Bamboo vs IBM Rational Build Forge comparison

Atlassian and IBM are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Atlassian is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.7, while IBM is ranked #23. Atlassian holds a 7.4% mindshare in BA, compared to IBM’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 77% of Atlassian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Bamboo

Read 22 Bamboo reviews

2,364 Views
2,387 Comparison Views

77% willing to recommend

IBM Rational Build Forge

Read 2 IBM Rational Build Forge reviews

434 Views
331 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Bamboo

IBM Rational Build Forge

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

IBM Rational Build Forge and Bamboo are competing products in the field of automation and build management. While IBM Rational Build Forge stands out for its support and pricing, Bamboo offers superior features and deep integration advantages.

Features: IBM Rational Build Forge provides a strong automation framework, powerful customization options, and scalability. Bamboo offers deep integration with Atlassian tools, advanced reporting capabilities, and streamlined development workflows.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Rational Build Forge offers a flexible deployment model with comprehensive support. Bamboo provides a cloud-friendly deployment model with excellent agile process integration.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Rational Build Forge may offer more favorable initial pricing with strong ROI due to its support and scalability. Bamboo's pricing reflects its advanced features and integration, offering value for its price.

To learn more, read our detailed Bamboo vs. IBM Rational Build Forge Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Bamboo vs. IBM Rational Build Forge

March 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Bamboo

Ranking in Build Automation

6th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Rational Build Forge

Ranking in Build Automation

23rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Bamboo is 7.4%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Rational Build Forge is 0.8%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Andrea Carella

DevOps Engineer at Politecnico di Milano

High availability, helpful support, and plenty of plugins available

I have used Google Cloud Platform and Amazon AWS for implementing Bamboo. It is not difficult to complete. The length of time it takes for deployment depends on a lot of variables, such as how the pipeline is deployed and what type of infrastructure is present. However, it typically takes only hours not days. I rate the setup of Bamboo a nine out of ten.

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Amy DeLorge

CRM Program Release Manager at Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center

Great reporting features and very functional

The solution could be more user friendly. Trying to train somebody on it can be difficult. If you're in this field, you kind of learn the tools, but trying to show a PM how to find report sheets to pull data was difficult. I had to show them how to write the queries and pull the data that they needed. It's not a layman's solution. If you're working with a programmer or with an architect, you won't have issues trying to relay how to utilize the tool. It was for those who cut the checks where there were problems enabling them to pull the data they required. I guess the answer is DevOps, but it depends on your environment. Just being able to sign into dashboards and get accurate results was my biggest thing with my PMs on my projects. They like charts and pie graphs, the ability to see things at a glance data where they could make decisions on the fly.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The most valuable features are compiling and deployment."

"We use Bamboo to automate all our test builds and deployments. It integrates with tools like the ReportPortal to help us check and evaluate processes. When we initiate commands, it automatically checks for scaling issues or failures related to new code. Based on these evaluations, it provides reports in the ReportPortal, helping us decide whether to implement changes."

"In Bamboo, build and deployment have been segregated. The build plan and deployment plan are different. When comparing Bamboo to other solutions, the native feature you will not find in another tool, such as Jenkins. They have segregated the build and deployment plan. This means, building the application and deploying it are two separate parts in Bamboo, they have segregated it apart from the UI. This makes the tool a bit better compared to other tools."

"It can do the CI pipeline well."

"The most valuable feature of Bamboo is that it is a good tool for CI/CD integration."

"One of the significant benefits of Bamboo is its built-in support for numerous clients and the ability to tailor its capabilities to your specific requirements. This high level of customization enables you to create pipelines that are ideally suited to your needs, making it an invaluable tool for conducting advanced testing."

"It's one of the best solutions in this line of work. We have many Atlassian products. We use Bamboo, JIRA, Service Desk, and some other Atlassian plugins. We like that it's easy to integrate into each other. It's a suite of services."

"The most valuable features of Bamboo are its performance and UI. Additionally, there are a lot of useful plugins, integration with other solutions, such as Bitbucket and Jira, and a helpful online community."

More Bamboo pros

"Very good reporting features."

