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GNU Make vs Tekton 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
24th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tekton
Ranking in Build Automation
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
37
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 Tekton is 3.9%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tekton3.9%
GNU Make1.8%
Other94.3%
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…
reviewer2741265 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Benefit from a smooth learning curve and efficient adaptability
After seeing Jenkins and Tekton, I think Tekton is quite built on top of Kubernetes, so the learning curve is minimal. If you are working with Kubernetes, then OpenShift created Tekton on top of that, making it easily adaptable. Tekton is highly customizable. With Kubernetes, we can customize on our own and create custom builders. If teams have time and want to make enhancements, they can do it themselves. Whatever OpenShift is providing regarding Tekton is sufficient. It is easy to use because we don't need to write every pod step every time. A proper DevOps engineer can help once or twice, and development teams can easily adapt to that, make small shell script changes in the steps, understand the process, and work with it.

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 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."
"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."
"GNU make is a build automation utility for running builds on various Linux flavored platforms."
"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"The feature that I like most about Tekton is that it is built for Kubernetes, so we can utilize our resources effectively."
"I find it beneficial to show data from Tekton to another GitHub or Bitbucket pipeline."
"We just have some configuration files, and it will handle the deployments smoother and faster compared to CI/CD 2.0."
"I like the setup of the dashboard."
"We can make a lot of customizations, and data sharing between tasks using workspaces is very convenient."
"The flexibility of Tekton is the most valuable feature"
"The tool offers flexibility and compatibility."
"I would say the customization ability that Tekton provides is good."
 

Cons

"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"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."
"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."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"I didn't get the intention of scalability. Scalability means based on the load, it will automatically gain resources and run. The question of pipeline scalability remains unclear."
"RBAC is really needed for Tekton."
"Some of the tool's cons include its minimalistic dashboard, which lacks detailed information and control compared to other tools like Jenkins or GitLab. Additionally, it's primarily used by Japanese companies."
"It would be beneficial to find case studies or more information on complex implementations."
"One area where Tekton can improve is log management."
"One area for improvement is the number of CRDs created during installation. Tekton currently creates 10 to 11 CRDs, which can be overwhelming."
"The product's UI could be improved, as there are occasional latency issues. The triggering part, especially the CRD installation needs enhancement."
"Incorporating AI could be a potential enhancement in the future."
 

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."
"The tool is open-source and free to use."
"Tekton is an open-source tool."
"It is entirely open source and free of charge."
"The solution is open-source."
"The product is free of cost."
"The product is free and open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
6%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

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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 needs improvement with Tekton?
I didn't get the intention of scalability. Scalability means based on the load, it will automatically gain resources and run. The question of pipeline scalability remains unclear. It's quit...
What is your primary use case for Tekton?
We use Tekton for build and deployments. For LMP testing, we use the Tekton pipeline. We also use GitHub CI/CD. For infrastructure pipelines and Infrastructure as Code (IaC), we use Tekton. Previou...
 

Comparisons

 

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Sample Customers

Information Not Available
The Home Depot, PayPal, Target, HSBC, McKesson, Oncology Venture
Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. Tekton and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.