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GNU Make vs LaunchDarkly 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

GNU Make
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (19th)
LaunchDarkly
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (36th), Release Automation (9th), Model Monitoring (5th), AI Governance (7th), Feature Management (3rd), AI Software Development (17th), AI Observability (37th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. GNU Make is designed for Build Automation and holds a mindshare of 1.7%, up 0.7% compared to last year.
LaunchDarkly, on the other hand, focuses on Feature Management, holds 19.6% mindshare, down 22.3% since last year.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GNU Make1.7%
Jenkins9.9%
GitHub Actions7.0%
Other81.4%
Build Automation
Feature Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
LaunchDarkly19.6%
Harness19.6%
Optimizely18.1%
Other42.699999999999996%
Feature Management
 

Featured Reviews

JC
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Enhances productivity with efficient dependency handling and a straightforward setup
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for tasks like compiling C++ code. In the industry, AI developers, for example, use GNU Make in their work…
reviewer2769948 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Software Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Has increased developer confidence by enabling safe production releases using targeted feature toggles
I wish we were using more targeting in our feature toggles and I wish we were using more feature toggles as well as feature toggle dependencies. Making one feature toggle or one set of feature toggles dependent on another one would allow us to turn them all on or turn them all off at one time. For improvements in LaunchDarkly, managing team members and access to those team members was challenging. We could add team members through Terraform and do it programmatically, and then modify it through the user interface. However, once we started modifying things through the interface, we weren't able to go back to using any configuration programmatically for the team members. It made it challenging to orchestrate team member management. The other aspect I wasn't particularly fond of was when they started adding AI to the interface and deployment interface. It reminded me of old school wizards when installing software and simplified the interface too much, removing some of the engineering control I preferred.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"Full-featured syntax allows building strategies as simple or as complex as one wishes, and declarative approach fits the task really well. Wide adoption also means that everybody knows what GNU Make is and how to use it."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it. Not having it, developers would probably have to resort to doing everything manually or via shell scripts."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"I think this product has all you need."
"The best feature LaunchDarkly offers is the capability of having a feature flag that we don't have to build in-house."
"LaunchDarkly has positively impacted my organization as the value we deliver to customers is much faster, and we saved a lot by using this feature instead of implementing it ourselves."
"I appreciate that we can release any feature in production and maintain control over it."
"From the development side, it allows us to manage multiple things."
"I like that it offers the ability to control the flags."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"The setup is easy."
"The ability to turn off a flag is crucial when a task is not complete, especially if there is an error in a commit."
 

Cons

"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"GNU Make requires using the Tab symbol as the first symbol of command line for execution. In some text editors this can be problematic, as they automatically insert spaces instead of tabs."
"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"When the system has an excessive number of feature flags, managing them can become cumbersome."
"LaunchDarkly can be improved by managing old flags. We have an issue with old flags; it became very messy very fast and we need to be very disciplined about managing these flags."
"Managing team members and access to those team members was challenging. We could add team members through Terraform and do it programmatically, and then modify it through the user interface. However, once we started modifying things through the interface, we weren't able to go back to using any configuration programmatically for the team members."
"We need experience to use it, and the initial setup can be difficult. Also, sometimes it has breakdowns."
"I have used LaunchDarkly for around two and a half years and I haven't faced any issues with it."
"I don't see any return on investment; I work in the platform team that has to manage the LaunchDarkly infrastructure, and I can't really see any return on investment."
"I think LaunchDarkly's customer support can be improved as it is not responsive."
"I strongly believe they need to develop a strategy for handling situations where LaunchDarkly goes down."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GNU Make is free and open source software."
"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GNU Make?
GNU Make is a free solution that comes with Linux, which positively impacts operational costs by eliminating licensing fees.
What needs improvement with GNU Make?
I am not familiar enough with it to suggest any specific new features or areas for improvement. It occupies its niche well.
What is your primary use case for GNU Make?
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for task...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LaunchDarkly?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that pricing is great, affordable, and fair.
What needs improvement with LaunchDarkly?
LaunchDarkly can be improved by managing old flags. We have an issue with old flags; it became very messy very fast and we need to be very disciplined about managing these flags. I also heard from ...
What is your primary use case for LaunchDarkly?
My main use case for LaunchDarkly is feature flagging and gradual rollouts. Instead of releasing a new feature to all users at once, we can first enable it for internal users, then for a small grou...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
LaunchDarkly AgentControl, LaunchDarkly CodeControl
 

Overview

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