CMake vs Gradle

Overview

Gradle

Stacks24.3K

Followers9.8K

Votes254

GitHub Stars18.1K

Forks5.0K

CMake

Stacks4.0K

Followers294

Votes1

CMake vs Gradle: What are the differences?

CMake and Gradle are two popular build systems used in software development. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Language Support: CMake is primarily used for building C, C++, and CUDA projects, whereas Gradle is designed to build Java, Kotlin, and Android projects. CMake supports a wider range of programming languages, making it more versatile in multi-language projects.
Configuration Language: CMake uses a declarative scripting language, which allows developers to specify the build process in a concise and readable manner. On the other hand, Gradle uses a powerful Groovy-based scripting language, which provides more flexibility and expressiveness in defining build configurations.
Plugin Ecosystem: While both CMake and Gradle have a rich ecosystem of plugins, the nature of their plugin systems differs. CMake plugins are typically focused on enhancing the build process itself, such as generating project files for different IDEs. Gradle plugins, on the other hand, offer a broader range of functionalities, including code analysis, testing, and deployment.
Provenance: CMake has been around for a longer time and is widely adopted in various industries. It has a solid track record and is often considered a stable and reliable option. Gradle, on the other hand, is relatively newer but has gained popularity, especially in the Android development community, due to its integration with the Android build system.
Parallel Execution: Gradle has built-in support for parallel task execution, which can significantly improve build performance on multi-core systems. CMake, on the other hand, lacks native parallel execution capabilities and relies more on manual optimization techniques to achieve better performance.
Integration with IDEs: Gradle provides seamless integration with popular IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio, making it easier for developers to build, test, and debug their projects directly from their preferred development environment. CMake also has good integration with IDEs, but it may require additional configuration to enable certain features.

In summary, CMake is a versatile build system with broad language support, while Gradle is particularly suited for Java, Kotlin, and Android projects. Gradle offers more flexibility and a powerful plugin ecosystem, but CMake has a longer track record and wider industry adoption. Gradle's parallel execution capabilities and IDE integration make it a preferred choice for many developers.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Gradle	CMake
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 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.
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 4.0K
Followers 9.8K	Followers 294
Votes 254	Votes 1
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 Bad Eclipse tooling 2 Dependency on groovy	Pros 1 Has package registry

What are some alternatives to Gradle, CMake?

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.

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 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.

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

CMake vs Gradle: What are the differences?

CMake and Gradle are two popular build systems used in software development. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Language Support: CMake is primarily used for building C, C++, and CUDA projects, whereas Gradle is designed to build Java, Kotlin, and Android projects. CMake supports a wider range of programming languages, making it more versatile in multi-language projects.
Configuration Language: CMake uses a declarative scripting language, which allows developers to specify the build process in a concise and readable manner. On the other hand, Gradle uses a powerful Groovy-based scripting language, which provides more flexibility and expressiveness in defining build configurations.
Plugin Ecosystem: While both CMake and Gradle have a rich ecosystem of plugins, the nature of their plugin systems differs. CMake plugins are typically focused on enhancing the build process itself, such as generating project files for different IDEs. Gradle plugins, on the other hand, offer a broader range of functionalities, including code analysis, testing, and deployment.
Provenance: CMake has been around for a longer time and is widely adopted in various industries. It has a solid track record and is often considered a stable and reliable option. Gradle, on the other hand, is relatively newer but has gained popularity, especially in the Android development community, due to its integration with the Android build system.
Parallel Execution: Gradle has built-in support for parallel task execution, which can significantly improve build performance on multi-core systems. CMake, on the other hand, lacks native parallel execution capabilities and relies more on manual optimization techniques to achieve better performance.
Integration with IDEs: Gradle provides seamless integration with popular IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio, making it easier for developers to build, test, and debug their projects directly from their preferred development environment. CMake also has good integration with IDEs, but it may require additional configuration to enable certain features.

CMake vs Gradle

Overview