Enterprises are making their moves toward DevOps methodologies and Agile culture to accelerate delivery speed and ensure product quality. In DevOps, a continuous and automated delivery cycle is the backbone that makes fast and reliable delivery possible.

This results in the need for proper continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools. A “good” CI/CD tool can leverage teams’ current workflow, to best exploit the automation feature and create a solid CI/CD pipeline, and give teams the boost they need to thrive. If you are new to CI/CD, please check out this blog.

With the overflowing number of CI/CD tools available in the market, teams may struggle to have to make difficult decisions to pick out the right tools. This list contains the “Best 14 CI/CD tools in the market”, along with their key features, to make the selection process easier for you and your team.

Top 5 CI/CD tools in 2024

Another important criterion of a quality CI/CD tool is its ability to integrate with continuous testing software. Katalon Studio – an automated and continuous testing solution – can integrate with the most common CI/CD tools in the industry. With native built-in integrations, you can use Katalon to create, plan, execute automated tests, analyze reports, and integrate with your desired CI/CD pipeline.

Empower your CI/CD pipeline with Katalon Studio

1. Jenkins

Jenkins is an open-source automation server in which the central build and continuous integration process take place. It is a self-contained Java-based program with packages for Windows, macOS, and other Unix-like operating systems. With hundreds of plugins available, Jenkins supports building, deploying, and automating software development projects.

Jenkins key features:

Easy installation and upgrade on various OSs
Simple and user-friendly interface
Extensible with huge community-contributed plugin resource
Easy environment configuration in the user interface
Supports distributed builds with master-slave architecture
Build schedules based on expressions
Supports shells and Windows command execution in pre-build steps
Supports notification on the build status

License: Free. Jenkins is an open-source tool with an active community.

Homepage: https://jenkins.io/

2. CircleCI

CircleCI is a CI/CD tool that supports rapid software development and publishing. CircleCI allows automation across the user’s pipeline, from code building, testing to deployment.

You can integrate CircleCI with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, and Bitbucket to create builds when new code lines are committed. CircleCI also hosts continuous integration under the cloud-managed option or runs behind a firewall on private infrastructure.

CircleCI key features:

Integrates with Bitbucket, GitHub, and GitHub Enterprise
Runs builds using a container or virtual machine
Easy debugging
Automated parallelization
Quick tests
Personalized email and IM notifications
Continuous and branch-specific deployment
Highly customizable
Automated merging and custom commands for package uploading
Fast setup and unlimited builds

License: Linux plans start with the option to run one job without parallelism at no charge. Open-source projects get three additional free containers. During signup, you will see the pricing to decide which plan(s) you need.

Homepage: https://circleci.com/

3. TeamCity

TeamCity is a JetBrains’s build management and continuous integration server.

TeamCity is a continuous integration tool that helps build and deploy different types of projects. TeamCity runs in a Java environment and integrates with Visual Studio and IDEs. The tool can be installed on both Windows and Linux servers and supports .NET and open-stack projects.

TeamCity 2019.1 provides a new UI and native GitLab integration. It also supports GitLab and Bitbucket server pull requests. The release includes token-based authentication, detection, reporting of Go tests, and AWS Spot Fleet requests.

TeamCity key features:

Provides multiple ways to reuse settings and configurations of the parent project to the subproject
Runs parallel builds simultaneously on different environments
Enables running history builds, viewing test history reports, pinning, tagging, and adding builds to favorites
Easy to customize, interact with, and extend the server
Keeps the CI server functional and stable
Flexible user management, user roles assignment, sorting users into groups, different ways of user authentication, and a log with all user actions for transparency of all activities on the server

License: TeamCity is a commercial tool with both free and proprietary licenses.

Homepage: https://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/

4. Bamboo

Bamboo is a continuous integration server that automates the management of software application releases, thus creating a continuous delivery pipeline. Bamboo covers building and functional testing, assigning versions, tagging releases, deploying and activating new versions on production.

Bamboo key features:

Supports up to 100 remote build agents
Run batches of tests in parallel and get feedback quickly
Creates images and pushes them into a registry
Per-environment permissions that allow developers and testers to deploy to their environments on-demand while the production stays locked down
Detects new branches in Git, Mercurial, and SVN Repos and applies the main line’s CI scheme to them automatically
Triggers build based on the changes detected in the repository. Pushes notifications from Bitbucket, a set schedule, the completion of another build, or any combination thereof.

