Jenkins vs Travis CI – What’s the Difference ? (Pros and Cons)
Jenkins vs Travis CI – What’s the Difference ? (Pros and Cons). In this blog we will look at Jenkins and Travis CI software which have very good functionality. They are both popular CI/CD tools but if you are a DevOps professional it is vital to evaluate these tools based on your budget, project requirements and important factors for you.
Let’s get to know both of these software’s in detail and then move onto their comparative analysis.
So please keep on reading Jenkins vs Travis CI – What’s the Difference ? (Pros and Cons).
What is Jenkins?
Firstly open source Jenkins written in Java is a continuous integration server. Organizes a series of activities during the continuous integration process and automate it. Moreover Jenkins manages the software lifecycle, tests, creates, documents and implements various phases of the software lifecycle.
Secondly with Jenkins, companies can accelerate the software development process through automation. Additionally Jenkins integrates with many development lifecycle processes, including building, documenting, testing, packaging, staging, deploying, static analysis and more.
What does Jenkins do?
In addition, Jenkins allows you to quickly build and test code to get quick feedback on whether or not it’s ready for production. Consequently in most cases, Jenkin will make minor adjustments based on your team’s custom requirements.
What are the features of Jenkins?
- Provides the remote access API and its functionality.
- Allows developers to add their extensions.
- Gives distributed builds.
- Easy to install, update and configure.
- Monitors external jobs.
- Supports various authentication methods, version control systems, notifications.
- Powerful CI/CD tools for large projects.
- Compatible with Docker, Libvirt, Kubernetes and many more.
- More than 1000 public repositories on Github, 500 collaborators, an activity of great commitment.
- 600+ plugins to customize your Jenkins environment.
Pros and cons of using Jenkins
Pros
- Add new features such as authentication, alerts, and credentials.
- Customization is the biggest advantage of Jenkins CI.
- A large plugin archives can be configured to modify the appearance of Jenkins.
- Issues are detected and resolved almost instantly. Leaving the software in a safe state for release at any time.
- Forthwith it is open source and easy to use. Easy to install and does not require any installation or plugins.
- Platform independent. Hence Jenkins is available for all different platforms and operating systems, be it OS X, Windows or Linux.
- Easy support as it is open source and widely used. There is no shortage of support from a large online community of agile teams.
- Most of the integration work is automated. Therefore, there are fewer integration problems. This saves time and money over the life of the project.
- Developers write tests to catch bugs in the code as quickly as possible. So developers don’t waste time on wrong mass integrations.
Cons
- The main disadvantage of Jenkins continuous integration is that it is highly configurable. There is no configuration already done. So it can take two to three hours or even days to set everything up in order.
- Not all plugins support the declarative pipeline syntax.
- Troublesome to install and configuration the Jenkins tool.
- Sometimes the error messages are not clear. It is difficult to understand the error.
- Hard to manage a Jenkins dashboard when we have so much to do.
- Lots of plugins have a problem with the updating process.
- There are many plugins in the Jenkins repositories, but the development team seems to maintain them only from time to time.
Now with our article Jenkins vs Travis CI – What’s the Difference ? is time to introduce Travis CI.
What is Travis CI?
Easily integrates with popular Travis CI cloud repositories such as Bitbucket and GitHub. Without the need for a dedicated server, they offer many automated CI options that are hosted in the cloud. On different computers with different operating systems, this allows for testing in different environments.
Importantly Travis CI is free for open source projects and for commercial projects, you should purchase a business plan.
What does Travis CI do?
With Travis CI it has really good benefits and some of them are:
What are the features of Travis CI?
- Encrypts secure environment variables or files.
- Automatic integration with GitHub.
- Accesses the warehouse to create pull requests.
- Publishes to multiple cloud services.
- CLI client and API for scripting.
- Comes with free cloud based hosting with no maintenance or management.
- Recreates the virtual machine after each build.
- Services databases, message queues, etc.
- Supports 21 languages, including Android, C, C#, C, Java, JavaScript (with Node.js), Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, etc.
Pros and cons of using Travis CI
Pros
- There is no dedicated server needed.
- Lightweight and easy to set up.
- Builds matrix feature.
- Free for open source projects.
- Allows block tests to run in parallel.
- Unlimited open source projects with full functionality.
- Multiple build environments and target platforms (eg Node).
Cons
- Limited options for customization.
- Enterprise plans come with a cost.
- Higher starting price point for paid plans.
- No completely free account for projects with private repos.
Jenkins vs Travis CI - Key Differences
Technical Expertise Required
Unquestionably Jenkins requires more technical expertise to configure and customize. But once you’ve done the initial setup, it’s worth it.
Here with Travis CI is a cloud based CI tools application that is very easy to use with an intuitive graphical user interface and little expertise is required.
