Comparison of Jenkins with Travis CI and Circle CI

Last updated on May 27 2022
Uma Kulkarni

Table of Contents

Comparison of Jenkins with Travis CI and Circle CI

Jenkins VS Travis CI

Jenkins and Travis CI serve as continuous integration (CI) tools that allow developers to integrate code branches during the development process and run a series of automated tests against them. They both transform the time consuming, manual task of building, testing, and deploying software into a fast, automated process.

When comparing Travis CI with Jenkins, we need to consider our business needs and budget.

Jenkins

Jenkins is the most popular open-source automation server that was written in a java programming language. It facilitates the automation process of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) within the software development process.

Jenkins supports over 1,400 plugins for other software tools. These plugins expand Jenkins into five years; platforms, UI, administration, source code management, and build management.

Jenkins is easy to install and use. It provides an impressive browser-hosted project management dashboard.

Some of the common reasons to evaluate and choose Jenkins are:

• Open-source and free
• Widely employed and well documented
• Vibrant user community
• Integration with a large variety of tools and technologies.
• Plugin support
• Easy to install, configure and upgrade
• Distributed builds
• Monitoring external jobs
• Support for various authentication methods, notification, version control system, etc.

Travis CI

Travis CI was the first Continuous integration as a service tool. It introduced a new approach to build code within the cloud. Travis CI tool allows the user to sign up, link their repository, build, as well as test their apps.

This tool can easily integrate with the common cloud repositories like Bitbucket and GitHub. It offers many automated CI options which cut out the need for a dedicated server as the Travis CI server is hosted within the cloud. This allows us to test in different environments, on various machines, running on different operating systems.

For open-source projects, Travis CI is free. For commercial projects, we need to purchase an enterprise plan.

Some reasons to evaluate and choose Travis CI include:

• Automatic integration with GitHub
• Pre-installed build and test tools
• Repository access to build pull requests
• Provide services like databases, message queues, etc.
• Deployment to multiple cloud services
• Encrypt secure environment variables or files
• CLI client and API for scripting
• Support total of 21 languages like C, C#, C++, Android, Java, JavaScript (with Node.js), PHP, Perl, Python, R, Ruby, etc.
• The tool integrates with HipChat, Slack, Email, etc.
• It can identify small and large code changes.
• Build artifacts and check code quality
• In this, it is possible to run tests on Linux and Mac OS X simultaneously

Jenkins Vs. Travis CI Comparison Table

The subsequent are the primary comparison between Jenkins and Travis CI:

Jenkins Travis CI
Jenkins is a software tool that allows CI (Continuous Integration). Travis CI is distributed CI service to test and build the project at GitHub.
It is mainly written in Java. It is mainly written in Ruby.
It is developed by Sun Microsystems and originally called Hudson Travis CI is developed by Travis CI community.
Jenkins has full system control. It has very less system control.
Jenkins supports multiple version control systems like GIT and SVN. Travis CI supports only GitHub version control.
It supports all platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. It does not support Windows. It only supports Linux and Mac.
Many plugins are available for Jenkins. Supports less plugins and use in Travis CI.
Website of Jenkins is Jenkins.io The website of Travis CI is Travis.ci.org
Jenkins is free. But the development team need to run and maintawithin their dedicated server. This could be considered an extra expense. Travis CI enterprise suites start at $129/month. Cost increase based on the level of required support.
It is an open-source free to use the tool. It is commercial CI tool.
It is easy to use. It is flexible to use.
It is good for GitHub. It is excellent for GitHub.
It is a server-based tool. It is a cloud-based tool.
It provides more customizations options. It provides less customizations options.
Jenkins is highly scalable. Travis CI is less scalable as compared to Jenkins.
Jenkins can be hosted internally. Travis CI cannot be hosted internally.
Jenkins has a lot of resources, great community support, tutorials. Travis CI has only community support and tutorials, fewer resources.
Jenkins is mainly employed by the top companies. Travis CI is employed by good companies but yet to reach to great companies.
Jenkins is easy to install and make the service up and running with one command line. Travis CI is easier to configure with .travis.yaml file.

Hence, with the above discussion, we can see that Travis CI and Jenkins both offer wonderful features. However, small open-source projects are best suited for Travis CI as it is easy to run and quick to setup. On the other hand, the large enterprise is best suited to Jenkins, as it offers free licensing for a private project and a wide range of customizable feature. So, we can say that both of these CI tools are good within their way.

Jenkins vs. Circle CI

Jenkins and Circle CI serve as continuous integration (CI) tools that allow developers to integrate code branches during the development process and run a series of automated tests against them. They both transform the time consuming, manual task of building, testing, and deploying software into a fast, automated process.
When comparing Travis CI with Jenkins, we need to consider our business needs and budget.

