Jenkins is an open supply steady integration device, whereas TeamCity is a proprietary providing from JetBrains. TeamCity is less complicated to configure and extra simple to make use of, whereas Jenkins has a wealthy plugin ecosystem and integrations.
That is TeamCity vs Jenkins briefly however proceed studying for a deep dive into steady integration and why an increasing number of software program improvement groups are utilizing these instruments to hurry up their launch cycle.
Steady integration, supply management and construct administration are formative ideas behind DevOps, pushed by the necessity to repeatedly combine new and alter code within the grasp repository of model management programs like Github or Atlassian’s Bitbucket. Steady integration is usually mixed with steady supply to realize quicker and extra secure construct processes with automation.
With steady integration, groups compile software program and run it by way of a collection of exams that mimic the manufacturing surroundings to make sure a profitable construct when pushed to manufacturing. The logic behind that is easy however solely got here in response to issues within the conventional deployment cycle. The extra you possibly can construct and take a look at throughout improvement, the much less software program engineers have to fret about pushing to manufacturing. As a substitute of pushing as soon as 1 / 4, steady integration, steady supply and testing make go-live one other easy routine deployment.
TeamCity and Jenkins are CI instruments that enable builders to combine code branches through the improvement course of and run a collection of automated exams in opposition to them. Every group member will get fast suggestions in regards to the manufacturing readiness of their code, even when they only modified a single line. That means, everybody can push to manufacturing whereas the method of constructing, operating exams and deploying is completed mechanically to allow them to concentrate on the subsequent characteristic or bug repair.
Whereas each instruments cowl a lot of the identical floor, they accomplish that in several methods. It is because Jenkins is an open supply mission whereas TeamCity is a proprietary providing from JetBrains. In our comparability, we’ll present you the way they stack up and talk about a few of their similarities, variations and what makes every a very good match for various environments. Each provide nice help and documentations however once more there are variations in depth and high quality.
What’s TeamCity?TeamCity Interface (Supply: jetbrains.com)
TeamCity’s slogan “Powerful Continuous Integration out of the box” speaks to what they provide of their answer over and above a free choice like Jenkins: out of the field usability with wonderful construct historical past, supply management and construct chain instruments. Its slick graphical interface and ease of use options make it extra palatable for some new to steady integration. TeamCity runs in a Java surroundings, often on an Apache Tomcat server, although it may be put in on each Home windows and Linux servers. TeamCity provides equal help for .NET and openstack tasks, integrating into each Visible Studio and IDEs like Eclipse.
TeamCity has transformed many Jenkins trustworthy with its interface and safe default configuration. JetBrains provides a free version as nicely, with as much as 20 construct configurations and three construct brokers. Scoping past that requires their industrial “enterprise” version.
What’s Jenkins?
Instance of the Jenkins 1.x internet interface. (Supply: wiki.jenkins-ci.org)
Jenkins is an open supply Steady Integration server and Steady Supply device used broadly and regarded by many to be the de facto commonplace for CI servers. Jenkins additionally runs in Java, so you possibly can set up it on Home windows, unix or Linux working programs. Extremely extensible and with a gallery of plug-ins readily at hand, Jenkins provides granular customization for any dimension CI operation. However as you possibly can inform by evaluating the 2 screenshots, Jenkins’ interface is extra harking back to the final era of internet purposes.
Jenkins was beforehand the Hudson CI server. After Oracle’s acquisition of Solar, the supply code was forked and Oracle continues improvement beneath the Hudson identify.
(Instance of the Jenkins 2.0 interface, Stage View. Supply: jenkins.io)
If you happen to’re contemplating CI, you are contemplating Jenkins. However like many characteristic wealthy, open supply software program tasks, Jenkins will get a status for having a tough setup and configuration course of, which is the hole TeamCity tries to fill with its industrial providing.
Replace, Friday Might thirteenth: Jenkins 2.0 has improved the person interface considerably.
Facet-by-Facet Scoring: TeamCity vs. Jenkins1. Functionality Set
Actually, each of those are fairly succesful merchandise. Jenkins leads the way in which for CI, because it has for a while, so its characteristic set is sort of wealthy, providing many various methods to realize each CI and steady supply.
TeamCity might not be precisely matched with Jenkins in the case of the potential set, however the variations are small and TeamCity will serve most CI operations simply as nicely.
2. Ease of Use
TeamCity’s interface, easy setup and out of the field safety give it a leg up over Jenkins in the case of ease of use. The promoting level for any industrial different to an open supply product is that it reduces the executive overhead by visualizing or in any other case simplifying entry to the performance set.
This is not to say that Jenkins just isn’t usable, as a result of it’s, and has been used nicely by many individuals, however for individuals who can afford it and do not have the time or inclination to study Jenkins out and in, TeamCity provides a extra usable interface for a similar primary know-how.
3. Neighborhood Help
Each TeamCity and Jenkins have group help accessible from their web site, permitting customers of their software program to share data and troubleshoot issues collectively, in addition to offering a data base to trawl by way of when in search of particular solutions.
Jenkins has a slight benefit right here, if solely as a result of they’ve been round longer and as an open supply mission, Jenkins customers rely extra on their group for troubleshooting.
4. Launch Price
TeamCity is at present on launch 2019.1.4, which got here out on October eleventh, 2019. Their releases have been common and nicely documented.
Jenkins’ launch historical past is sort of spectacular, summarized on their change log, with detailed details about every launch. Model 2.200 went reside on October 14, 2019.
