Difference Between Jenkins and TeamCity

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (Continuous Delivery), are commonly known as CI/CD.  The primary goal of CI is to ensure that changes made by various developers interact effectively and do not introduce issues in the code. The verified and accepted changes to code are quickly made available to customers due to CD’s rapid deployment to production servers. It is important in various factors such as Faster Time to Market, early bug detection, increased collaboration, continuous feedback, scalability, and flexibility.

Jenkins and TeamCity are the tools that run in most of the systems where JAVA runtime is installed because they both are built on JAVA. Both Jenkins and TeamCity is a Continuous Integration tool used in industries and is quite popular in the market. Though they both belong to the same category of tools but are different from each other in various aspects. Let’s learn about the differences in this article.

TeamCity

TeamCity is considered a user-friendly continuous integration (CI) server which helps developers with Professional Server licenses that too free of cost. It was developed in 2006 by JetBrains. It is quite easy to set up and allows for flexible workflows, collaboration, and development practices. It is written in JAVA language. Companies that use this software are Twitter, Wikipedia, eBay, Tumblr, and many others companies.

Features:

• Provides the user with Server Health Reports.
• Cloud Integration.
• Continuous Integration.
• Good Code Quality Tracking System.

Advantages:

• It can be set up very easily.
• It has the best .NET integration framework among the other CI/CD tools.
• For basic tasks, it does not rely on Plugins.
• It has many in-built functions to carry out the tasks such as building chains and dependencies, monitoring the source project of multiple projects, and many more.
• It can easily integrate with different environments.

Disadvantages:

• To use TeamCity, one has to purchase this software.
• It lacks documentation.
• Community support is less in comparison with Jenkins.

Jenkins

Jenkins is the best tool in the software industry as it is an open-source continuous integration server. It is integrated with every type of automation solution. It was never designed for cloud deployment. Basically, it was developed to support Kubernetes. Companies that use this software are Facebook, Netflix, Robinhood, and many more.

Features:

• Faster Deployment due to Easy Distributions.
• It supports most cloud-based architectures.
• Easy installation
• Easy configuration
• It offers low cost.

Advantages:

• A huge plugin library is available.
• This tool is integrated with any source management tool.
• It has complete control of the workspace
• Various languages are supported.

Disadvantages:

• It has workspace issues.
• While pushing to Github, sometimes Jenkins time out.
• It was not designed for cloud deployment.
• All the plugins are not compatible with this tool.

Difference between Jenkins and TeamCity

Parameters	Jenkins	TeamCity
Developed	It was developed in 2011.	It was developed in 2006 by JetBrains.
Ease of Use	Jenkins features a web-based user interface, but it is simpler and more unfinished when compared with TeamCity.	It has a user-friendly web-based interface with a simple clean design.
License	It comes under the MIT license.	It comes under Proprietary commercial software.
Installation	By downloading the WAR (Web Application Archive) file from the Jenkins website and running it via JRE, Jenkins can be set up. Alternately, Windows, macOS, and Linux clients may obtain platform-specific installers for Jenkins.	For operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, it can be downloaded as a pre-packaged installer. From the TeamCity website, users can download the installer and set up TeamCity through the installation instruction.
Configuration	Jenkins configuration is able to be done directly in Groovy scripts or through the web UI.	It provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for creating dependencies, triggers, and build procedures.
Extensibility	It has a huge community of extensions. Also, it makes it simple to improve its capabilities as it allows customers to install and configure plugins straight from the web interface.	It offers a broad variety of built-in plugins and integrations that expand its capabilities. In addition, it provides an SDK for developing and integrating your own add-ons and enables customized plugins.
Customization	Jenkin’s web-based interface and scripting characteristics offer a wide range of customization options.	Its interface allows users to define advanced build setups, create customized workflows, and change build pipelines.
Community Support	Chat methods, email lists, and forums all offer community support.	For users with licenses and permits, it provides professional support services that include technical assistance, bug fixes, and updates.
Hosting	It is primarily a self-hosted solution.	It is possible to self-host TeamCity on your personal infrastructure, whether it is on-premises or in the cloud.
Distributed Run	Multiple agents must be individually set up and set up, which can be challenging and time-consuming.	It offers a good and more integrated experience. The setup and configuration of distributed builds are made easier by TeamCity’s native support for distributed run.
Release Cycle	In comparison to TeamCity, it follows to a more frequent release cycle.	It releases regular updates and fixes the bug at every release cycle.
Plugins	Unlimited plugins are available in Jenkins.	For basic tasks, it does not rely on Plugins.
Key Integrations	Its plugins enable integration across many technologies, including Git, Subversion, CVS, Maven, Gradle, Docker, and Kubernetes.	Testing frameworks like JUnit and NUnit, libraries like Nexus and Artifactory, and deployment systems like Docker and Kubernetes are all fully integrated with it.
Documentation	It is well documented.	It lacks in the documentation part.
Parallelism	Jenkins can be set up to run numerous build jobs simultaneously on multiple agents or nodes.	The user may utilize it to run numerous build environments simultaneously across numerous build agents.
Port	It does not support port flexibility.	It supports port flexibility.

Which is Better: TeamCity or Jenkins?

Jenkins is the leading open-source continuous integration server but is not easy to set up whereas TeamCity is easier to configure and easier to use for the user. If one does not want to spend money on the Integration services, then they could opt for Jenkins as it is free of cost to use. For more commercial purposes, one could choose TeamCity as a Continuous Integration tool. Also, TeamCity provides a more integrated and smooth experience for distributed run capabilities. Ultimately, both the two tools have their own pros and cons. In the end, it is all up to the user’s choice to choose which tool is according to their own requirements.