Customizability
In general, Travis CI does a good job on the core exams. So there are many features in Travis that can be modified via configuration files. However, you can only use the features provided by the Travis team.
On the other hand, Jenkins is highly customizable. In addition to the standard features it offers, there are several plugins available to use.
Setup and Installation
Notably Jenkins can be used in conjunction with Docker to achieve greater speed and consistency for automated tasks. Otherwise Jenkins can be run as a server in Java containers such as GlassFish and Apache Tomcat.
No installation is required to use Travis CI tools with cloud hosted code repositories. However, the following basic requirements must be met:
- GitHub o Bitbucket access.
- Owner permissions for projects hosted on preferred platforms.
Installing and configuring Jenkins is simple as it only takes a few steps to install. If you use GitHub or Bitbucket, the preferred tool will be Travis CI, as it integrates with the relevant platforms. The test suites are automatically launched when pushed to the repository.
Release Cycle
Another element of Travis CI is that it provides built in connectors for popular cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and more. These plugins are useful when combining new GitHub projects with old ones. Useful for running builds and setting build parameters in various GitHub events.
Similarly Jenkins also supports integration with popular cloud platforms. Integration is possible through plugins. You can integrate Jenkins with the following cloud platforms:
- Google Cloud.
- Amazon EC2.
- Digital Ocean.
- Microsoft Azure.
Apps and Plugin Ecosystem
Besides Travis CI supports 21 programming languages, including C, C, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, R, and JavaScript (with Node.js). Depending on your language preference, you can download Travis CI apps developed by the community.
The system and application industry includes mobile application tools, plugins, command line tools, libraries, and more.
Because Jenkins is an open source project with a chaotic ecosystem, it thrives on community development. Jenkins currently offers 1,500 extensions. They all support creation, deployment and automation, and also have great social contributions. At the end Jenkins can be extended with various plugins available.
When it comes to the ecosystem of apps and plugins. Generally Jenkins is the clear winner because it has community support.
Features and Capabilities
The major advantages of Travis CI is the integration with GitHub. Also Travis CI has a user friendly GUI which makes this tool super easy to use.
Here the advantage of Jenkins is Jenkins pipeline. It is a set of plugins in order to give support for continuous implementation and integration of variety of delivery pipelines into Jenkins.
Comparison Table
| Key Differences | Jenkins | Travis CI |
|---|---|---|
|
Performance |
By far, if you are looking for a CI tool with unlimited customization options, Jenkins is the way to go. |
Travis CI is the best choice if you are working on open source projects. |
|
Cost |
Jenkins is free. But development teams must operate and maintain their own dedicated servers. This may be considered an additional fee. |
Using tools like Travis CI Enterprise Suites costs $129 per month. The higher the level of support, the higher the cost incurred. |
|
Set up Time |
Jenkins requires extended configuration. Therefore, you will have to wait a long time for the installation to finish. |
It takes much less time to get started. Create a configuration file and start merging. |
|
Support |
IRC, blogs and community are available for support (no official support as Jenkins is an open source project). |
Official Travis CI Community Forum Support. |
|
Ease of use |
It can be customized using available plugins. |
Focus on ease of use and functionality. It is very easy to use thanks to its good GUI. |
|
Cloud Integrations |
Amazon EC2, VMWare vSphere, Google Cloud, Slack, etc. through Jenkins Plugins. |
Built in support for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and more. |
Which tool to choose?
Generally, Travis CI and Jenkins have very good qualities as shown by their comparison. The main difference is that Travis CI is a commercial CI tool and Jenkins is an open source tool. Comparatively Travis has a stronger side over Jenkins for version control due to its integration with GitHub. But Jenkins, which has been used and developed for many years, is used by start ups and very large enterprises. That gives this tool an advantage over Travis CI. You also must consider pricing when thinking which one to choose.
Thank you for your time and reading Jenkins vs Travis CI – What’s the Difference ? (Pros and Cons) until the end.
Jenkins vs Travis CI – What’s the Difference ? Conclusion
Both are continuous integration tools, but Travis CI and Jenkins have many differences in how they work. Moreover both are easy to install and configure, easy to use and learn and have good community support. Consequently both of these continuous integration tools help build automation and eliminate human interference.
They verify code coverage and code quality and provide clean designs for deployment in appropriate environments such as development, QA and production.
Summarizing Travis CI integrates well into the organization. Unfortunately it is expensive for special projects. Relies on GitHub only, no Windows support for developers. In Jenkins, there is no such problem. Large organizations mainly rely on tools like Jenkins because they have more support and resources in the market.
Clearly, the choice of a CI tool depends on organizational and individual requirements. Both Jenkins and Travis CI tools have advantages and are easy to use. Automation process is becoming a major advantage for companies.
If you wanna know more about Jenkins content take a look here.
