Jenkins vs Tekton comparison

Jenkins and Google are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Jenkins is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1, while Google is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.8. Jenkins holds a 10.5% mindshare in BA, compared to Google’s 12.0% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Jenkins users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Google users who would recommend it.

Jenkins

Read 93 Jenkins reviews

3,827 Views
2,496 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Tekton

Read 36 Tekton reviews

4,437 Views
2,094 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Jenkins

Tekton

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Jenkins and Tekton are prominent competitors in the CI/CD tool category. Jenkins, with its extensive plugin ecosystem and strong community support, holds the advantage for customization. Tekton, however, has the edge in Kubernetes-native environments due to its seamless cloud-native integration.

Features: Jenkins provides a massive plugin ecosystem, pipeline integration capabilities, and scalability across various use cases. Tekton excels with its Kubernetes-native design enabling container-based application flexibility, efficient CI/CD pipeline management, and seamless scalability within cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Jenkins could improve its user interface, plugin stability, and support better cloud integration documentation. Tekton needs to enhance its deployment accessibility, standardize template creation, and improve YAML configuration management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Jenkins offers diverse deployment options, including on-premises and various cloud settings, but often needs internal expertise for troubleshooting. Community support is robust but lacks formal customer service. Tekton suits hybrid and cloud settings well, aligning with Kubernetes, which demands more cloud-native configuration expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Jenkins is open-source, providing free access but requiring management for add-ons, leading to cost savings through automation. Tekton, also free and open-source, offers additional savings through resource-efficient management and integration with platforms like Kubernetes, enhancing ROI by reducing operational costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Jenkins vs. Tekton Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Jenkins vs. Tekton

June 2025

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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

Jenkins

Ranking in Build Automation

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tekton

Ranking in Build Automation

2nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Jenkins is 10.5%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tekton is 12.0%, up from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Mahdi Mallaki

Senior Devops Engineer at Rakuten

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.

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AjayKrishna

Senior Software Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

If you're dealing with many applications and need a reliable, scalable, and efficient system, I'd recommend this solution

Tekton's most important feature is its cloud-native nature. Unlike Jenkins, which may not scale as efficiently, Tekton's CI pipeline can automatically scale up to handle increased workload demands without needing manual adjustments. Another important aspect is the level of customization offered by Tekton. Each task in the CI pipeline can be customized independently, allowing developers to write code in various languages like shell scripting, Java, or Python and incorporate them into the pipeline as needed. This level of abstraction and customization greatly benefits developers in creating efficient CI pipelines. Also, it can be challenging to understand the logs and troubleshoot issues without clear guidance. It's not always easy to reach technical support and get immediate answers. In my opinion, improvement in this area would be beneficial.

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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

"It is easy to use."

"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."

"The most valuable features are Jenkins Pipelines for ALM and full Deploy Cycle."

"We significantly reduced build times of large projects (more than 80k lines of Scala code) using build time on Jenkins as a time sample. It reduced the developer write-test-commit cycle time, and increased productivity."

"Jenkins is very easy to use."

"Jenkins allows us to automate deployment, so I no longer have to do it manually. That's the primary use case. The other advantage of Jenkins is that it's open source. It was free for me to download and install. It's a product that's been in use for many years, so I can find a lot of support online for any issues that I may encounter while configuring anything for a given use case."

"For business needs, Jenkins is the most relevant choice because it can be self-hosted, the price is good, it’s robust, and requires almost no effort for maintenance."

"This is a great integration tool and very powerful."

More Jenkins pros

"I find it beneficial to show data from Tekton to another GitHub or Bitbucket pipeline."

"Tekton is a cloud-native solution. It offers optimal resource consumption, allowing tasks to be run more efficiently and at a lower cost."

"I like the branching and visualization tools for the pipeline."

"I like the setup of the dashboard."

"Tekton is an orchestrator. It provides seamless integration for our pipelines. It offers robust support for executing tasks within the pipeline, allowing us to set up and run pipelines quickly."

