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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Java Build Tools
  5. Apache Ant vs Pants

Apache Ant vs Pants

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Apache Ant
Apache Ant
Stacks250
Followers151
Votes7
GitHub Stars449
Forks449
Pants
Pants
Stacks23
Followers86
Votes30
GitHub Stars3.7K
Forks674

Apache Ant vs Pants: What are the differences?

Developers describe Apache Ant as "Java based build tool". Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full portability of pure Java code. On the other hand, Pants is detailed as "Build system by Twitter, Foursquare, and Square". Pants is a build system for Java, Scala and Python. It works particularly well for a source code repository that contains many distinct projects.

Apache Ant and Pants can be categorized as "Java Build" tools.

Some of the features offered by Apache Ant are:

  • The most complete Java build and deployment tool available.
  • Platform neutral and can handle platform specific properties such as file separators
  • Can be used to perform platform specific tasks such as modifying the modified time of a file using 'touch' command

On the other hand, Pants provides the following key features:

  • Builds Java, Scala, and Python.
  • Adding support for new languages is straightforward.
  • Supports code generation: thrift, protocol buffers, custom code generators.

"Flexible" is the top reason why over 3 developers like Apache Ant, while over 5 developers mention "Creates deployable packages" as the leading cause for choosing Pants.

Apache Ant and Pants are both open source tools. Pants with 1.16K GitHub stars and 333 forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Apache Ant with 247 GitHub stars and 253 GitHub forks.

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Detailed Comparison

Apache Ant
Apache Ant
Pants
Pants

Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full portability of pure Java code.

Pants is a build system for Java, Scala and Python. It works particularly well for a source code repository that contains many distinct projects.

The most complete Java build and deployment tool available.;Platform neutral and can handle platform specific properties such as file separators;Can be used to perform platform specific tasks such as modifying the modified time of a file using 'touch' command;Scripts are written using plain XML. If you are already familiar with XML, you can learn pretty quickly;Automate complicated repetitive tasks;Interface to develop custom tasks;Can be easily invoked from the command line and it can integrate with free and commercial IDEs
Builds Java, Scala, and Python.;Adding support for new languages is straightforward.;Supports code generation: thrift, protocol buffers, custom code generators.;Resolves external JVM and Python dependencies.;Runs tests.;Spawns Python and Scala REPLs with appropriate load paths.;Creates deployable packages.;Scales to large repos with many interdependent modules.;Designed for incremental builds.;Support for local and distributed caching.;Especially fast for Scala builds, compared to alternatives.;Builds standalone python executables (PEX files);Has a plugin system to add custom features and override stock behavior.;Runs on Linux and Mac OS X.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
449
GitHub Stars
3.7K
GitHub Forks
449
GitHub Forks
674
Stacks
250
Stacks
23
Followers
151
Followers
86
Votes
7
Votes
30
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 4
    Flexible
  • 1
    Easy to learn
  • 1
    Simple
  • 1
    Easy to write own java-build-hooks
Cons
  • 1
    Old and not widely used anymore
  • 1
    Slow
Pros
  • 6
    Creates deployable packages
  • 4
    Runs on OS X
  • 4
    Scales
  • 4
    BUILD files
  • 4
    Runs tests

What are some alternatives to Apache Ant, Pants?

Apache Maven

Apache Maven

Maven allows a project to build using its project object model (POM) and a set of plugins that are shared by all projects using Maven, providing a uniform build system. Once you familiarize yourself with how one Maven project builds you automatically know how all Maven projects build saving you immense amounts of time when trying to navigate many projects.

Gradle

Gradle

Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. If you are building, testing, publishing, and deploying software on any platform, Gradle offers a flexible model that can support the entire development lifecycle from compiling and packaging code to publishing web sites.

Bazel

Bazel

Bazel is a build tool that builds code quickly and reliably. It is used to build the majority of Google's software, and thus it has been designed to handle build problems present in Google's development environment.

JitPack

JitPack

JitPack is an easy to use package repository for Gradle/Sbt and Maven projects. We build GitHub projects on demand and provides ready-to-use packages.

SBT

SBT

It is similar to Java's Maven and Ant. Its main features are: Native support for compiling Scala code and integrating with many Scala test frameworks.

Buck

Buck

Buck encourages the creation of small, reusable modules consisting of code and resources, and supports a variety of languages on many platforms.

Please

Please

Please is a cross-language build system with an emphasis on high performance, extensibility and reproduceability. It supports a number of popular languages and can automate nearly any aspect of your build process.

CMake

CMake

It is used to control the software compilation process using simple platform and compiler independent configuration files, and generate native makefiles and workspaces that can be used in the compiler environment of the user's choice.

Sonatype Nexus

Sonatype Nexus

It is an open source repository that supports many artifact formats, including Docker, Java™ and npm. With the Nexus tool integration, pipelines in your toolchain can publish and retrieve versioned apps and their dependencies

JFrog Artifactory

JFrog Artifactory

It integrates with your existing ecosystem supporting end-to-end binary management that overcomes the complexity of working with different software package management systems, and provides consistency to your CI/CD workflow.

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