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GNU Make vs Jenkins comparison

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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

GNU Make
Ranking in Build Automation
19th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 10.0%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins10.0%
GNU Make1.7%
Other88.3%
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…
JI
Principal Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Efficient resource allocation and robust workflow with autoscaling capabilities
In Kubernetes, we use node-based architecture with nodes and pods and follow practices like RBAC and rollback. Multiple pods can run concurrently. We benefit from Kubernetes' ability to autoscale pods and use horizontal pod autoscalers to adjust the number of pods based on metrics like CPU or memory usage, ensuring efficient resource allocation and stability under load.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"I think this product has all you need."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Using Jenkins we have configured and automated the complete build procedure."
"Having builds and test tasks triggered on commit helps not to break the product."
"Jenkins integrates with multiple tools like Bitbucket and makes life easier. We don't have to write a lot of code since a lot of libraries are available."
"There are a large number of plugins available for integration with third party systems."
"The performance is fine, and with the huge chunk of connectors that it has, you can literally connect to anything and add anything in the pipeline, with connector parts seamlessly able to integrate into different products and systems."
"Jenkins is very easy to use."
"A lot of support material exists via a single web search of exactly what you're looking for."
"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."
 

Cons

"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."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"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."
"Jenkins has no pipelines support by default."
"Jenkins needs a faster deployment process."
"The setup of Jenkins takes a lot of time. Having faster deployment would be helpful."
"The learning curve is quite steep at the moment."
"I would like to have an integrated dashboard on top of it and a better UX to look at. The dashboard could be better in terms of integration with other tools. We should be able to have a single pane of glass across all the tools that we use where Jenkins is the pipeline. This can be a very good upgrade to it."
"One area for improvement would be the UI, which currently looks quite outdated and requires the user to go through too many steps."
"I'd like to see some more features for scriptwriting and a more user-friendly UI for creating pipelines."
"Some plugins have critical bugs and are not able to be used."
 

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."
"There is no cost. It is open source."
"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."
"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
"Jenkins is open source and free."
"Jenkins is an open-source platform."
"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."
"We are using the freeware version of Jenkins."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise58
 

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...
How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?
When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?
Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.
What needs improvement with Jenkins?
I do not have any notes for improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.