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CircleCI vs Jenkins comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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

CircleCI
Ranking in Build Automation
14th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of CircleCI is 3.3%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 10.5%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer0972521 - PeerSpot reviewer
Unhelpful support, unclear billing, and has offers ability to track usage
We've had occasional connectivity issues with cloud resources and build failure due to its own internal system setup and environment. That costs us credits. Support engineers do not thoroughly read and understand issues when emailing them. They reply to me with a totally different context about the problem. Just yesterday, my web applications failed to 'yarn build' after I downgraded the resource class from extr-large to large. I contacted support and got no reply. Billing is a mess. There is duplicate information in the bill downloaded from their website and when I asked for a consolidated bill, they just answered that they didn't have it. There is no transparency on how many billed minutes and credits I spent each day both on their website and the monthly bill which makes it difficult to understand when the monthly bill contains many refill item charges. It is difficult or impossible to track usage and burndown of my subscription and to gain total outstanding refill amounts on a daily basis. Their website doesn't provide sufficient information on credits allocated/calculated for my extra-large resource class.
Mahdi Mallaki - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a community of plugin providers but needs improvement in Kubernetes integration
Integrating Jenkins with other tools or solutions has presented some challenges. For instance, when attempting to integrate Jenkins with Kubernetes, I encountered numerous errors, which took several days to resolve. In Jenkins, adding a feature typically involves incorporating the repository feature separately. Jenkins lacks built-in Git repository functionality, necessitating an external Git repository to store Jenkins manifests. In contrast, GitLab offers an integrated Git repository and pipeline runner, streamlining the process. One improvement for Jenkins could be integrating a Git server, simplifying the management of CI/CD pipelines. Currently, with Jenkins, modifying pipeline manifests requires navigating to a separate Git repository. In GitLab, however, manifest changes can be made directly within the repository.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Some of the most valuable features include container-based builds, integration with Bit Bucket and being able to store artifacts."
"The automation workflow in CircleCI related to third-party applications is very good and allows standardization of applications."
"The solution offers continuous integration and continuous delivery."
"Enables us to detect exactly which build failed and why, and to push multiple builds to our production environment at a very fast rate."
"The ability to automate the build process in a seamless way and run workflows effortlessly. It supports parallel builds so it can scale well. Also, it covers the basics of any build and integration tool, including email notifications (especially when tests are fixed), project insights, etc."
"It's a stable product."
"Jenkins has built good plugins and has a good security platform."
"Jenkins's automation and orchestration features have significantly improved workflows by automating various processes. Initially, it did not support YAML manifesting or GitOps, but recent versions have introduced these capabilities. Now, the tool supports importing manifest files from Git repositories, enabling the implementation of GitOps pipelines. Compared to other tools like GitLab, it has become a mature tool for running CI/CD pipelines."
"Automation of chores like deployment, frequent manual tasks (like running scripts on test and production systems) reduced the time used and the number of errors made by engineers, freeing them to do meaningful work instead."
"It's a powerful tool for CI/CD."
"The deployment of traditional Jenkins is easy."
"Jenkins optimizes the CI/CD process, enhances automation, and ensures efficiency and management of our build and deployment pipeline."
"Continuous Integration. Jenkins can integrate with almost any systems used for application development and testing, with its plugins."
"The most valuable features of Jenkins are its ease of use and good plugins available. You are able to connect to a lot of solutions."
 

Cons

"The solution’s pricing could be better."
"Billing is a mess."
"Integration with Microsoft Azure is one area for improvement. Azure is growing in its user base, and supports various cloud infrastructure components such as Service Fabric, App Service, etc. Some of Azure’s deployment models (like Kudu) require a steep learning curve, but if CircleCI would come up with such features (deployment to App Service) out of the box, it would be amazing."
"There needs to be some improvement in the user interface of CircleCI."
"The major drawback with Jenkins is the lack of support."
"Creating a new SonarQube project requires a separate job, and we've encountered some integration issues with Docker and the need for better vulnerability checks."
"It can be improved by including automated mobile reporting integrations."
"The scriptwriting process could be improved in this solution in the future."
"I do not have any notes for improvement."
"The solution could improve by having more advanced integrations."
"Developer documentation for plugins, plugin development, integrations: Sometimes it’s tricky to do pretty obvious things."
"The enterprise version is less stable than the open-source version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of CircleCI could be less expensive."
"There is no cost. It is open source."
"It is an open source."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."
"​It is free.​"
"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."
"It is a free product."
"We are using the freeware version of Jenkins."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
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Comparison Review

it_user184734 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 22, 2015
I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.
Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CircleCI?
The solution offers continuous integration and continuous delivery.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CircleCI?
Beware of skyrocketing bills as CircleCI does not provide transparency into how they charge refills. Their monthly billing statement is almost unreadable and their online dashboard doesn't provide ...
What needs improvement with CircleCI?
We've had occasional connectivity issues with cloud resources and build failure due to its own internal system setup and environment. That costs us credits. Support engineers do not thoroughly read...
How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?
When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...
What do you like most about Jenkins?
Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?
Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about CircleCI vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.