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

Gradle vs Pants

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Gradle
Gradle
Stacks24.3K
Followers9.8K
Votes254
GitHub Stars18.1K
Forks5.0K
Pants
Pants
Stacks23
Followers86
Votes30
GitHub Stars3.7K
Forks674

Gradle vs Pants: What are the differences?

<Write Introduction here>
  1. Build Tool Type: Gradle is a build automation tool that can be used for building Java projects, whereas Pants is primarily focused on providing scalable build system automation for software development projects of various languages.
  2. Configuration Language: Gradle uses Groovy and Kotlin scripts for build configuration, enabling developers to write build scripts with a concise and expressive syntax, while Pants relies on a custom Python DSL for defining build configurations, which may offer a different experience for users familiar with Python.
  3. Plugin Ecosystem: Gradle has a robust ecosystem of plugins that can be easily integrated into build scripts to enhance functionality, while Pants has a more limited selection of plugins available, potentially requiring more custom development for specific use cases.
  4. Dependency Resolution: Gradle has a sophisticated dependency management system that can efficiently resolve dependencies, including transitive dependencies, in a project, whereas Pants may have a different approach or mechanism for handling dependencies that may impact the build process.
  5. Community Support: Gradle has a large and active community of users and contributors who provide support, resources, and documentation for using the tool, while Pants may have a smaller community presence, resulting in potentially fewer resources and community-driven solutions available for users.
  6. Integration with IDEs: Gradle offers seamless integration with popular IDEs such as IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse, providing a smooth development experience for users, whereas Pants may have different levels of integration or support with IDEs, potentially impacting the development workflow for users.

In Summary, Gradle and Pants differ in build tool type, configuration language, plugin ecosystem, dependency resolution, community support, and integration with IDEs.

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Detailed Comparison

Gradle
Gradle
Pants
Pants

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.

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

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
Builds Java, Scala, and Python.;Adding support for new languages is straightforward.;Supports code generation: thrift, protocol buffers, custom code generators.;Resolves external JVM and Python dependencies.;Runs tests.;Spawns Python and Scala REPLs with appropriate load paths.;Creates deployable packages.;Scales to large repos with many interdependent modules.;Designed for incremental builds.;Support for local and distributed caching.;Especially fast for Scala builds, compared to alternatives.;Builds standalone python executables (PEX files);Has a plugin system to add custom features and override stock behavior.;Runs on Linux and Mac OS X.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
18.1K
GitHub Stars
3.7K
GitHub Forks
5.0K
GitHub Forks
674
Stacks
24.3K
Stacks
23
Followers
9.8K
Followers
86
Votes
254
Votes
30
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
  • 6
    Creates deployable packages
  • 4
    Runs tests
  • 4
    Runs on Linux
  • 4
    BUILD files
  • 4
    Runs on OS X

What are some alternatives to Gradle, Pants?

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.

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

JFrog Artifactory

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.

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