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GNU Make vs Incredibuild comparison

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Executive Summary

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

GNU Make
Ranking in Build Automation
24th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Incredibuild
Ranking in Build Automation
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Incredibuild is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GNU Make1.8%
Incredibuild1.3%
Other96.9%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

JC
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…
ZM
DevOps Team Leader at Elbit Systems Ltd
Saves time for developers, which saves money for the company
We are using the Incredibuild agent to run multiple processes on all available cores. This is the improvement that we did. Instead of the machine's core doing task after task, it is now running on multiple machines. In my working environment, it is saving time for all our developers in regards to the time consumption of the builds. My team has four people who manage and interact with Incredibuild as a product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"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."
"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"I think this product has all you need."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is 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."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"It is saving time for developers, which is saving money for the company."
"For each build that runs where I need to generate a code, it takes around half an hour instead of an hour and a half."
 

Cons

"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."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"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."
"Stability could be improved. I don't know the reason for the instability because there are no logs that help me to understand the problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."
"GNU Make is free and open source software."
"Its pricing and licensing are annoying. Every year, I need to renew. If I miss the deadline date, all my processes will stop working. So, I would prefer that I wouldn't need to renew every year, instead have another solution for it. Or, if we could have an enterprise license agreement with the company, then the development team wouldn't need to spend time renewing licenses."
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Questions from the Community

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.
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.
What is your primary use case for GNU Make?
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 task...
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Sample Customers

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Over 2,000 companies worldwide across industries inluding Epic Games, Microsoft, Playstation, Nintendo, Samsung, GM, Intel, CitiGroup, Qualcomm, Boeing, Motorola, Qt, and more accelerate their development and enhance their devs’ productivity with Incredibuild.
Find out what your peers are saying about Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab and others in Build Automation. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.