CircleCI is primarily a cloud-based CI orchestration tool. There is also an Enterprise version which can be setup on one’s own infrastructure. It was founded in 2011 and is based out of San Francisco. This tool helps in automating installation and delivery processes. It is quite simple to configure and maintain. 

CircleCI reduces the overhead of having a dedicated server as it is cloud-based. The enterprise version is also low on maintenance. The cloud-based platform offers credit-based plans that are scalable and help in deploying applications faster. 

Serves around 30000 clients and is capable of running a million tasks per day.

Offers performance-based scaling options.

Incorporates SSH into the build and test runs to debug.

Enables setting up of parallel builds for faster execution of the process.

Runs every task as a new container which prevents stale build data causing issues.

Announces the end of task execution via Email Notification.

Offers numerous orbs (plugins) that help in connecting the existing tools setup.

Offers cached third-party configurations and application specifications instead of system deployment.

Jenkins is an open-source automation tool. Initially developed by Hudson, Jenkins later was separated into a new tool and was made open source. It’s extensive community support and contribution has made it the most popular of open-source CI-CD tools. This has also led to the development of over 1500 plugins for various integrations with other tools. Through the years, Jenkins has gained wide popularity in the DevOps community due to its versatility and huge community support. 

With the enormous number of plugins, it can be set up as a simple CI server and also handle CD for complex projects.

Can be used to connect multiple slave nodes which helps in distributing the workload across platforms.

Almost any tool can be integrated into Jenkins owing to the enormous number of plugins available in its update center. Most companies who develop tools themselves also release a plugin for Jenkins.

Owing to its highly distributed nature and huge plugin support, there are a lot of possibilities for what Jenkins can do.

Ready packages for all OS flavors available on the download center. Java is the only prerequisite it requires.

Has a very neat and interactive UI which makes configuring projects easy. There is built-in help for most configurations.

Then we will know about Continuous Integration(CI) & Continuous Delivery(CD)

Continuous integration is a development approach where programmers merge their code into a shared repository, which is further verified by automated test and build sequences.

Continuous Integration simplifies integration into a quick, easy-to-repeat production process and ensures that any errors in the process are identified at an early stage. This approach leads to a significant reduction of integration issues and helps teams to release their software rapidly.

Continuous integration focuses on test data and automatic system deployment to smoothen the integration process. Switching to CI can be a big transition for your developers but certain tools will help you get the work done faster.

Continuous delivery is a software development process wherein the development phase is more streamlined to allow fast and efficient deliveries to production. A successful continuous delivery method requires ensuring that it can always be in a state where it can be immediately deployed. For CD, app delivery is a regular process with no sentiment of immediacy.

What’s important about the CD is it will deploy the same resource in all settings. As a consequence, a built-in CI occurs just for once but not for every setting. The created resource should function with placeholders or data structures for a build-on design.

In next, we will know the differences between CircleCI vs Jenkins

 Builds are configured using the circle.yaml file 

 This config will be like any other repo and can be called using CircleCI 

 Helps in version control of the configurations and makes sharing of build configs easy 

 No initial setup required as it is primarily cloud-based. Enterprise version is also easy to set up 

 Out-of-the-box solutions available to maintain third-party integrations 

 New features will be available to the users as soon as they are released in the cloud version 

 Every job will be run in a new container where all the dependencies will be installed by CircleCI 

 Has an interactive UI and undergoes frequent upgrades  

  Offers a decent number of Orbs – plugins that help integrate with various tools 

 Orbs are structured in a standard way and have common best practices making it easy for the users 

 Offers scalable systems to accommodate large build processes and running jobs in parallel 

 Cache dependencies, Docker layers help in speeding up the builds 

 Comes with an in-built feature to enable parallelism. This is achieved by running multiple containers at once 

 Users can be added via VCS Authentication 

 Permissions can be automatically adopted from VCS 

 Application level security coupled with runtime isolation using containers provides a secure build environment 

 Built-in support for Docker in Workflow can be accessed by adding services section in circle.yaml 

 Features like SSH and automated DevOps testing features make it easier to debug 

 Builds are configured through the Jenkins web interface or the Jenkins pipeline-as-a-code groovy syntax 

  Settings are stored in the Jenkins file system on the Jenkins master node 

 Build configurations cannot be easily shared as there is no version control integration for storing the config files 

 Initial setup can be done using the packages available for respective OSes 

 Initial setup is easy but the configuration becomes a bit tedious 

 Maintenance requires a dedicated resource to check compatibility of Jenkins and the plugins installed as jenkins and plugin developments do not happen in sync. Plugins are interdependent causing a huge dependency chain 

 The teams need to maintain the sanity of the build environment as jobs are run on the same server.  Maintaining dependencies also becomes a tedious task 

 Is heavy and clumsy. It is comparatively slower and has more of a legacy UI 

 Offers a plethora of plugins integrating almost all tools used as a part of the SDLC 

 Plugins are developed by companies and various community contributors 

 They do not have a common structure and thus become difficult for the users 

  Build nodes need to be scaled in order to scale up Jenkins for faster executions 

 Execution speed depends on the efficiency of the plugins 

 Builds jobs can be run in parallel using multi-threading 

CI CD Tools

cross browser testing

Emulators and simulators

test on real devices

With so many CI/CD tools with amazing features available, between CircleCI and Jenkins you're bound to get confused! Find out what's the right fit for you.

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CircleCI vs Jenkins: Choosing The Right CI/CD Tool

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