Buildkite vs GNU Make comparison

Buildkite and GNU are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Buildkite is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2, while GNU is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0. Buildkite holds a 1.6% mindshare in BA, compared to GNU’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Buildkite users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of GNU users who would recommend it.

Buildkite

Read 14 Buildkite reviews

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394 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

GNU Make

Read 6 GNU Make reviews

250 Views
250 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Buildkite

GNU Make

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GNU Make and Buildkite operate in the build automation and CI/CD pipeline category. Buildkite appears to have the upper hand due to its superior automation capabilities and extensive integrations, justifying its higher cost.

Features: GNU Make stands out with its reliability in managing code compilation tasks, support for scripts in various languages, and seamless integration with dependency builder tools like Automake. Buildkite shines with automated parallelization, a wide range of integrations, and cloud-native architecture.

Room for Improvement: GNU Make could benefit from a graphical user interface, improved beginner support, and enhanced integration flexibility with modern platforms. Buildkite might improve by reducing its initial learning curve, expanding cost-effectiveness for smaller teams, and minimizing dependency on YAML for configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GNU Make requires manual setup managed by developers, which can be a challenge for beginners. Buildkite offers a managed service with streamlined deployment and extensive documentation, making integration easier for teams. Buildkite's customer support is often praised for being responsive and effective, while GNU Make relies more on community support.

Pricing and ROI: GNU Make, being open-source, has no direct setup costs, appealing to budget-conscious projects. Buildkite involves higher costs due to a subscription-based model but tends to result in higher ROI through automation efficiencies. GNU Make is cost-efficient for smaller projects, whereas Buildkite provides greater value for large-scale operations.

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

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GNU Make

July 2025

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Helped 865,384 peers since 2012

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

Buildkite

Ranking in Build Automation

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GNU Make

Ranking in Build Automation

17th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Buildkite is 1.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GNU Make is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Prabin Silwal

Senior Engineering Consultant at ASSURANCE IQ, INC.

Has an easy setup phase while also offering good documentation

The problem we are facing sometimes is that we have lots of unit testers, and we have to wait about ten minutes to complete all of those because we want to run or find a way. It's not directly due to the limitation of the tool as well, but when we are running the spec, we want to run those parallelly and decrease the downtime so that our deployment can be faster. I think that one is not possible only due to the it also depends upon the unit test framework as well we are using. When we tried with the multiple test cases in a parallel manner, there were some dependencies, and one over another kept failing. We make those sequential calls. The aforementioned area consists of the issues my company faced while using Buildkite.

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reviewer2561757

Software 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

"Buildkite makes it easier to conduct deployment. When I merge a PR in Buildkite, it automatically starts the deployment process. It used to be challenging to shift code from the development branch to the testing branch because I had to follow up with multiple developers. Previously, I was dependent on the DevOps team and developers to handle deployments, but now it allows me to deploy the solutions myself.This has made it much easier for me to handle both non-production and production environments."

"It is a stable solution."

"They have great plugins, scalability, UI, and pipeline options. They also offer webhooks that allow integration with custom setups to send events dynamically."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"The solution can be considered as a very well-polished platform with a really great UI."

"Buildkite allows us to build automations and integration tasks effectively."

"You don't have to set up an agent in Buildkite like in Jenkins."

"The tool is simple and has no learning curve. If you know YAML, you can master it. It is simple to learn."

More Buildkite pros

"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."

"Setup is extremely straightforward."

"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."

"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."

"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."

"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."

Cons

"Since we were using Buildkite for the first time, we had a lot of difficulty understanding how it worked. We didn't find any documentation from third parties; only Buildkite provided documentation. As a result, we faced a steep learning curve. After some time, it became much easier to use. Initially, understanding certain features, like the R integration, was challenging."

"It gets very complex if you want the tool to scale automatically."

"As a newbie, I think BuildKite has several issues. For example, it can't get the status of a PR once it's closed. The syntax is easy to use, but updating a pipeline requires administrator settings, and viewing pipelines for others isn't straightforward."

"The solution should offer more options for installing an agent and give users the option of having a separate self-hosted or provisioned agent."

"BuildKite should follow some providers like GitHub Actions. They can offer a shared agent or cloud agent."

"Compared to market leaders like Azure DevOps and Jenkins, Buildkite's community is smaller, but they do have some documentation."

"I would like to see some improvements in the hooks implementation."

"Most of our projects involve both front-end and back-end development. We write the code and then create a file to set up our process, including specifying the tests we want to run. Before deploying to production, we need to install and configure certain things. We need something like Docker Pro, but I'm unsure about that. I'm familiar with the steps for using Buildkite for this process. We start by defining which tests to run."

More Buildkite 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 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."

"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find Buildkite cost-effective as it has definitely increased my productivity, especially on the deployment side. It saved a lot of my time and improved data management because I can handle different environments myself now."

"The solution's per-user pricing model suits huge enterprises but is expensive for small to medium businesses."

"I don't think the tool is expensive."

"For a business plan, it was 19 USD per month per user."

"Buildkite is known to be cheaper than GitHub Workflows, which is considered a standard in the industry. It can be cost-effective, especially for organizations that heavily utilize Docker and containerization, because every code change triggers a new build. Its integration with AWS, particularly with ECR, and its caching capabilities with layers are powerful features."

"The self-hosted option is pretty cheap."

"We used the solution’s free version."

"GNU Make is free and open source software."

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

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Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Buildkite?

One area that needs improvement in Buildkite is the requirement for rework of the code. There can be syntax errors when running the Buildkite pipeline, especially if someone has made manual changes...

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What is your primary use case for Buildkite?

I use Buildkite for deployment tasks related to building AMI images and deploying routing profile queues into Amazon Connect. This involves using Buildkite in conjunction with GitHub. We create fil...

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What advice do you have for others considering Buildkite?

With two years of experience on Buildkite, I would recommend it to others due to its manageable pipeline and the support team available for big issues. I am satisfied with it, rating its stability ...

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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.

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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

GitHub Actions vs Buildkite

Compared 34% of the time

Harness vs Buildkite

Compared 16% of the time

Tekton vs Buildkite

Compared 15% of the time

GitLab vs Buildkite

Compared 13% of the time

Nx vs Buildkite

Compared 12% of the time

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Jenkins vs GNU Make

Compared 68% of the time

Bazel vs GNU Make

Compared 32% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite

August 2025

Download Buildkite product report

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

July 2025

Download GNU Make product report

Overview

Buildkite is a powerful CI/CD tool praised for its scalability and flexibility in automating and managing complex workflows across multiple platforms. Its integration capabilities with various systems and supports for secure, customizable environments enhance development efficiency and data privacy. The feedback highlights significant boosts in productivity and operational cost reduction, making Buildkite a strategic asset for businesses aiming to streamline development tasks and align with organizational goals.

Buildkite

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

Buyer's Guide

Buildkite vs. GNU Make

July 2025

Free Report: Buildkite vs. GNU Make

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

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