Jenkins vs Bamboo: Core Differences
By Krishna Tej, Community Contributor - May 10, 2022
Modern SDLC has put a lot of emphasis on Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD), making it an inevitable part of DevOps today because it helps in delivering quality software quicker. Continuous Delivery makes sure that any code that a developer writes is automatically tested for bugs and uploaded into the repository. Continuous Integration checks that any code merged to a shared branch is validated by automatically building the application and running automated tests to ensure that the new changes don’t have any ill-affects on the app.
There has been a constant evolution of the CI/CD processes, and many tools have been upgrading themselves with out-of-the-box features to keep up with the growing demand of putting out good software. There are a lot of CI/CD tools to choose from, and it is always challenging to choose the right one. With different tools such as Jenkins, CircleCI, Travis CI, TeamCity, Bamboo, and GitLab supporting CI/CD, choosing the right tool for your project becomes tricky.
Read More: Role of Automation Testing in CI/CD
This article discusses two such CI/CD tools: Jenkins vs Bamboo, comparing them based on different criteria to help you pick the right one for your project.
To compare the two CI tools, let’s first understand each of them individually to be able to better compare them.
Table of Contents
What is Jenkins?
Jenkins is one of the most popular CI/CD tools used to automate the testing process in the software development cycle with users like Facebook, Sony, Netflix, Tumblr, Yahoo, eBay, etc. Jenkins has easy installation, configuration, rich plugin availability, extensibility, and distributed builds for different computers. Its ease of integration with other tools makes deployment seamless.
Jenkins offers continuous integration services for different languages and source code repositories using pipelines. It can be used at various stages in the software development cycle, such as build, document, test, package, stage, deploy, static analysis, and more.
Advantages of Jenkins
Some of the core advantages of Jenkins are:
- It is open-source and has a strong community
- Extensive Plugin support to streamline the automation process
- Portable with most platforms as it is built using Java
- Easy to install
Read More: Jenkins for Test Automation
What is Atlassian Bamboo?
Bamboo is a continuous integration and continuous delivery tool developed by Atlassian in 2007, which is why it is also known as Atlassian Bamboo. It is a useful tool that helps automatically build, integrate and test code before deployment.
Bamboo is chargeable like other Atlassian products. It comes with a user-friendly graphical user interface with the workflow in the hierarchy of Plans, Stages, Jobs, and Tasks for streamlining various actions within a Project.
Advantages of Atlassian Bamboo
Some of the core advantages of Bamboo are:
- Many built-in functionalities and doesn’t need plugins
- Integration with tools like Bitbucket, Jira, and Opsgenie for seamless project management.
- Integration with Docker and AWS CodeDeploy for Continuous Delivery.
- Users can get release management and build status with end-to-end quality all in one place
Jenkins vs Bamboo: A Detailed Comparison
| Criteria | Jenkins | Bamboo |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Setup | Easy to setup | Compared to Jenkins, Bamboo takes a little more effort to setup |
| Cost | Jenkins is Open-Source and Free | Bamboo is paid like other Atlassian products and users have to subscribe to a plan for their team |
| Plugins | Jenkins uses 1000+ plugins. | Bamboo doesn’t use as many plugins as Jenkins use. Rather it has more built-in features |
| User-friendliness | Jenkins is not very user friendly | Bamboo is user friendly due to its GUI |
| Docker | No support for Docker | Has in-built Docker support |
| Platforms | Works on Mac, Windows, Ubuntu, and Redhat | Works on Windows, Linux, Solaris |
| Support | It has detailed documentation and community support | It is commercial software and provides support for licensed users |
Atlassian Bamboo vs Jenkins: Which is preferred?
Jenkins has been a major open-source player for a long time and has a huge user base because of it. But Bamboo just like other Atlassian products has much more in-built capabilities and is easier to use. Jenkins is open-source, and Bamboo is a commercial CI/CD tool that can be levied against a subscription fee.
While both the tools have their own advantages, however, it ultimately depends on your project requirements, budget, and timelines to choose the CI/CD tool for your project.
No matter which CI/CD tool you choose, it is essential to test the app on real devices and browsers to recognize all the bottlenecks that could hinder the overall user experience. Whether using Atlassian Bamboo or Jenkins for your CI/CD pipeline, you can test your application on 3000+ real device-browser combinations by integrating with BrowserStack Automate. This lets you test the application under real user conditions, improving the overall performance and accuracy of the application. BrowserStack Automate also allows you to run parallel tests, thus, optimizing your resources, and accelerating the release time of each build by 10x for the application. The cloud also provides integrations with other popular CI/CD tools such as Jira, Travis CI, TeamCity, Bamboo, and much more.
Was this post useful?
We're sorry to hear that. Please share your feedback so we can do better
Thanks a lot for your feedback!
