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Priyanka Charak | Posted on | 2 min Read

10 Best Continuous Integration Tools In 2024

Technology is growing exponentially and to be in the game, organisations have no choice but to be technologically enabled. Talking about ‘technology’ basically means creating solutions that are ‘faster, ‘convenient’ and ‘qualitative’. To keep up with the highly demanding technological dynamics, not only human resources need to be equipped with the contemporaneous developments of this industry but there is also a dire need of highly standardized processes in order to deliver the top-class results. That’s when the need of DevOps emerges. Right from the planning through delivery, the idea of introducing DevOps is to maintain the quality streak by a systematic collaboration of development and automation across the continuous delivery and continuous Integration. To make it simpler, there must be a convenient way to tackle the complicated scenarios without delays and for on time delivery. Hence, the introduction of Continuous integration tools makes it easier for the developers to streamline the development processes.

Continuous Integration methodology enables developers to provide immediate reporting whenever any defect is identified in the code so that immediate corrective action can be taken. It is an important part of DevOps that bis used to integrate various Devops stages. The testing process is also automated and the same is instantly reported to the user. There are innumerable Continuous Integration tools available in the market providing access to different unique features. These have open source as well as paid versions, depending upon the need of the user, the most preferred could be selected. Although all the continuous Integration tools are designed to perform the same basic functions but choosing the best suitable CI tool becomes important in the long run. Depending upon many factors like features, cost, ease of use, etc. more than one tools can also be chosen meeting varied needs and not just the single solution. Comparing the best continuous Integration tools that are available in the market, below is the list of 10 best and mostly used Continuous Integration tools which must not be ignored in 2023.

Continuous Integration Tools

1. Jenkins

Jenkins is a known and the most common Continuous Integration tool available today. Based on various comparisons, Jenkins tops the list. Jenkins is opensource continuous Integration server-based application that allows developers to build, automate and test any software project at a faster pace. It was originally a part of Hudson project started by Kohsuke Kawaguchi in the year 2004 but it was later on released by the name Jenkins in the year 2011. The tool has evolved over the years and has become the most reliable software delivery automation tool. The source code is in JAVA with few Groovy, Ruby and Antlr files. It has almost 1400 plugins to support the automation of the development tasks. Jenkins supports the entire software development life cycle right from building, testing, documenting and deploying. Jenkins comes with WAR file that allows easy installation of the tool which needs to be dropped into the JEE container and the setup can be run easily henceforth.

Key Features:

1. It is an open-source server for Continuous Integration tool
2. It is written in JAVA and comes with thousands of plugins that help in build, automation and deployment of any software project
3. It can be installed easily on any operating systems
4. User friendly interface that is easy to configure and with easy upgrades.

2. Buddy

Buddy is a web-based, self- hosted Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) tool also known as Buddy.Works.Buddy is a serious advancement as one of the trusted CI CD tools. It has an extremely friendly user-interface and is also the simplest tool to use for the web developers, designers and quality assurance teams. Git developers can use this tool for building, testing and deploying the websites and applications using Github, Bitbucket, GitLab codes.

Key Features:

1. Steps for launching containers, automating deployment, and setting up
monitoring can be easily customised
2. Build, Ship and Deploy as inbuilt stack feature
3. Can be deployed to any hosting and cloud service providers
4. Supports Grunt. Gulp, MongoDB, and MySQL
5. Real-time reports on progress, logs and history can be monitored
6. Docker based builds and tests.

3.TeamCity

Teamcity, first released in 2006 is a continuous Integration tool developed by JetBrains. It runs in Java environment and is used to build and deploy different projects. It supports integration with many cloud technologies like Microsoft Azure, VMWare, Amazon.

Key Features:

1. It is a free of cost Continuous Integration tool
2. Supports platforms like Java, .Net and Ruby
3. Allows easy integration with IDEs like Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, Visual studio
4. Allows code coverage, inspection and performs duplicates check and creates history
reports of any changes made
5. It supports running multiple builds and tests under different platforms and
environments.

4. Bamboo CI

Bamboo is another Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) software developed by Altassian. It is written in Java and supports other languages and technologies like CodeDeply, Ducker, Maven, Git, SVN, Mercurial, Ant, AWS, Amazon, etc. The tool performs automatic build, testing and deployments. Automation thus saves time and allows developers some extra time to focus on the strategic aspects of the product.

Key Features:

1. Bamboo can build, test and deploy multiple projects simultaneously and in case of any build failure, it provides the analysis and the failure reports
2. Current status of the builds and server status can be monitored with the help of the REST API provided by Bamboo
3. Bamboo supports testing tools like PHPUnit, JUnit, Selenium
4.It is compatible with JIRA and BitBucket
5. Bamboo is related to other products like JIRA, Confluence and Clover by Altassian allowing the developers and the other team members to be at the same page
6. It can also import data from Jenkins.

