There are many continuous integration tools on the market to supplement your software development process. By utilizing continuous integration as a strategy, you save your business time and money.
In fact, you will notice that continuous integration and agile development share similar end goals. And that is for good reason.
Iterative processes and frequent updates make for better code and better software products overall. To learn more about continuous integration and the tools that empower the practice, stick around!
What Is Continuous Integration?
Continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment are all closely related terms. Here’s a breakdown of their distinct, contextual meanings:
- continuous integration — a means of merging new codes changes regularly to the main branch of source code
- continuous delivery — a software engineering approach encouraging teams to produce software in short, intermittent cycles
- continuous deployment — a software release process that relies heavily on automated testing; each change must pass through all the stages of the software development life cycle
CI/CD is a shorthand that conveys the aforementioned terminology with ease. And the phrase is in regular usage within the software realm.
The main idea of these concepts is that making constant adjustments to a software project will mean stricter error checking and unbridled improvements along the way.
What Are Continuous Integration Tools?
Continuous integration tools are able to assess the stability and correctness of new code for integration.
CI tools have a number of benefits. Some of the advantages of continuous integrations tools include the following:
- CI tools prevent merge conflicts such as bugs and duplicate code, making for cleaner code
- CI tools decrease code review time and ultimately speed up development time
- CI tools reduce the project backlog
- CI tools automate time-consuming tasks
- CI tools allow for continuous feedback meaning a better software product overall
In general, CI tools increase engineering teams’ capacity to build high-quality software by yielding developers code views, integration tests, and other useful tooling.
14 Best Continuous Integration Tools
Continuous integration tools can complement a robust ecosystem of software tools that help meet your business needs. Look below to see what continuous integration tools can fortify your software development.
1. Jenkins
Jenkins is one of the most popular open-source tools on the market for automating your projects. Deployed on a standalone continuous integration server, Jenkins can bolster scalability for your business by automating testing and finding defects quickly.
Its popularity likely stems from its rich features and plugins and easy installation through a WAR file. Jenkins is also free and thus widely accessible.
2. CircleCI
CircleCI is a continuous integration tool that is in direct competition with the Jenkins CI/CD platform. Both Circle and Jenkins are notably popular and claim to do the same things.
However, CircleCI guarantees faster builds, simplified maintenance, and shorter feedback cycles.
With CircleCI, you can scale up to 80x concurrency, meaning you can execute multiple tasks simultaneously. CircleCI is free, with paid plans starting at $30 per month.
3. Travis CI
Travis CI is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud technology for open-source projects, enabling development teams to test and ship their apps efficiently.
This continuous integration platform was actually the first of its kind to offer its service for free. And despite the costs, you get more than what you pay for.
The CI tool supports multiple languages and platforms, parallel testing, and seamless GitHub synchronization.
4. Bitbucket Pipelines
Bitbucket Pipelines and Bamboo are both Atlassian products. Though Bamboo was discontinued some time ago, the name is still used interchangeably with BitBucket Pipelines which offers similar key features.
BitBucket Pipelines extends both continuous integration and continuous deployment. As a result, you do not have to manage servers, synchronize repositories, or configure user management for your development projects.
BitBucket Pipelines also integrates with Jira, a software product for bug tracking and agile project management.
‘Pipelines’ is a reference to the automated processes DevOps professionals employ towards efficient deployment. A standard deployment pipeline includes version control, acceptance tests, independent deployment, and production deployment.
5. TeamCity
TeamCity is a product of JetBrains, a Czech software development company well-known for building popular integrated development environments (IDEs) like PyCharm and IntelliJ.
Of course, JetBrains does much more than develop IDEs. For instance, TeamCity is a powerful CI solution that you can use for free for your first 100 build configurations.
TeamCity’s feature set warrants complete control over your production environments. Whether you want to run three builds alongside each other or import source code from two separate version control systems (VCSs), TeamCity can do it all.
6. GitLab CI/CD
GitLab is first and foremost a DevOps platform that improves cycle time with features like issue tracking and reporting.
On the other hand, GitLab CI/CD is a web application attached to a friendly user interface that allows you to manage projects keeping the principles of continuous integration in mind.
One much-appreciated facet of GitLab CI/CD is the ability to create intricate API integrations through the platform, given that GitLab provides APIs for most if not all of its features.
7. GoCD
GoCD can model complex workflows via an intuitive interface for your CD pipelines. Your team can even visualize workflows end-to-end in real-time using GoCD’s Value Stream Map.
User authentication, authorization, secure deployment to production are other benefits of the platform. And a plethora of custom plugins enhance the functionality of this tool.
8. CodeShip
CloudBees CodeShip is a SaaS CI solution that optimizes CI and CD in the cloud. Both small and scaling businesses can gain from using CodeShip.
Some of CodeShip’s notable advantages in the CI tool market are centralized team management dashboards, easily accessible debug builds, and extensive customizability.
To add, CodeShip simplifies the process of pushing code to your repository with automated workflows.
9. Buildbot
Buildbot, in its own words, is a ‘job scheduling system’. Automation is always the focus, no matter if you’re automating a build, automating tests, or even automating deployment.
To put it simply, Buildbot is a utilitarian CI framework for automating compilation and testing and other processes that take place in your software development life cycle.
To boot, Buildbot is open-source as well, meaning it’s easy to access for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
10. CruiseControl
CrusieControl is an extensible continuous integration tool with a large variety of source controls and builds technologies.
Integration with VCSs supports vss, csv, svn, git, hg, perforce, clearcase, filesystem, and other diverse systems.
What’s more, CruiseControl’s notification systems span from email to instant messaging.
11. Wercker
Wercker utilizes Docker and microservices to accomplish its goals. The main goal of Wercker is, naturally, to ease the development process.
To elaborate, Docker characterizes several software services, namely Docker containers. Docker containers are standardized, isolated units for bundling software.
Microservices work similarly whereas every function of a software product is encapsulated within a distinct service. APIs work to bring these services together.
With these tools, developers use Wercker to create automated pipelines which they can execute from a command-line interface. Parallel testing and numerous integrations are only a few of Wercker’s perks.
12. Semaphore CI
Semaphore CI is cloud-based software that developers prize for its speed and simplicity. With Semaphore, you can build and run custom tests for dependencies, security, code styles, and more.
In addition, Semaphore CI is equipped with automatic parallel testing, native integration with favored VCSs like GitHub and Bitbucket, and speedy executions.
13. UrbanCode
IBM UrbanCode Deploy is a continuous integration tool for configuring and running software builds.
Dependency management, security administration, and role management name a couple of the platform’s noteworthy advantages.
UrbanCode can also aid your team in template creation and project variability identification.
14. Buddy
Buddy is a web-based CI/CD tool that — likewise to CircleCI — sees Jenkins as its biggest competitor.
To counter Jenkin’s visibility in the market, Buddy supplies security audits, cloud configuration, and weekly updates to its users.
Additionally, Buddy promises optimized performance via container, enhanced maintenance through an intuitive user interface and user experience, and simplified pipeline setups.
Which Continuous Integration Tool Is Right For Your Business?
After a brief overview of 14 highly rated continuous integration tools, you’re probably wondering what CI tool is best for you.
There is no easy answer to that question. In reality, you should carefully analyze your business goals and resources to better understand which tool will suit your needs best.
Of course, the most qualified advisors will be software professionals who use CI tools every day and know how they work.
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