Gradle vs SBT

Overview

Gradle

Stacks24.3K

Followers9.8K

Votes254

GitHub Stars18.1K

Forks5.0K

SBT

Stacks162

Followers119

Votes11

Gradle vs SBT: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code provides a comparison between Gradle and SBT, highlighting the key differences between the two build automation tools.

1. Language and Ecosystem Compatibility: Gradle is written in Java and supports projects based on languages like Java, Kotlin, and Groovy. On the other hand, SBT is designed for Scala projects. While Gradle can work with Scala projects, SBT provides better support and integration with Scala-specific features and libraries.
2. Build Configuration and DSL: Gradle uses a Groovy-based DSL (Domain-Specific Language) for build configuration, which provides flexibility and expressiveness. SBT, on the other hand, uses a Scala-based DSL that leverages the powerful features of the Scala language for build configuration. This difference in DSLs makes the build configuration code differ in syntax and structure between Gradle and SBT.
3. Dependency Management: Gradle uses a flexible and powerful dependency management system, allowing developers to easily manage dependencies from various sources like repositories and local files. SBT also offers robust dependency management, but it leverages the Ivy dependency management system, which is known for its high performance and compatibility with Maven repositories.
4. Performance and Scalability: Gradle is known for its excellent performance and scalability, especially for large-scale projects. Its build caching, incremental builds, and parallel execution capabilities contribute to faster build times. While SBT also performs well, it may struggle with larger projects due to its reliance on the JVM and Scala's inherent complexity.
5. Community and Plugin Ecosystem: Gradle has a large and active community, enabling developers to find support and resources easily. It has a vast plugin ecosystem, allowing developers to leverage a wide range of plugins for various tasks. SBT, although not as widely used as Gradle, also has an active community and a growing number of plugins specifically tailored for Scala projects.
6. Tooling Integration and IDE Support: Gradle's extensive tooling support and IDE integration are often considered its strong points. It seamlessly integrates with popular IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse, providing features like code completion, build status, and more. SBT, being designed for Scala projects, also has good IDE support, primarily through plugins for IntelliJ IDEA and Scala IDE.

In summary, the key differences between Gradle and SBT lie in their language and ecosystem compatibility, build configuration and DSL, dependency management approach, performance and scalability, community and plugin ecosystem, and tooling integration and IDE support.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Gradle	SBT
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.	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.
Declarative builds and build-by-convention;Language for dependency based programming;Structure your build;Deep API;Gradle scales;Multi-project builds;Many ways to manage your dependencies;Gradle is the first build integration tool	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 18.1K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 5.0K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 24.3K	Stacks 162
Followers 9.8K	Followers 119
Votes 254	Votes 11
Pros & Cons
Pros 110 Flexibility 51 Easy to use 47 Groovy dsl 22 Slow build time 10 Crazy memory leaks Cons 8 Inactionnable documentation 6 It is just the mess of Ant++ 4 Hard to decide: ten or more ways to achieve one goal 2 Dependency on groovy 2 Bad Eclipse tooling	Pros 1 Support for publishing artifacts in Maven, Ivy formats 1 Incremental Builds 1 Dependency manageemnt 1 Flexible 1 Continuous compilation Cons 1 Learning Curve is a bit steep
Integrations
No integrations available	Scala Java

What are some alternatives to Gradle, SBT?

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.

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.

Pants

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

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.

Buck

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

Apache Ant

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.

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

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

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

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.

Related Comparisons

Gradle vs SBT: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code provides a comparison between Gradle and SBT, highlighting the key differences between the two build automation tools.

1. Language and Ecosystem Compatibility: Gradle is written in Java and supports projects based on languages like Java, Kotlin, and Groovy. On the other hand, SBT is designed for Scala projects. While Gradle can work with Scala projects, SBT provides better support and integration with Scala-specific features and libraries.
2. Build Configuration and DSL: Gradle uses a Groovy-based DSL (Domain-Specific Language) for build configuration, which provides flexibility and expressiveness. SBT, on the other hand, uses a Scala-based DSL that leverages the powerful features of the Scala language for build configuration. This difference in DSLs makes the build configuration code differ in syntax and structure between Gradle and SBT.
3. Dependency Management: Gradle uses a flexible and powerful dependency management system, allowing developers to easily manage dependencies from various sources like repositories and local files. SBT also offers robust dependency management, but it leverages the Ivy dependency management system, which is known for its high performance and compatibility with Maven repositories.
4. Performance and Scalability: Gradle is known for its excellent performance and scalability, especially for large-scale projects. Its build caching, incremental builds, and parallel execution capabilities contribute to faster build times. While SBT also performs well, it may struggle with larger projects due to its reliance on the JVM and Scala's inherent complexity.
5. Community and Plugin Ecosystem: Gradle has a large and active community, enabling developers to find support and resources easily. It has a vast plugin ecosystem, allowing developers to leverage a wide range of plugins for various tasks. SBT, although not as widely used as Gradle, also has an active community and a growing number of plugins specifically tailored for Scala projects.
6. Tooling Integration and IDE Support: Gradle's extensive tooling support and IDE integration are often considered its strong points. It seamlessly integrates with popular IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse, providing features like code completion, build status, and more. SBT, being designed for Scala projects, also has good IDE support, primarily through plugins for IntelliJ IDEA and Scala IDE.

Gradle vs SBT

Overview

Gradle vs SBT: What are the differences?