As they make CI merchandise, these firms know the proof is within the pudding, so it ought to come as no shock that their launch processes are prime quality.
5. Pricing and Help
TeamCity provides two variations of its CI product. TeamCity Skilled is free for 100 construct configurations and three construct brokers. Further construct agent licenses might be bought for $299 and contains one extra construct agent and ten extra construct configurations.
TeamCity Enterprise permits for an infinite variety of construct configurations and licenses begin at $1999 for 3 construct brokers, scaling as much as 100 brokers for $21,999. Pricing is 50% off for startups and free for open supply tasks.
As we have talked about, Jenkins is open supply, beneath the MIT license, and as such might be downloaded and used at no cost. Because of this, smaller firms could wish to method CI from a “why wouldn’t we use Jenkins” perspective.
One potential reply to that query is likely to be as a result of your group lacks the manpower, data or functionality to prepare and handle a Jenkins answer. TeamCity provides skilled help companies, whereas help for Jenkins principally comes from the group and on-line assets, although third celebration firms provide Jenkins-specific skilled companies.
6. API and Extensibility
Each TeamCity and Jenkins provide a RESTful API. Jenkins’ API is available in three flavors: XML, JSON and Python. Jenkins has larger extensibility as practically each half might be personalized as wanted. Their extensibility web page has wonderful assets for nearly each form of potential customization. TeamCity has far much less data accessible on their website, one other distinction between the industrial and open supply choices; nevertheless, TeamCity customers appear happy with the API general.
7. Third-Social gathering Integrations
Plugins are the secret for Jenkins, who provide a whole lot of free plugins, from supply code administration, to construct instruments, to language-specific improvement instruments. This pre-existing database of helpful plugins makes becoming Jenkins into your surroundings a lot simpler, hopefully sparing the necessity for expensive in-house or contracted customization. TeamCity additionally has over 380 free, crowd developed plugins accessible, which they provide on an as-is foundation, outdoors of their supported industrial product. TeamCity additionally has nice cloud integrations (Google Cloud, AWS, VMWare, and many others) in addition to ‘key’ integrations (VSCode, Jira, even NuGet).
8. Corporations That Use It
TeamCity boasts a variety of high firms as prospects, together with web powerhouses Twitter, eBay and Wikipedia. Jenkins has no lack of huge names on its record of customers both, Dell, Tumblr, and Netflix amongst them. Clearly each of those merchandise are able to working at a excessive stage at even the biggest scale.
9. Studying Curve
As with ease of use, the training curve on TeamCity is shorter than Jenkins as a part of the worth they provide for his or her industrial product. Folks new to CI itself may need a better time greedy the ideas and procedures in TeamCity’s superior interface, as an alternative of adapting to Jenkins’ old-style UI. That mentioned, documentation abounds for Jenkins, and salty sysadmins would possibly favor its Linux-like essence to the proprietary blackbox of TeamCity.
10. Safety Ranking
Each JetBrains and Jenkins have exterior cyber safety scores within the “good” vary. TeamCity’s mum or dad web site JetBrains has a safety ranking of a good 827/950 whereas Jenkins scores increased at 865/950.
Scoreboard and Abstract
TeamCity
Jenkins
Functionality set
5/5
5/5
Ease of use
5/5
3/5
Neighborhood help
4/5
5/5
Launch fee
5/5
5/5
Pricing and help
2/5
5/5
API and extensibility
4/5
5/5
Third-party integrations
4/5
5/5
Corporations that use it
5/5
5/5
Studying curve
5/5
3/5
Safety ranking
827
865
Whole
4.4/5
4.6/5
It is a shut consequence, however the massive variations between the 2 merchandise ought to information you: do you want an endlessly extensible open supply answer that you simply’re prepared to study, or would you fairly pay up entrance for a industrial answer geared to extend usability? Each options can run your CI/CD surroundings nicely and look to solely be bettering on their choices into the longer term. Remember that CI and CD are nice, however stand to be complemented by a visibility answer, corresponding to Cybersecurity. Guaranteeing your configurations match your expectations is the vital first step towards CI, CD and automation.
Different Steady Integrations Instruments to Take into account
There are different CI/CD servers on the market. Bamboo from Atlassian is a well-liked selection. Like Jenkins and TeamCity, it permits builders to mechanically construct, combine and take a look at supply code then put together apps for improvement. Bamboo works seamlessly with different Atlassian instruments like Jira (mission administration) and Hipchat.
One other in style selection is GitLab CI, together with testing and constructing tasks, GitLab CI can even deploy the builds to your infrastructure, providing you with an choice to trace your totally different deployments by understanding the place every bit of code went. The benefit of GitLab CI is that it’s supplied at no cost as part of GitLab. It is so simple as including a .gitlab-ci.yml file to the basis listing of your repository and configuring your GitLab mission to make use of a Runner. Afterwards, each commit or push will set off the CI pipeline that has three levels: construct, take a look at and deploy.
Travis CI is one other different that gives a number of runtimes (e.g. Node.js or PHP variations), information shops and extra. Due to this, internet hosting your mission on travis-ci.com means you possibly can take a look at your library or purposes in opposition to a number of runtimes and information shops with out having them domestically put in.
CircleCI is one other selection. It is a steady integration and supply platform that helps software program groups launch code by automating the construct, take a look at and deploy course of. Not alike the opposite options listed above.