"It scales automatically based on the number of tasks or pipelines running, which is efficient and effective for our development needs."

"The platform's most valuable feature is its wireless capability, which makes installation easy and sets up the flow."

"The flexibility of Tekton is the most valuable feature"

More Tekton pros

Cons

"The product should provide more visualization as to how many pipelines are performing and how many builds are happening. It should also integrate with Kubernetes and OpenShift."

"The bug fix speed is very slow."

"We cannot change the ownership of any directory or file or any kind of directory."

"Creating a new SonarQube project requires a separate job, and we've encountered some integration issues with Docker and the need for better vulnerability checks."

"Sometimes, random errors of metadata are not there, which causes delays. These are essentially gaps in the information being passed to the job."

"It does not have a very user-friendly interface."

"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of an Artifactory (Universal artifact repository manager)."

"Jenkins could have better cloud functionality. Currently, we are using the existing legacy model, but we are moving toward the cloud, so it would be great if they could improve in that area. In the future, I would like more cloud features and related training materials, like a video tutorial."

More Jenkins cons

"RBAC is really needed for Tekton."

"Improvements could include introducing a UI-based pipeline development feature, such as drag and drop, which would help individuals with limited technical knowledge start building pipelines."

"The product's scalability can be challenging when multiple users access it simultaneously."

"The tool should improve in terms of output flexibility. It runs on a specific Kubernetes machine, and the persistent memory storage is on a single partition. Improving this aspect could make analyzing logs and toolchain outputs from external tools easier."

"If you are a beginner, then accessing the flexibility part can be overwhelming. We think the learning curve of the tool is steep, especially for those who are not already familiar with Kubernetes."

"For infrastructure deployment, integration is somewhat complex, especially when using Terraform with Tekton. It would be beneficial if this process were simplified."

"Tekton should have more accessibility for some rare use cases so that we can have more references when applying some techniques to our pipeline."

"While Tekton is highly effective for Kubernetes-based setups, it might not suit users who require more control over bare-metal environments."

More Tekton cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."

"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."

"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."

"The pricing for Jenkins is free."

"Jenkins is open source and free."

"Jenkins is an open-source tool."

"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."

"The tool is open-source."

More Jenkins pricing and cost advice

"The tool is open-source and free to use."

"Tekton is an open-source tool."

"The solution is open-source."

"The product is free and open-source."

"The product is free of cost."

"It is entirely open source and free of charge."

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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

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

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What do you like most about Jenkins?

Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.

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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.

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What do you like most about Tekton?

Its seamless integration with Kubernetes, being built on top of it and utilizing Custom Resource Definitions, ensures a smooth experience within Kubernetes environments exclusively.

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What needs improvement with Tekton?

Regarding areas for improvement in Tekton, I have not encountered significant issues. It works well for our use case. However, incorporating AI could be a potential enhancement in the future.

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What is your primary use case for Tekton?

Tekton is used as a Kubernetes native tool for creating CI/CD pipelines. It is used for creating multiple tasks that can run as pipeline runs for several services. This helps in reducing time wasta...

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 33% of the time

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Compared 25% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Bamboo vs Tekton

Compared 6% of the time

CircleCI vs Tekton

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Jenkins

June 2025

Download Jenkins product report

Buyer's Guide

Tekton

May 2025

Download Tekton product report

Overview

Jenkins is an award-winning application that monitors executions of repeated jobs, such as building a software project or jobs run by cron.

Jenkins

Tekton is a powerful yet flexible Kubernetes-native open-source framework for creating continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) systems. It lets you build, test, and deploy across multiple cloud providers or on-premises systems by abstracting away the underlying implementation details.

Google

Sample Customers

Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox

The Home Depot, PayPal, Target, HSBC, McKesson, Oncology Venture

Buyer's Guide

Jenkins vs. Tekton

June 2025

Free Report: Jenkins vs. Tekton

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