License: Bamboo pricing tiers are based on agents or “build slaves” rather than users. The more agents, the more processes it can run concurrently – either in the same build or different builds.

Homepage: https://www.atlassian.com/software/bamboo

5. GitLab

GitLab is a suite of tools for managing different aspects of the software development lifecycle. The core product is a web-based Git repository manager with features such as issue tracking, analytics, and a Wiki.

GitLab allows you to trigger builds, run tests, and deploy code with each commit or push. You can build jobs in a virtual machine, Docker container, or on another server.

GitLab key features:

View, create, and manage codes and project data through branching tools
Design, develop, and manage codes and project data from a single distributed version control system, enabling rapid iteration and delivery of business values
Provides a single source of truth and scalability for collaborating on projects and code
Helps delivery teams fully embrace CI by automating the builds, integration, and verification of source codes
Provides container scanning, static application security testing (SAST), dynamic application security testing (DAST), and dependency scanning to deliver secure applications along with license compliance
Helps automate and shorten releases and delivery of applications

License: GitLab is a commercial tool and free package. It offers hosting SaaS on GitLab or on your instance on-premises and/or on the public cloud.

Homepage: https://about.gitlab.com/

6. Buddy

Buddy is a CI/CD software that builds, tests, and deploys websites and applications with code from GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab. It employs Docker containers with pre-installed languages and frameworks to build on, along with DevOps, monitoring and notifying actions.

Buddy key features:

Easy to customize Docker-based images as a test environment
Smart change detection, state-of-the-art caching, parallelism, and all-around optimizations
Create, customize, and reuse builds and test environments
Plain and encrypted, fixed and settable scopes: workspace, project, pipeline, actions
Attachable services with Elastic, MariaDB, Memcached, Mongo, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, Redis, Selenium Chrome, and Firefox
Monitor with real-time progress and logs, unlimited history
Workflows management with templates to clone, export, and import pipelines
First-class Git support and integrations

License: Buddy is a free commercial tool.

Homepage: https://buddy.works/

7. Travis CI

Travis CI is a CI service used to build and test projects. Travis CI automatically detects new commits made and pushed to a GitHub repository. And after every new code commit, Travis CI will build the project and run tests accordingly.

The tool provides support for many build configurations and languages like Node, PHP, Python, Java, Perl, and so on.

Travis CI key features:

Quick setup
Live build views for GitHub projects monitoring
Pull request support
Deployment to multiple cloud services
Pre-installed database services
Auto deployments on passing builds
Clean VMs for every build
Supports macOS, Linux, and iOS
Supports multiple languages, such as Android, C, C#, C++, Java, JavaScript (with Node.js), Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, and so on.

License:

Travis CI is a hosted CI/CD service. Private projects can be tested on travis-ci.com on a fee basis. Open-source projects may be applied at no charge on travis-ci.org.

Homepage: https://travis-ci.com

8. Codeship

Codeship is a hosted platform that supports early and automatic software releases multiple times. It helps software companies develop better products faster by optimizing the testing and release processes.

Codeship key features:

Integrates with any tools, services, and cloud environments of choice
Easy to use. Provides fast and thorough developer support.
Gets the builds and deployments work faster with CodeShip’s turnkey environment and simple UI
Option to select AWS instances size, CPU, and memory
Sets up teams and permissions for both organizations and team members with notification center
Seamless third-party integrations, smart notification management, and project dashboards to provide a high-level overview of your projects and their health.

License

Use up to 100 builds/month for free, and unlimited builds start at $49/month. You can pay for more concurrent builds or more parallel pipelines with larger instance sizes.

Homepage: https://codeship.com/

9. GoCD

From ThoughtWorks, GoCD is an open-source tool to build and release software that supports modern infrastructure on CI/CD.

GoCD key features:

Easily configure dependencies for fast feedback and on-demand deployments
Promotes trusted artifacts: Every pipeline instance is anchored to a particular changeset
Provides control over your end-to-end workflow, tracks changes from committing to deployment at a glance
Easy to see the upstream and downstream
Deploy any version at any time
Allows deploying any known good version of your application to wherever you like
Gets a simple bill of materials for any deployment with the Compare Builds feature
Keeps configuration tidy by reusing pipeline configurations via GoCD’s template system
Numerous plugins available

License: Free and open-source

Homepage: https://www.gocd.org/

10. Wercker

Wercker can be a suitable choice for developers who are working with or are considering starting a new project based on Docker. Wercker supports organizations and their development teams to work with CI/CD, microservices, and Docker.

