You need the right tools for your development team to implement DevOps principles. We compare the features of Jenkins and Kubernetes, two popular DevOps solutions.
What is Jenkins?
Jenkins is an open source automation tool popular among development teams that need a continuous integration and deployment environment. Like other CI/CD tools, Jenkins allows the execution of a series of tasks to complete the ongoing integration process.
Developers use Jenkins primarily to host, monitor, compile and test code. Because Jenkins is open source and modular, it is easily extensible.
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What is Kubernetes?
Kubernetes is one of the most popular tools for container orchestration at scale. It makes configuring, deploying, managing and monitoring containers much easier, even if a business is working with many at the same time.
Key features of Kubernetes include automatic container healing, batch execution, and automatic rollbacks or rollouts.
Features of Jenkins vs. Kubernetes
Analytics and data dashboards
Jenkins and Kubernetes make it easy for developers to monitor and analyze metrics relevant to their work more effectively.
Kubernetes provides various tools for monitoring and examining application resource use. The developers intend for end-users to leverage monitoring solutions and a robust metrics pipeline to analyze and manage container resource use.
People can also use plugins to extend the analytic capabilities of Kubernetes, providing themselves with richer or more accessible container management analytics. However, finding and configuring these plugins can make the setup of Kubernetes more challenging and time-consuming.
Jenkins does not offer analytics tools like a web-based GUI dashboard, which are increasingly common offerings in development automation tools. However, several third-party dashboard plugins for Jenkins are available, a few of which have been specifically recommended by the company’s development team. These Jenkins plugins can provide functionality similar to what other automation tools offer. Identifying and configuring them can take some work, but most teams will probably find an analytics solution that works for them.
Usability and ease of configuration
Jenkins and Kubernetes have reputations for being flexible, easy to configure and simple to use. However, Kubernetes is sometimes regarded as having a steep learning curve, unlike Jenkins.
Both tools can be extended with various integrations and plugins, so it’s also easy for developers to customize them based on their needs, personal preferences or project requirements. For example, Jenkins lacks a native deployment tool, but several plugins are available for automating the process.
However, sourcing and configuring these plugins can lengthen setup time if developers need features not available with the base version of Kubernetes of Jenkins.
Choosing Jenkins vs. Kubernetes
Jenkins and Kubernetes are intended for different applications, so the right choice will depend on a development team’s particular needs. There’s nothing stopping a developer from using Jenkins and Kubernetes together; in some cases, these tools may even complement each other, leading to a more robust CI/CD pipeline.
Jenkins is a great option for teams that need only an automation solution to help them implement continuous integration and deployment. The tool’s popularity and availability of plugins make it an excellent option.
Kubernetes is a popular orchestration tool for developers that need to deploy, manage and configure containers. The learning curve may present challenges, but its flexibility and feature set can provide significant value for various project types.
Jenkins is an automation tool that helps developers implement CI/CD, which can improve code quality and accelerate software development. Jenkins’ quick time to market can help developers ensure code changes are deployed in a timely manner.
By contrast, Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool. Kubernetes will be most valuable to developers who need to orchestrate many containers at the same time. The software can shift on-premises apps to the cloud and manage machine learning workflows. Kubernetes’ container healing and batch execution will make it easier for developers to manage project containers, even as the project grows.
However, Kubernetes and Jenkins may both be invaluable for cloud-native CI/CD. Developers working on these projects may even use the two tools together to streamline code testing, monitoring and deployment.