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Bamboo vs IBM Rational Build Forge 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

Bamboo
Ranking in Build Automation
7th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Rational Build Forge
Ranking in Build Automation
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Bamboo is 6.5%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Rational Build Forge is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Cuneyt-Gurses - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for continuous deployment, but the stability must be improved
The setup is moderately difficult. It is not highly complicated, but it is not easy. We must go through some steps to complete the implementation. Once the product is implemented, it will be stable. We face some challenges since the tool is deployed on-premise. The capabilities are adequate for our needs, though.
it_user1330545 - PeerSpot reviewer
Great reporting features and very functional
The solution could be more user friendly. Trying to train somebody on it can be difficult. If you're in this field, you kind of learn the tools, but trying to show a PM how to find report sheets to pull data was difficult. I had to show them how to write the queries and pull the data that they needed. It's not a layman's solution. If you're working with a programmer or with an architect, you won't have issues trying to relay how to utilize the tool. It was for those who cut the checks where there were problems enabling them to pull the data they required. I guess the answer is DevOps, but it depends on your environment. Just being able to sign into dashboards and get accurate results was my biggest thing with my PMs on my projects. They like charts and pie graphs, the ability to see things at a glance data where they could make decisions on the fly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the significant benefits of Bamboo is its built-in support for numerous clients and the ability to tailor its capabilities to your specific requirements. This high level of customization enables you to create pipelines that are ideally suited to your needs, making it an invaluable tool for conducting advanced testing."
"The tool is useful for continuous deployment."
"The platform helps us with automated and timely backup. It provides data replication as well."
"One of the big things that made us choose Bamboo, is it seamlessly integrates its APIs into NetSuite, which is our main ELP system."
"It can do the CI pipeline well."
"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."
"In my experience Bamboo is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Bamboo is that it is a good tool for CI/CD integration."
"Very good reporting features."
"All features are useful. Our customer doesn't have any complaints about the tool. It works pretty well for what they want and what they need to do."
 

Cons

"It can be challenging for someone new to the system or ecosystem to grasp, making it difficult to train new people and help them understand."
"The tool is not capable of using YAML efficiently."
"The performance around the deployment feature could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Bamboo could improve by having compatibility with GitLab. It would be better to have this platform for deploying code and storing container registries. Bamboo does not have a container registry. Additionally, there could be more features added."
"Not user friendly for the layman."
"Its logging can be improved. When something goes wrong, it is not always very easy to find the problem. It is hard to identify whether the problem is because of low memory in the server or some configuration in Rational Build Forge. The error logs are not very detailed, and they should provide more information. It should also have more integration with third-party tools. It would be great to have more integration with third-party tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten."
"I rate the solution's pricing a three out of five."
"There is a subscription required to use Bamboo."
"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."
"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."
"The price of Bamboo is reasonable."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user217035 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
12%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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.
What needs improvement with Bamboo?
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 we...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Rational Build Forge
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Neocleus, MuleSoft, Interspire
Cars.com
Find out what your peers are saying about Bamboo vs. IBM Rational Build Forge and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
860,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.