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Azure Pipelines vs Travis CI: What are the differences?
Introduction
Azure Pipelines and Travis CI are both popular Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) platforms that help streamline the development process by automating the build, test, and deployment phases of software projects. However, there are some key differences between the two platforms that can influence the choice of which one to use for a specific project.
Platform Availability: Azure Pipelines is a service provided by Microsoft Azure and is primarily focused on providing CI/CD capabilities for applications hosted on Azure. On the other hand, Travis CI is a cloud-based platform that supports a wider range of platforms and can be easily integrated with popular code hosting services like GitHub and Bitbucket.
Configuration: Azure Pipelines offers a flexible configuration system that allows defining build pipelines using either YAML or graphical tools. In contrast, Travis CI relies on a YAML-based configuration file called
.travis.ymlto define build and test steps. This difference in configuration approaches can affect the ease of use and flexibility of each platform.Build Environment: Azure Pipelines provides a wide range of build agents that can run build and test jobs. These agents can be either hosted by Microsoft or self-hosted on-premises or on virtual machines. Travis CI, on the other hand, offers a fixed set of predefined build environments, which might not have the required software or dependencies for certain projects.
Integration with Third-Party Services: Azure Pipelines provides native integration with various Microsoft services like Azure DevOps, Azure Container Registry, and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). It also offers built-in support for integration with third-party tools like Jira and Slack. Travis CI, on the other hand, integrates well with popular code hosting services like GitHub, making it easier to trigger build and deployment pipelines based on code changes.
Pricing Model: Azure Pipelines offers a generous free tier that allows for a certain number of minutes of free build time per month. Beyond that, usage is charged based on the number of parallel jobs and the total build minutes consumed. Travis CI also provides a free tier with a limited number of concurrent jobs and build minutes per month, and additional usage is charged based on the number of concurrent jobs and build minutes.
Extensibility: Azure Pipelines can be extended using custom tasks that are created using various technologies like PowerShell, Bash, and Node.js. It also has an extensive marketplace of pre-built tasks and extensions. Travis CI, on the other hand, provides a plugin system that allows extending its functionality using Ruby-based libraries and scripts.
In summary, Azure Pipelines and Travis CI have differences in terms of availability, configuration, build environment, integration with third-party services, pricing model, and extensibility. The choice between the two platforms depends on the specific requirements and preferences of the project.
We are currently using Azure Pipelines for continous integration. Our applications are developed witn .NET framework. But when we look at the online Jenkins is the most widely used tool for continous integration. Can you please give me the advice which one is best to use for my case Azure pipeline or jenkins.
If your source code is on GitHub, also take a look at Github actions. https://github.com/features/actions
From a StackShare Community member: "Currently we use Travis CI and have optimized it as much as we can so our builds are fairly quick. Our boss is all about redundancy so we are looking for another solution to fall back on in case Travis goes down and/or jacks prices way up (they were recently acquired). Could someone recommend which CI we should go with and if they have time, an explanation of how they're different?"
We use CircleCI because of the better value it provides in its plans. I'm sure we could have used Travis just as easily but we found CircleCI's pricing to be more reasonable. In the two years since we signed up, the service has improved. CircleCI is always innovating and iterating on their platform. We have been very satisfied.
As the maintainer of the Karate DSL open-source project - I found Travis CI very easy to integrate into the GitHub workflow and it has been steady sailing for more than 2 years now ! It works well for Java / Apache Maven projects and we were able to configure it to use the latest Oracle JDK as per our needs. Thanks to the Travis CI team for this service to the open-source community !
I use Google Cloud Build because it's my first foray into the CICD world(loving it so far), and I wanted to work with something GCP native to avoid giving permissions to other SaaS tools like CircleCI and Travis CI.
I really like it because it's free for the first 120 minutes, and it's one of the few CICD tools that enterprises are open to using since it's contained within GCP.
One of the unique things is that it has the Kaniko cache, which speeds up builds by creating intermediate layers within the docker image vs. pushing the full thing from the start. Helpful when you're installing just a few additional dependencies.
