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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Front End Scaffolding Tools
  5. Apache Ant vs Yeoman

Apache Ant vs Yeoman

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Yeoman
Yeoman
Stacks1.7K
Followers1.3K
Votes396
GitHub Stars10.1K
Forks730
Apache Ant
Apache Ant
Stacks250
Followers151
Votes7
GitHub Stars449
Forks449

Apache Ant vs Yeoman: What are the differences?

Apache Ant: 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; Yeoman: A set of tools for automating development workflow. Yeoman is a robust and opinionated set of tools, libraries, and a workflow that can help developers quickly build beautiful, compelling web apps. It is comprised of yo - a scaffolding tool using our generator system, grunt - a task runner for your build process and bower for dependency management.

Apache Ant can be classified as a tool in the "Java Build Tools" category, while Yeoman is grouped under "Front End Scaffolding 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, Yeoman provides the following key features:

  • Lightning-fast scaffolding — Easily scaffold new projects with customizable templates (e.g HTML5 Boilerplate, Bootstrap), RequireJS and more.
  • Great build process — Not only do you get minification and concatenation
  • I also optimize all your image files, HTML, compile your CoffeeScript and Compass files, if you're using AMD, I will pass those modules through r.js so you don't have to.

"Flexible" is the primary reason why developers consider Apache Ant over the competitors, whereas "Lightning-fast scaffolding" was stated as the key factor in picking Yeoman.

Apache Ant and Yeoman are both open source tools. Yeoman with 9.23K GitHub stars and 759 forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Apache Ant with 247 GitHub stars and 254 GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Yeoman has a broader approval, being mentioned in 205 company stacks & 200 developers stacks; compared to Apache Ant, which is listed in 24 company stacks and 12 developer stacks.

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Detailed Comparison

Yeoman
Yeoman
Apache Ant
Apache Ant

Yeoman is a robust and opinionated set of tools, libraries, and a workflow that can help developers quickly build beautiful, compelling web apps. It is comprised of yo - a scaffolding tool using our generator system, grunt - a task runner for your build process and bower for dependency management.

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.

Lightning-fast scaffolding — Easily scaffold new projects with customizable templates (e.g HTML5 Boilerplate, Bootstrap), RequireJS and more.;Great build process — Not only do you get minification and concatenation; I also optimize all your image files, HTML, compile your CoffeeScript and Compass files, if you're using AMD, I will pass those modules through r.js so you don't have to.;Automatically compile CoffeeScript & Compass — Our LiveReload watch process automatically compiles source files and refreshes your browser whenever a change is made so you don't have to.;Automatically lint your scripts — All your scripts are automatically run against JSHint to ensure they're following language best-practices.;Built-in preview server — No more having to fire up your own HTTP Server. My built-in one can be fired with just one command.;Awesome Image Optimization — I optimize all your images using OptiPNG and JPEGTran so your users can spend less time downloading assets and more time using your app.;Killer package management — Need a dependency? It's just a keystroke away. I allow you to easily search for new packages via the command-line (e.g. `bower search jquery`), install them and keep them updated without needing to open your browser.;PhantomJS Unit Testing — Easily run your unit tests in headless WebKit via PhantomJS. When you create a new application, I also include some test scaffolding for your app.
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
Statistics
GitHub Stars
10.1K
GitHub Stars
449
GitHub Forks
730
GitHub Forks
449
Stacks
1.7K
Stacks
250
Followers
1.3K
Followers
151
Votes
396
Votes
7
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 121
    Lightning-fast scaffolding
  • 83
    Automation
  • 78
    Great build process
  • 57
    Open source
  • 49
    Yo
Cons
  • 1
    Even harder to debug than Javascript
Pros
  • 4
    Flexible
  • 1
    Simple
  • 1
    Easy to write own java-build-hooks
  • 1
    Easy to learn
Cons
  • 1
    Old and not widely used anymore
  • 1
    Slow
Integrations
Bower
Bower
Grunt
Grunt
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Yeoman, Apache Ant?

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.

Pants

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

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.

Lineman

Lineman

Lineman is a command-line utility that is hyper-focused on helping web developers build first-class JavaScript web applications. Lineman provides a thin wrapper around a number of client-side productivity tools (primarily Express, Grunt, and Testem), with the goal of helping developers focus on writing awesome web apps instead of worrying about workflow configuration.

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