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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Java Build Tools
  5. CocoaPods vs Gradle

CocoaPods vs Gradle

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Gradle
Gradle
Stacks24.3K
Followers9.8K
Votes254
GitHub Stars18.1K
Forks5.0K
CocoaPods
CocoaPods
Stacks3.1K
Followers112
Votes0
GitHub Stars14.8K
Forks2.7K

CocoaPods vs Gradle: What are the differences?

  1. 1. Build System: CocoaPods is a dependency manager for iOS projects, while Gradle is a build automation tool primarily used for Android projects. CocoaPods uses an Xcode project file to manage dependencies, whereas Gradle uses a build.gradle file.

  2. 2. Language Used: CocoaPods is written in Ruby and primarily used for Objective-C and Swift projects, while Gradle is written in Java and primarily used for Java and Kotlin projects.

  3. 3. Plugin Ecosystem: CocoaPods has a smaller plugin ecosystem compared to Gradle. Gradle has a vast collection of plugins that offer additional functionality such as code analysis, version control integration, and more.

  4. 4. Project Structure: CocoaPods uses a centralized project structure, where all dependencies are managed in a single file called "Podfile". In contrast, Gradle allows for a more modular project structure, with dependencies managed at the module or library level.

  5. 5. Dependency Resolution: CocoaPods has a more strict and simple dependency resolution mechanism. It resolves dependencies based on the version specified in the Podfile. Gradle, on the other hand, offers more flexibility in dependency resolution, allowing for dynamic versions, transitive dependencies, and conflict resolution strategies.

  6. 6. Compatibility: CocoaPods is compatible with macOS and iOS platforms, whereas Gradle is compatible with multiple platforms including Android, Java, Kotlin, and more.

In Summary, CocoaPods is a dependency manager primarily used for iOS projects written in Ruby, while Gradle is a build automation tool primarily used for Android projects written in Java, with differences in their systems, languages, ecosystems, project structures, dependency resolution, and compatibility.

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Detailed Comparison

Gradle
Gradle
CocoaPods
CocoaPods

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 supports almost every way you would want to get source code, git, svn, bzr, http and hg. You can use your own private code repository to manage your own dependencies. It only requires a git repo, no server necessary.

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
Incremental Installation; Support Multiple Swift Versions & Pod Projects; Define App Specs for Example Apps; Dynamic Scheme Launch Arguments/Environments; Automatic Generation of .xcfilelist
Statistics
GitHub Stars
18.1K
GitHub Stars
14.8K
GitHub Forks
5.0K
GitHub Forks
2.7K
Stacks
24.3K
Stacks
3.1K
Followers
9.8K
Followers
112
Votes
254
Votes
0
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
No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available
Ruby
Ruby
Git
Git
macOS
macOS
SVN (Subversion)
SVN (Subversion)
Mercurial
Mercurial

What are some alternatives to Gradle, CocoaPods?

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.

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.

Apache Ant

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

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

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