Feel free to checkout an example: Cloudbuild Example
I use Travis CI because of various reasons - 1. Cloud based system so no dedicated server required, and you do not need to administrate it. 2. Easy YAML configuration. 3. Supports Major Programming Languages. 4. Support of build matrix 6. Supports AWS, Azure, Docker, Heroku, Google Cloud, Github Pages, PyPi and lot more. 7. Slack Notifications.
You are probably looking at another hosted solution: Jenkins is a good tool but it way too work intensive to be used as just a backup solution.
I have good experience with Circle-CI, Codeship, Drone.io and Travis (as well as problematic experiences with all of them), but my go-to tool is Gitlab CI: simple, powerful and if you have problems with their limitations or pricing, you can always install runners somewhere and use Gitlab just for scheduling and management. Even if you don't host your git repository at Gitlab, you can have Gitlab pull changes automatically from wherever you repo lives.
If you are considering Jenkins I would recommend at least checking out Buildkite. The agents are self-hosted (like Jenkins) but the interface is hosted for you. It meshes up some of the things I like about hosted services (pipeline definitions in YAML, managed interface and authentication) with things I like about Jenkins (local customizable agent images, secrets only on own instances, custom agent level scripts, sizing instances to your needs).
My website is brand new and one of the few requirements of testings I had to implement was code coverage. Never though it was so hard to implement using a #docker container.
Given my lack of experience, every attempt I tried on making a simple code coverage test using the 4 combinations of #TravisCI, #CircleCi with #Coveralls, #Codecov I failed. The main problem was I was generating the .coverage file within the docker container and couldn't access it with #TravisCi or #CircleCi, every attempt to solve this problem seems to be very hacky and this was not the kind of complexity I want to introduce to my newborn website.
This problem was solved using a specific action for #GitHubActions, it was a 3 line solution I had to put in my github workflow file and I was able to access the .coverage file from my docker container and get the coverage report with #Codecov.
We were long time users of TravisCI, but switched to CircleCI because of the better user interface and pricing. Version 2.0 has had a couple of trips and hiccups; but overall we've been very happy with the continuous integration it provides. Continuous Integration is a must-have for building software, and CircleCI continues to surprise as they roll out ideas and features. It's leading the industry in terms of innovation and new ideas, and it's exciting to see what new things they keep rolling out.
Jenkins is a pretty flexible, complete tool. Especially I love the possibility to configure jobs as a code with Jenkins pipelines.
CircleCI is well suited for small projects where the main task is to run continuous integration as quickly as possible. Travis CI is recommended primarily for open-source projects that need to be tested in different environments.
And for something a bit larger I prefer to use Jenkins because it is possible to make serious system configuration thereby different plugins. In Jenkins, I can change almost anything. But if you want to start the CI chain as soon as possible, Jenkins may not be the right choice.
Pros of Azure Pipelines
- Easy to get started4
- Unlimited CI/CD minutes3
- Built by Microsoft3
- Yaml support2
- Docker support2
Pros of Travis CI
- Github integration506
- Free for open source388
- Easy to get started271
- Nice interface191
- Automatic deployment162
- Tutorials for each programming language72
- Friendly folks40
- Support for multiple ruby versions29
- Osx support28
- Easy handling of secret keys24
- Fast builds6
- Support for students4
- The best tool for Open Source CI3
- Hosted3
- Build Matrices3
- Github Pull Request build2
- Straightforward Github/Coveralls integration2
- Easy of Usage2
- Integrates with everything2
- Caching resolved artifacts1
- Docker support1
- Great Documentation1
- Build matrix1
- No-brainer for CI1
- Debug build workflow1
- Ubuntu trusty is not supported1
- Free for students1
- Configuration saved with project repository1
- Multi-threaded run1
- Hipchat Integration1
- Perfect0
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Cons of Azure Pipelines
Cons of Travis CI
- Can't be hosted insternally8
- Feature lacking3
- Unstable3
- Incomplete documentation for all platforms2
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