On April 17, 2017, Oracle announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wercker.

Wercker key features:

Git integrations, including GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, and version control
Replicate the SaaS environment locally with Wercker CLI, which helps debug and test pipelines before deploying
Supports Wercker’s Docker integration to build minimal containers and keep the sizes manageable
Walterbot – a chatbot in Wercker – allows you to interact with notifications to update the build status
Environment variables help keep sensitive information away from the repository
Wercker utilizes key security features, including source code protection, to turn test logs off, protected environment variables, and customizable permissions for both the users and projects

License: Oracle has not provided pricing information for Wercker after its acquisition.

Homepage: https://app.wercker.com

11. Semaphore

Semaphore is a hosted CI/CD service used for testing and deploying software projects. Semaphore establishes CI/CD standards with a pull request-based development process.

Semaphore key features:

Integrated with GitHub
Automates any continuous delivery pipeline
Runs on the fastest CI/CD platform
Automatically scales your project so that you only pay for what you use
Native Docker support. Testing and deploying Docker-based applications
Offers Boosters – a feature used to reduce the test suite run time through automatic parallelization of builds for Ruby projects

License: Flexible. With traditional CI services, you are limited by your plan’s capacity. Meanwhile, Semaphore 2.0 will scale according to your team’s actual needs so that you do not have to pay when not using the tool.

Homepage: https://semaphoreci.com/

12. Nevercode

Nevercode supports CI/CD for mobile apps. It helps build, test, and release both native and cross-platform apps faster.

Nevercode key features:

Automatic configuration and setup
Test automation: unit and UI tests, code analysis, real device testing, test parallelization
Automatic publishing: iTunes Connect, Google Play, Crashlytics, TestFairy, HockeyApp
Detailed overview of your build and test status

License: Flexible. Different plans for different needs for continuous integration. You can choose from standard plans or request a customized plan that is tailored to your requirements.

Homepage: https://nevercode.io/

13. Spinnaker

Spinnaker is a multi-cloud continuous delivery platform that supports releasing and deploying software changes across different cloud providers, including AWS EC2, Kubernetes, Google Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Google App Engine, etc.

Spinnaker key features:

Creates deployment pipelines that run integration and system tests, spin up and down server groups, and monitor rollouts. Trigger pipelines via Git events, Jenkins, Travis CI, Docker, cron, or other Spinnaker pipelines
Create and deploy immutable images for faster rollouts, easier rollbacks, and the elimination of hard-to-debug configuration drift issues
Tie your releases to monitoring services such as Datadog, Prometheus, Stackdriver, or SignalFx, using their metrics for canary analysis
Install, configure, and update your Spinnaker instances with Halyard – Spinnaker’s CLI administration tool
Set up event notifications for email, Slack, HipChat, or SMS (via Twilio)

License: Open-source

Homepage: https://www.spinnaker.io/

14. Buildbot

Buildbot is a “Python-based CI framework” that automates the compile and test cycles to validate code changes, then automatically rebuild and test the tree after every change. Therefore, build problems are quickly pinpointed.

Buildbot key features:

Automate build systems, application deployment, and management of sophisticated software-release processes
Supports distributed, parallel execution across multiple platforms, flexible integration with version-control systems, extensive status reporting
Runs builds on a variety of slave platforms
Arbitrary build process and handles projects using C and Python
Minimal host requirements: Python and Twisted

Note: Buildbot will stop supporting Python 2.7 and requires migration to Python 3.

License: Open-source

Homepage: https://buildbot.net/

Conclusion

This list includes the best 14 CI/CD tools that are currently the most popular in the market. We hope this list has provided the sufficient information you need to choose software that best fits your specification. The CI/CD tools mentioned in this list are the matured ones with the essential capabilities for your projects. Your requirements, existing infrastructure, as well as room for future potential and improvement, are the factors that will impact your final choice.

The CI/CD and DevOps trends will continue to evolve, leaving space for the market to grow and improve. The landscape will transform, and this list will be updated to ensure the information stays true for you. Also, this is a free course to help you know better about CI/CD pipeline from Katalon Academy.

Additionally, you can also take this free self-assessment to learn where your team is at in the continuous testing maturity roadmap and get expert tips to improve your CI/CD.