5.GitLab CI

GitLab Continuous Integration tool is a complete code management platform with multiple mini tools each performing a different set of function for the complete SDLC. It is owned by GitLab Inc and was created by engineers Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov . It provides important analysis on the code views, bug management,CI CD in a single web-based repository which also makes it the most demanded CI CD tool. GitLab CI is written in Ruby and Go and its  core functionality is released under an open-source MIT license, keeping rest of the functions under proprietary license.

Key Features:

1. It is directly integrated with the GitLab Workflow
2. Allows all critical information on the code progress in a single dashboard
3. Free for the community edition, the enterprise version is paid one
4. Language Programming CMD build scripts available allowing to program them in
any language
5. APIs are provided to allow better product integrations

6.Circle CI

Circle CI is one of the best Continuous Integration and Delivery tool available in the market. CircleCI provides a great platform for build and test automation along with comprehensive deployment process. It can be integrated with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise and Bitbucket to create builds. It also supports on-cloud Continuous Integration. Because of its strong features and efficient performance in this space, it is highly recommended by experts.

Key Features:

1. It easily Integrates with Bitbucket, GitHub, and GitHub Enterprise
2. It allows branch focused deployment
3. It performs easy bug-cleanup, runs tests quickly and is highly customizable
4. Easily integrates with AWS, Google cloud and other services
5. Build tools like Maven, Gradle can be easily integrated

7.Codeship

Codeship Continuous Integration tool was acquired by Cloudbees. It is praised by its users for its combination of features for build and deployment. It is efficient, simple and deploys directly from the Github and Bitbucket. Its features of integration and delivery are combined in such a way that it makes more reliable deployment as soon as the code is automatically tested.

Key Features:

1. It allows a very supportive environment when it comes to compatibility with different technologies, languages, deployment in different environments of choice.
2. It has a very fast and strong developer support and is very easy to use.
3. It also supports third party tools integration very well.
4.It requires a single sign-up for Github, Bitbucket and Gitlab
5. Allows simple file management configuration, easy monitoring and scale-up as per the need.

8. Cruise Control

CruiseControl is a Java based Continuous Integration platform. It is popular for allowing various source controls, email notifications and build technologies with the help of plugins. It is written in Java and has versions of .Net (CCNet) and Ruby (CruiseControl.rb.) as well.

Key Features:

1. Supplies builders for Ant, Nant, Maven, Phing, Rake, and Xcode.
2. It is an Open source Framework
3. Allows Custom build loops for build cycles
4.Its web interface provides visual status of the builds
5. Provides JSP Reporting for managing build results

9. BuildBot

Buildbot is a software development continuous integration platform that allows automatic compilation and testing in order to validate any changes occurred in the project. It is written in Python. Originally created by Brian Warner, it is now maintained by the developer Dustin Michelle. It is popular for performing complex automation testing of the Development Life Cycle processes and for application deployment. This is among one of those tools that allow distribution and execution of programs parallelly on different platforms.

Key Features:

1. It is an Open source Continuous Integration Platform
2. Automates complex building, application deployment and manages complicated software releases
3. Allows time estimation of build completion as it provides real-time insights of the build progress.
4. Uses Python, C and host requirements of Python and Twisted
5. Supports distributed, parallel execution across multiple platforms and provides extensive status reporting

10. GoCD

GoCD Continuous Integration server is owned by Thoughtworks. It streamlines the build, automation and deployments of complex build cycles. Its top USP is to enable plugins or design custom plugins for any requirements during the CI CD process. It follows business continuity concept under which it sets up multiple servers is possible in order to keep the data readily available at the time of emergency. It is compatible with Windows, OSX, AWS AMIs, Docker, Debian/APT, RPM/YUM, and Zip. It can run tests in multiple languages and provides robust reports on the insights.

Key Features:

1. It is an opensource Continuous Integration server.
2.It allows the deployment of any preferable versions of applications
3.It easily configures the dependencies based on the last report and allows on
demand deployments
4. There are numerous plugins available for this and can also be customized as per the
requirement.
5. It re-uses the pipeline configuration keeping the configuration organized with the
help of its template system
6. The entire workflow can be tackled and watched with good tracking and feedback
system allowing the developer to track changes from committing through
deployment at a single place.

Conclusion

The above list of best Continuous Integration tools describes each of the ten tools in detail and covers the best of all along with their main features. This information is insightful for those who still haven’t thought of inculcating these automation tools to build and deploy various aspects of the Software development projects. Continuous Integration, delivery and deployment are very critical and complex systems in the Software theory. They need to be handled with care in order to fetch great results. Choosing the right tool for your business would certainly help handle this responsibility well. It is not about choosing one best tool, but multiple tools can also be selected based on the requirements of the project. As the CI CD continues to grow and evolve, it leaves the innovators with more chances to explore on creating the best versions of such tools.

Suyash Dubey | Posted on | 2 min Read

Continuous Integration with Jenkins

The efficiency of the software development life cycle is what differentiates a successful app delivery to a faulty one. The industry is emphasizing on the need to increase the productivity of the development process with speedy deployment. This can be achieved with continuous integration and continuous delivery. In agile development, there is a constant need to test the code regularly with continuous integrations of the builds. Jenkins helps in optimizing the CI/CD process. So let’s start with Continuous integration and then we will move on to the role of Jenkins in achieve continuous integration.
 

