IBM Rational Build Forge vs TeamCity comparison

IBM and JetBrains are both solutions in the Build Automation category. IBM is ranked #23, while JetBrains is ranked #10 with an average rating of 6.8. IBM holds a 1.9% mindshare in BA, compared to JetBrains’s 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of JetBrains users who would recommend it.

IBM Rational Build Forge

Read 2 IBM Rational Build Forge reviews

547 Views
542 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

TeamCity

Read 28 TeamCity reviews

2,164 Views
2,142 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM Rational Build Forge

TeamCity

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

IBM Rational Build Forge and TeamCity are competitors in the build automation tools category. TeamCity seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive features and greater perceived value.

Features: IBM Rational Build Forge is noted for its automation capabilities and scalability. TeamCity is distinguished by its continuous integration capabilities, extensive plug-in ecosystem, and superior version control system integration, offering more flexibility and extensibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Rational Build Forge offers a structured deployment model with robust customer service. TeamCity provides a quicker setup process with extensive documentation and responsive support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Rational Build Forge has a competitive pricing structure focused on reduced operational costs. TeamCity's perceived higher initial setup cost is justified by its comprehensive features, offering a better ROI due to its feature-rich platform and flexibility.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Rational Build Forge vs. TeamCity Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Rational Build Forge vs. TeamCity

February 2026

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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

IBM Rational Build Forge

Ranking in Build Automation

23rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

TeamCity

Ranking in Build Automation

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Rational Build Forge is 1.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TeamCity is 5.8%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
TeamCity	5.8%
IBM Rational Build Forge	1.9%
Other	92.3%

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

it_user1330545

CRM Program Release Manager at Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center

Great reporting features and very functional

The solution could be more user friendly. Trying to train somebody on it can be difficult. If you're in this field, you kind of learn the tools, but trying to show a PM how to find report sheets to pull data was difficult. I had to show them how to write the queries and pull the data that they needed. It's not a layman's solution. If you're working with a programmer or with an architect, you won't have issues trying to relay how to utilize the tool. It was for those who cut the checks where there were problems enabling them to pull the data they required. I guess the answer is DevOps, but it depends on your environment. Just being able to sign into dashboards and get accurate results was my biggest thing with my PMs on my projects. They like charts and pie graphs, the ability to see things at a glance data where they could make decisions on the fly.

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RubyGarg

IT Professional at NatWest Group

Versatile agent support boosts builds but UI and setup costs need refinement

TeamCity's user interface could be improved; specifically, the tree structure on the homepage is not clear, making it difficult to search for projects. Moreover, there are some limitations related to the version we were using. For instance, there were issues with agent specifications for particular build jobs and a timeout issue where jobs running longer than three hours would fail automatically.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All features are useful. Our customer doesn't have any complaints about the tool. It works pretty well for what they want and what they need to do."

"Very good reporting features."

"VCS Trigger: Provides excellent source control support."

"I have not yet implemented the remote build feature, but this will be a big plus. We want to be able to build legacy products on a build agent without developers needing to have obsolete tool sets installed on their local PC."

"One of the most beneficial features for us is the flexibility it offers in creating deployment steps tailored to different technologies."

"It provides repeatable CI/CD throughout our company with lots of feedback on failures and successes to the intended audiences via email and Slack."

"TeamCity is very useful due to the fact that it has a strong plug-in system."

"Time to deployment has been reduced in situations where we want to deploy to production or deploy breaking changes."

"Using TeamCity and emailing everyone on fail is one way to emphasize the importance of testing code and showing management why taking the time to test actually does saves time from having to fix bugs on the other end."

"TeamCity's GUI is nice."

More TeamCity pros

Cons

"Its logging can be improved. When something goes wrong, it is not always very easy to find the problem. It is hard to identify whether the problem is because of low memory in the server or some configuration in Rational Build Forge. The error logs are not very detailed, and they should provide more information. It should also have more integration with third-party tools. It would be great to have more integration with third-party tools."

"Not user friendly for the layman."

"We've called TeamCity tech support. Unfortunately, all their tech support is based in Europe, so we end up with such a big time crunch that I now need to have one person in the US."

"The upgrade process could be smoother. Upgrading major versions can often cause some pain."

"It will benefit this solution if they keep up to date with other CI/CD systems out there."

"If TeamCity could create more out of the box solutions to make it more user friendly and create more use cases, that would be ideal."

"If there was more documentation that was easier to locate, it would be helpful for users."

"I would like to see an improvement where TeamCity alerts us via email or another medium if there are discrepancies between the code in the staging environment and what has been deployed to production, such as missing updates."

"Last time I used it, dotnet compilation had to be done via PowerShell scripts. There was actually a lot that had to be scripted."

"Their online documentation is fairly extensive, but sometimes you can end up navigating in circles to find answers. I would like them (or partner with someone) to provide training classes to help newcomers get things up and running more quickly."

More TeamCity cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Start with the free tier for a few build configs and see how it works for you, then according to your scale find the enterprise license which fits you the most."

"The licensing is on an annual basis."

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Comparison Review

it_user184734

Systems Administrator at Facebook

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Marketing Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points

What do you like most about TeamCity?

One of the most beneficial features for us is the flexibility it offers in creating deployment steps tailored to different technologies.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TeamCity?

Compared to new technologies, TeamCity is more expensive and is an older tool compared to tools like GitLab.

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What needs improvement with TeamCity?

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Comparisons

Jenkins vs IBM Rational Build Forge

Compared 24% of the time

Digital.ai Release vs IBM Rational Build Forge

Compared 16% of the time

JFrog Pipeline vs IBM Rational Build Forge

Compared 14% of the time

Harness vs IBM Rational Build Forge

Compared 14% of the time

AWS CodeBuild vs IBM Rational Build Forge

Compared 13% of the time

More IBM Rational Build Forge Competitors

GitLab vs TeamCity

Compared 26% of the time

GitHub Actions vs TeamCity

Compared 12% of the time

Jenkins vs TeamCity

Compared 8% of the time

Harness vs TeamCity

Compared 8% of the time

Tekton vs TeamCity

Compared 5% of the time

More TeamCity Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

January 2026

Download IBM Rational Build Forge product report

Buyer's Guide

TeamCity

January 2026

Download TeamCity product report

Also Known As

Rational Build Forge

No data available

Overview

IBM Rational Build Forge is an adaptive execution framework that helps automate and standardize the software assembly process. Rational Build Forge helps teams standardize repetitive tasks, improve software quality and manage compliance mandates. This software scales to 25 seats. Rational Build Forge delivers:
Flexibility - gives developers self-service access to preconfigured build processes from within their integrated development environment (IDE). You can add IBM Rational software products to further enhance automation, reporting and integration.
Productivity - accelerates build and release cycles through iterative development, parallel processes and efficient use of hardware.
Compliance - simplifies compliance management with self-documenting audit trails and role-based security.
Compatibility - increases team efficiency with centralized build and release management using the tools you have today.

IBM

TeamCity is a Continuous Integration and Deployment server that provides out-of-the-box continuous unit testing, code quality analysis, and early reporting on build problems. A simple installation process lets you deploy TeamCity and start improving your release management practices in a matter of minutes. TeamCity supports Java, .NET and Ruby development and integrates perfectly with major IDEs, version control systems, and issue tracking systems.

JetBrains

Sample Customers

Cars.com

Toyota, Xerox, Apple, MIT, Volkswagen, HP, Twitter, Expedia

Buyer's Guide

IBM Rational Build Forge vs. TeamCity

February 2026

Free Report: IBM Rational Build Forge vs. TeamCity

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational Build Forge vs. TeamCity and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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