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GNU Make vs Jenkins 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

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 August 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 9.9%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins9.9%
GNU Make1.7%
Other88.4%
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

"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."
"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"I think this product has all you need."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of Jenkins are the integration with GitHub, and the automation for deployment."
"We use Jenkins to automatically build Python binaries into several OS's i.e. OS X, Ubuntu, Windows 32-bit and Windows 64-bit."
"It has been helpful in monitoring the progress and understanding how the daily build is happening."
"Having builds and test tasks triggered on commit helps not to break the product."
"With Jenkins, the pipeline will take your code from any versioning system like GitHub or Bitbucket, all the security scans can happen in one go and then all the tests also get run, and you can just build one container in it and deploy it."
"The auto-schedule feature is valuable. Another valuable feature is that Jenkins does not trigger a build when there is no change in any of the systems. Jenkins also supports most of the open-source plug-ins."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to connect with different tools and technologies."
"Jenkins is a very mature product; it has got a lot of support as far as integrating Jenkins with other tools is concerned, with many plugins available in both open-source and commercial ecosystems, and it is easy to configure, easy to scale, and the initial setup is easy."
 

Cons

"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. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"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."
"It would be helpful if they had a bit more interactive UI."
"The upgrades need improvement."
"There are some difficulties when we need to execute the DB script."
"The setup of Jenkins takes a lot of time. Having faster deployment would be helpful."
"It would help if they offered more integrations."
"The documentation is not helpful, as it is not user-friendly."
"Jenkins can be improved, but it's difficult for me to explain. The initial setup could be more straightforward. If you connect Jenkins with bookings and lockouts, it can be challenging."
"The solution can be improved by introducing a handbook describing the variety of plugins that are available and what each one is used for."
 

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."
"It is an open source."
"There is no cost. It is open source."
"Jenkins is open source and free."
"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."
"The pricing for Jenkins is free."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"The solution is open source."
"I used the free OSS version all the time. It was enough for all my needs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
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: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.