What is Continuous Integration

 
Continuous integration is a process in which multiple commits are made every day and each commit code is built and tested immediately. Once the test is passed the build is tested for deployment and then it is sent to production. A CI/CD pipeline consists of Continuous Integration server like Jenkins, Source Control tool, Build tool, and an automation testing framework like Selenium, Appium, etc. There are many benefits of continuous integration and according to the project requirement, the development team can choose the best continuous integration tools.

What is Continuous Integration
 

What is Jenkins

 
Jenkins is an open-source server-based application written in Java used to achieve continuous integration in an automated fashion. It is popular because it makes monitoring the repeated task which arises during the development phase. While working on the project, Jenkins automation will continuously test the builds and recognize the errors in the early stages of the development. Jenkins speed up the software development process by automating the build and test quickly.
 

Why CI needs Jenkins

 
When a team of developers works on a project and uses a shared repository, some might take 20 days and others might take 25 days to complete. When the developers were done with their coding, they used to commit at the same time and then the build was tested. This way a single build was done after many days. But with Jenkins, build, and testing of code can be done many times in a day. Once the testing is done then the source will be deployed into the test server. Jenkins will notify the developers if the build fails.
 
Since the code was built all at once, some developers would have to wait for others to complete which is not efficient. It was difficult to detect and fix bugs for multiple commits. Now with Jenkins, once the developer commits, the code is built immediately and thus it is easy to find the code that causes build failure.
 
Earlier the code build and test process were done manually and this was the reason for more number of errors. This is rectified by the automated build and testing in Jenkins.
 
One more issue was that code was deployed when all the bugs were fixed and this made the development cycle slow. Jenkins helps speed up the process as the code is deployed after every build and test.
 

Advantages and Disadvantages

 
The best thing about Jenkins is that it is open source and the community takes feedback from the users for enhancement of the project. In every three months, there is a stable release and there are more than 320 plugins are published in its plugins database. It also supports cloud-based architecture and it can be integrated with cloud-based platforms.
 
Some flaws include its outdated user interface and lack in the overall user experience in some ways. It runs on a server which requires more maintenance and skills to install, configure and monitor the activity. There will be some issues with the setting changes and the continuous integration will break which will need developers attention.
 

Use of Jenkins to Achieve CI/CD Pipeline with pCloudy

Here we can see a sample app code that will be used in this process.
 
Use of Jenkins to Achieve CI/CD Pipeline with pCloudy
 
This app is also hosted on Git as shown in the figure.
 
Hosted on Git

Go to the configuration page in Jenkins for this project.
 
Jenkins 4

We have configured it to pCloudySampleAndroidApp. Jenkins will pick up this project from the location and build it. Then we need to get the Github access and branch to pick the code. The source control mechanism should be polled with a schedule.
 
In this build, we will build the android studio project using Gradle wrapper.
 
Jenkins 4
 
Here we can see the location of the Gradle wrapper and the task that needs to be performed by Gradle.
 
Next step is to integrate Jenkins and the plugin can be taken from the pCloudy website.
 
Jenkins 5
 
In Step 1, we have mentioned the URL of the device cloud followed by the user name and the API key. You can retrieve your API access key by going to the settings page in pcloudy.
 
Jenkins 6
 
In step 2 we need to provide the command line path where we have mentioned the Appium Jar file which has the test cases. Next, you need to give the path of the app that has been build by Jenkins and then mention the automation duration.
 
In step 3, we can choose the device on which we want to run the Appium. So you can select the Android version and select the preferred device with desired specifications. We selected two devices for the process.
 
Jenkins 7
 
Now we can go back to the code and check how the entire configuration comes together.
 
Jenkins 8
 
After making the changes in the code, go to the version control system and add a commit.
 
Jenkins 9
 
After that push the code. Once the push is successful you can check in the Git if it is showing the code change.
 
Jenkins 10
 
Now again go to Jenkins and click on “Build Now”.
 
Jenkins 11

In the next screen, we can see the initiation of Gradle Daemon.
 
Jenkins 12
 
Now go to active sessions in device.pcloudy to see the live view of the activity in the devices.
 
Jenkins 13
 
So this is how you can make changes in the code and push the code into Git from where Jenkins download the code and upload the build into pCloudy. This process takes a few minutes and we were also able to see the test activity live which is an advantage of integrating the Jenkins based build system with pCloudy’s automation.
 

Conclusion

 
Jenkins is like the soul of the continuous integration process as it builds and tests the app continuously which makes it easier to integrate changes to the process. Most of the process is automated and this saves time and effort which can be used to perform other tasks related to the delivery. It has some issues like the old UI but the benefits like an active opensource community overshadow the little disadvantages. This is why Jenkins is the most popular CI server among the developers.
 
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