Jenkins

Jenkins is the most popular open-source automation server that was written in a java programming language. It facilitates the automation process of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) within the software development process.
Jenkins supports over 1,400 plugins for other software tools. These plugins expand Jenkins into five years; platforms, UI, administration, source code management, and build management.
Jenkins is easy to install and use. It provides an impressive browser-hosted project management dashboard.
Some of the common reasons to evaluate and choose Jenkins include:
• Open-source and free
• Widely employed and well documented
• Vibrant user community
• Integration with a large variety of tools and technologies.
• Plugin support
• Easy to install, configure and upgrade
• Distributed builds
• Monitoring external jobs
• Support for various authentication methods, notification, version control system, etc.

Circle CI

Circle CI is a cloud-based tool that automates the integration and deployment process. It provides easy setup and maintenance without any difficulties. Circle CI is a cloud-based system, which means no dedicated server is required and no need for maintenance of server which has a free plan even for business accounts. It can be integrated with GitHub, Amazon EC2, dotCloud, Appfog, etc. and employed by many companies such as Spotify, Facebook, RedBull, Harvest, and Teespring, etc.

Circle CI also focuses on testing every change to the code before it is deployed, using a number of methods such as unit tests, integrations tests, and functional tests. The tool supports containers, Linux, OSX, and can run within a private cloud or your own data center.

Circle CI comes with the subsequent features:

• Quick setup
• Deep customization
• Smart notifications
• Automatic parallelization
• It is easy and fast to start
• Lightweight and easily readable YAML config
• Don’t need any dedicated server to run Circle CI.
• It caches requirements installation and third-party dependencies instead of the installation of the environments.

Jenkins vs. Circle CI Comparison Table

The subsequent are the primary comparisons between Jenkins and Circle CI:

Jenkins Circle CI
In Jenkins, Builds are configured by Jenkins UI, and all settings of the jobs are stored on the Jenkins file system in Jenkins server which makes it hard to share configuration details with team or organization. By cloning Github or other source repositories can’t copy information stored in Jenkins. In CircleCI, we can construct all jobs within a single file called “circle.yaml”. It is easy as CI configuration will be like any other source code repositories, which make it easy to share and backup. On CircleCI, only a small number of settings like secrets will be stored in an encrypted format.
In Jenkins, teams need to maintawithin the Jenkins server by installing all dependencies and debug if any issues are there. In Circle CI, we don’t need to maintawithin the server as every job will be started in a new environment where all the dependencies will be installed by default.
In Jenkins, debugging will be a little bit difficult. In Circle CI, developers can debug easily using it’s ssh feature.
The web UI of Jenkins is slow or less responsive due to more number of plugins. The Web UI of Circle CI is frequently changing with improvements which make it popular among users.
In Jenkins, we don’t have built-in support for Docker workflow, the user needs to install and make it available within the built environment. In Circle CI, we have built-in support for Docker in workflow, which can be accessed by adding in services section in circle.yaml file.
Jenkins can support multiple jobs by multi-threading. Circle CI has in-built support for parallelism, which can be achieved by project settings.
Jenkins environment will change only when the user instructs. Circle CI changes environment without warning, which is an issue.
In Jenkins, secrets will be encrypted using Jenkins credentials and plugins. In Circle CI, we don’t have security like Jenkins.

So, this brings us to the end of blog. This Tecklearn ‘Comparison of Jenkins with Travis CI and Circle CI’ blog helps you with commonly asked questions if you are looking out for a job in DevOps. If you wish to learn Jenkins and build a career in DevOps domain, then check out our interactive, Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training, that comes with 24*7 support to guide you throughout your learning period. Please find the link for course details:

Continuous Integration with Jenkins

Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training

About the Course

Tecklearn has specially designed this Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training Course to advance your skills for a successful career in this domain. This course helps you learn server automation, continuous integration, build and configuration tools, Jenkins master-slave architecture, different types of plugins, implementing automated testing and more through hands-on projects and exercises. Upon completion of this online training, you will hold a solid understanding and hands-on experience with Jenkins.

Why Should you take Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training?

• Average salary of Jenkins Professional is $110k (Indeed.com Salary Data)
• Jenkins is an open-source automation server which enables developers around the world to reliably build, test, and deploy their software.

What you will Learn in this Course?

Introduction to DevOps

• What is Software Development
• Software Development Life Cycle
• Why DevOps?
• What is DevOps?
• DevOps Lifecycle
• DevOps Tools
• Benefits of DevOps
• How DevOps is related to Agile Delivery
• DevOps Implementation

Continuous Integration with Jenkins

• Introduction to Continuous Integration and Jenkins
• Jenkins Management
• Jenkins Master Slave Architecture
• Tools Required for CI
• Understanding CI/CD Pipelines
• Creating an end-to-end automated CI/CD Pipeline
• Jenkins Versions

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