate the solution's pricing a three out of five.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Bamboo?

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for GNU Make?

See all answers

Comparisons

GitLab vs Bamboo

Compared 18% of the time

GitHub Actions vs Bamboo

Compared 16% of the time

Tekton vs Bamboo

Compared 10% of the time

Harness vs Bamboo

Compared 8% of the time

Jenkins vs Bamboo

Compared 7% of the time

More Bamboo Competitors

Jenkins vs GNU Make

Compared 41% of the time

Bazel vs GNU Make

Compared 23% of the time

CloudBees vs GNU Make

Compared 19% of the time

TeamCity vs GNU Make

Compared 17% of the time

More GNU Make Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Bamboo

January 2026

Download Bamboo product report

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

January 2026

Download GNU Make product report

Overview

Bamboo is a continuous integration and delivery tool that ties automated builds, tests and releases together in a single workflow. It works great alongside JIRA and Stash providing a fully traceable deployment pipeline.

Atlassian

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

GNU

Sample Customers

Neocleus, MuleSoft, Interspire

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Bamboo vs. GNU Make

December 2025

Free Report: Bamboo vs. GNU Make

Find out what your peers are saying about Bamboo vs. GNU Make and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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