"All features are useful. Our customer doesn't have any complaints about the tool. It works pretty well for what they want and what they need to do."

Cons

"Integrating workflows with other platforms can be challenging. The capabilities of these platforms sometimes fall short compared to others. Initially, it was difficult for us because the plugins were very limited."

"Bamboo can improve by providing more with scripting, such as they have with Jenkins. Bamboo is more UI-driven at this time, Jenkins is going in that direction too."

"Scalability depends on the use case. If it is really a big customer with a lot of tests, it might not be a scalable option for them."

"Bamboo’s technical support services, in terms of speed of response, need improvement."

"It would be great if Bamboo could introduce a more containerized deployment model."

"It can be challenging for someone new to the system or ecosystem to grasp, making it difficult to train new people and help them understand."

"The tool is not capable of using YAML efficiently."

"The marketing strategy of Bamboo is an area of concern where improvements are needed."

More Bamboo cons

"Its logging can be improved. When something goes wrong, it is not always very easy to find the problem. It is hard to identify whether the problem is because of low memory in the server or some configuration in Rational Build Forge. The error logs are not very detailed, and they should provide more information. It should also have more integration with third-party tools. It would be great to have more integration with third-party tools."

"Not user friendly for the layman."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The server products for small teams used to offer excellent pricing. However, Atlassian has since changed the offering and the pricing is more expensive. I do still think the solution offers good value for money."

"I rate the solution's pricing a three out of five."

"There is a subscription required to use Bamboo."

"The price of Bamboo is reasonable."

"I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten."

"If Bamboo could provide more flexibility on pricing, that would help. On the agent side, if you want to increase the number of agents it should be less expensive. If they can provide some better pricing model, it will help, whether we are going to use it or are already using it."

Information not available

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Comparison Review

it_user217035

Senior iOS Developer at a media company with 5,001-10,000 employees

May 27, 2015

Bamboo vs. Jenkins

A biased and subjective comparison of Bamboo and Jenkins as CI servers for mobile development, based on practical experience with both. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (Delivery, Distribution) has been around for quite a while. But surprisingly enough on a global scale it pretty…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Bamboo?

Bamboo's integration with the rest of Atlassian's tech tools, like Jira, helps manage the end-to-end development and release process.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Bamboo?

I rate the solution's pricing a three out of five.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Bamboo?

Integrating workflows with other platforms can be challenging. The capabilities of these platforms sometimes fall short compared to others. Initially, it was difficult for us because the plugins we...

See all answers

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Comparisons

GitLab vs Bamboo

Compared 33% of the time

GitHub Actions vs Bamboo

Compared 26% of the time

Jenkins vs Bamboo

Compared 13% of the time

Tekton vs Bamboo

Compared 12% of the time

Harness vs Bamboo

Compared 8% of the time

More Bamboo Competitors

Jenkins vs IBM Rational Build Forge

Compared 100% of the time

More IBM Rational Build Forge Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Bamboo

March 2025

Download Bamboo product report

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

March 2025

Download IBM Rational Build Forge product report

Also Known As

No data available

Rational Build Forge

Overview

Bamboo is a continuous integration and delivery tool that ties automated builds, tests and releases together in a single workflow. It works great alongside JIRA and Stash providing a fully traceable deployment pipeline.

Atlassian

IBM Rational Build Forge is an adaptive execution framework that helps automate and standardize the software assembly process. Rational Build Forge helps teams standardize repetitive tasks, improve software quality and manage compliance mandates. This software scales to 25 seats. Rational Build Forge delivers:
Flexibility - gives developers self-service access to preconfigured build processes from within their integrated development environment (IDE). You can add IBM Rational software products to further enhance automation, reporting and integration.
Productivity - accelerates build and release cycles through iterative development, parallel processes and efficient use of hardware.
Compliance - simplifies compliance management with self-documenting audit trails and role-based security.
Compatibility - increases team efficiency with centralized build and release management using the tools you have today.

IBM

Sample Customers

Neocleus, MuleSoft, Interspire

Cars.com

Buyer's Guide

Bamboo vs. IBM Rational Build Forge

March 2025

Free Report: Bamboo vs. IBM Rational Build Forge

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