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GoCD 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

GoCD
Ranking in Build Automation
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (15th), Release Automation (11th)
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GoCD is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 10.5%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Nishant Narayan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplifies the pipeline process, but the access control system needs enhancement
One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified. The folder structure is another aspect that could be enhanced, as all jobs are displayed on a single page without the clear organization seen in Jenkins. Implementing a more structured approach to organizing jobs would improve user experience. AI could simplify job creation. For example, instead of manually editing pipelines as code, an AI tool could allow users to input variables and automatically generate the required jobs. It would help reduce human errors, such as issues that arise from incorrect edits in large code files.
Mahdi Mallaki - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a community of plugin providers but needs improvement in Kubernetes integration
Integrating Jenkins with other tools or solutions has presented some challenges. For instance, when attempting to integrate Jenkins with Kubernetes, I encountered numerous errors, which took several days to resolve. In Jenkins, adding a feature typically involves incorporating the repository feature separately. Jenkins lacks built-in Git repository functionality, necessitating an external Git repository to store Jenkins manifests. In contrast, GitLab offers an integrated Git repository and pipeline runner, streamlining the process. One improvement for Jenkins could be integrating a Git server, simplifying the management of CI/CD pipelines. Currently, with Jenkins, modifying pipeline manifests requires navigating to a separate Git repository. In GitLab, however, manifest changes can be made directly within the repository.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GoCD's open-source nature is valuable."
"The UI is colorful."
"Permission separations mean that we can grant limited permissions for each team or team member."
"The most notable aspect is its user interface, which we find to be user-friendly and straightforward for deploying and comprehending pipelines. We have the ability to create multiple pipelines, and in addition to that, the resource consumption is impressive."
"Also, the ability to customize these plugins is valuable. Its user-friendliness stands out, especially in its user interface which allows easy installation and configuration."
"It is very useful for us to be able to collect and manage automatic processing pipelines."
"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. You can just build one container in it and deploy it."
"The most valuable features of Jenkins are the ease of use and the information about how to use the features is readily available on the internet. Additionally, with the solution, I can use other reporting tools, such as Flow."
"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."
"We used it for all continuous integration parts, like automation testing, deployment, etc."
"It is open source, flexible, scalable, and easy to use. It is easy to maintain for the administrator. It is a continuous integration tool, and its enterprise version is quite mature. It has good integrations and plug-ins. Azure DevOps can also be integrated with Jenkins."
"I love Jenkins. I like that you work on anything, and you make anything. Jenkins is very important for my team. I am satisfied with the product."
 

Cons

"The aspect that requires attention is the user management component. When integrating with BitLabs and authenticating through GitLab, there are specific features we desire. One important feature is the ability to import users directly from GitLab, along with their respective designations, and assign appropriate privileges based on that information. Allocating different privileges to users is a time-consuming process for us."
"The tool must be more user-friendly."
"It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified."
"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."
"Jenkins takes a long time to create archive files."
"The documentation on plugin development could be better: more examples. ​"
"I sometimes face a bottleneck when installing the plugins on an offline machine. Mapping the dependencies and then installing the correct sequence of dependencies is a nightmare, and it took me two days to do it."
"Partition security for the workflow of projects is not yet an option."
"The disadvantage of Jenkins is writing Groovy scripts. There are other CI tools where you do not need to write this many scripts to manage and deploy."
"The upgrades need improvement."
"The enterprise version is less stable than the open-source version."
"A more user-friendly UI for creating pipelines would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source and free tool."
"This is an open-source solution and it is inexpensive."
"It is a free product."
"The solution is open source."
"Jenkins is a free open-source server."
"This is an open-source solution for the basic features. However, if an organization wishes to include specific functionality, outside of the basic package, there are extra costs involved."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
"We are using the freeware version of Jenkins."
"I used the free OSS version all the time. It was enough for all my needs."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
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Comparison Review

it_user184734 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 22, 2015
I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.
Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Retailer
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with GoCD?
One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be sim...
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 do you like most about Jenkins?
Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Adaptive ALM, Thoughtworks Go
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ancestry.com, Barclay Card, AutoTrader, BT Financial Group, Gamesys, Nike, Vodafone, Haufe Lexware, Medidata, Hoovers
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Find out what your peers are saying about GoCD vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.