Compare
Migrate your CI/CD from Jenkins to Semaphore
- ✔️ Modernize aging code delivery processes
- ✔️ Accelerate deployment frequency with faster builds
- ✔️ Free up developers’ time for more valuable work
Remove obstacles 🛣️
With Jenkins, CI/CD is a black box locked in a silo. Without access, it’s hard for developers to focus on quality, shorten test cycles, and ensure safe deployment. With Semaphore, you get:
- ✔️ Clutter-free UI
- ✔️ Effective pipeline visualizations
- ✔️ Help getting on board
- ✔️ Support
Eliminate heavy lifting 💆🏻♂️
There are entire books written about running Jenkins, and for a reason. It’s free to use but puts the burden of managing, securing, and scaling CI/CD squarely on your team. With Semaphore, you get:
- ✔️ auto-scaling or hybrid cloud
- ✔️ No maintenance
- ✔️ Focus on building great products
Increased productivity 💪
The data is in: after switching to Semaphore, an average team of a dozen engineers saves over 500 human hours per month (see whitepaper). The reason? Faster builds, infinite on-demand capacity to test in parallel, and smart pipeline.
- ✔️ Saves +500 human hrs/mo
- ✔️ Faster builds
- ✔️ Capacity to test in parallel
- ✔️ smart pipeline optimization
Standardize CI/CD 👨💻
Jenkins adoption is typically fragmented, with each team having their unique instance with challenges that include brittle configuration and outdated plugins. With Semaphore, you get:
- ✔️ CI/CD config as code
- ✔️ Runs on multiple environments
- ✔️ Permission management
“I’ve been doing CI/CD for more than 15 years. Semaphore is hands-down the best product I’ve used. An incredibly flexible platform, but without the open-ended bloat of Jenkins. It’s extremely intuitive and easy to navigate.”
Ben Peterson
Principle Software Engineer
Compare Semaphore vs. Jenkins
| Semaphore | Jenkins | |
|---|---|---|
| Product type |  |
 |
| SaaS | ✅ ⓘSaaS with autoscaling resources |
❌ |
| Hybrid | ✅ ⓘHybrid: run Semaphore agents on customer-managed infrastructure, use cloud-based UI
|
✅ |
| Fully on-premises | ✅ | ✅ ⓘFully hosted and configured by the end user
|
| Setup |  |
|
| Standard project set up a in a few clicks | ✅ ⓘAuthenticate with Git provider, select repository, import repository as project
|
✅ ⓘProvision machines for CI/CD, install Jenkins on them, install plugins for Git integration and any additional functionality
|
| GitHub support | ✅ | ✅ |
| Bitbucket support | ✅ | ✅ |
| Gitlab support | Pending | ✅ |
| Standardized product | ✅ ⓘAll users use the same product maintained by Semaphore
|
❌ ⓘPiece together functionality from plugins with varying syntax, documentation, and best practices
|
| Graphical pipeline configuration | ✅ ⓘWorkflow Builder: point-and-click interface to create and edit pipelines
|
❌ |
| Standardized configuration language | ✅ ⓘDeclarative YAML configuration for all features
|
❌ ⓘMultiple DSLs: pipelines are defined in one of two Groovy-based domain specific languages, one for simple declarative tasks, and one for more complex scripting.
|
| Command-line interface | ✅ ⓘCLI can manage projects and do everything the UI can.
|
❌ ⓘCLI limited to managing Jenkins instances
|
| Ease of Maintenance | |
 |
| No maintenance required for hardware | ✅ | ❌ ⓘEnd user maintains the machines
|
| No maintenance required for platform software | ✅ ⓘOfficial VMs and Docker images are refreshed weekly, include popular OSS tools out-of-the-box
|
❌ ⓘRequires dedicated person / team (SPOF)
|
| No maintenance required for user-facing product | ✅ ⓘAll UI, including real-time and historical pipeline visualizations, logs, and test results is made and continuously improved by Semaphore
|
❌ ⓘEnd user maintains individual plugins with varying release cycles and support
|
| Declarative configuration of services | ✅ ⓘSupported via CLI
|
❌ |
| Hot upgrades without downtime | ✅ ⓘUse new product features as soon as they are released
|
❌ ⓘTroubleshoot plugins for interoperability and deal with breaking changes
|
| Operating system support |  |
|
| Linux, macOS | ✅ | ✅ ⓘJenkins can run anywhere but end user must assemble their own hardware and software stack
|
| Windows, ARM | ✅ ⓘVia self-hosted agents
|
|
| Performance | |
|
| Guaranteed desktop-grade performance | ✅ ⓘIn SaaS version
|
❌ ⓘDepends on user’s choice and plugins
|
| Autoscaling parallelism | ✅ ⓘServerless model
|
❌ ⓘManually add/remove machines and installations to scale capacity
|
| Allocate more CPUs and RAM to complex jobs | ✅ ⓘChange one line of configuration
|
❌ ⓘManually tweak plugins or upgrade machines to increase performance
|
| Each job runs in a pristine, isolated environment | ✅ | ❌ ⓘJobs share disk space which may cause issues
|
| Scalable dependency cache | ✅ | ❌ |
| Built-in artifacts store | ✅ | ❌ |
| Built-in Docker registry | ✅ | ❌ |
| Debugging feedback loop | ✅ ⓘFast debugging via SSH access to both running and finished jobs
|
❌ ⓘNo direct SSH access to job environment, only log inspection
|
| Permission management | |
|
| Mirror permissions from GitHub | ✅ ⓘVia official GitHub App
|
❌ ⓘAll users given full access by default
|
| Role-based access | ✅ ⓘAdmins can limit access to deployment, secrets
|
❌ ⓘManual setup of permissions
|
| Okta / SAML for LDAP integration | ❌ ⓘOnly SaaS version supports Okta
|
✅ ⓘOkta / SAML for LDAP supported via plugin
|
| Declarative configuration of permissions | ❌ | ❌ |
| Security | |
|
| Application-level security | ✅ | ❌ ⓘSingle-layer of security around the fleet of Jenkins machines
|
| Runtime isolation | ✅ | ❌ ⓘAdditional security created must be created manually
|
| IP allow list | ✅ | ❌ ⓘDepends on end user configuration
|
| Audit logs | ✅ | ✅ ⓘAvailable via plugin
|
| ISO 27001 certificate | ✅ | ❌ ⓘNo standard certification available, varying levels of security for OSS plugins, must be audited accordingly
|
| SOC 2 certificate | Pending | ❌ |
| Support | |
|
| Email-based account and technical support | ✅ | ❌ |
| Video call support | ✅ | ❌ |
| Support SLAs | ✅ | ❌ |
| Custom solution engineering | ✅ | ❌ |
| Dedicated customer success manager | ✅ | ❌ |
| Private Slack channel | ✅ | ❌ |
| Licensing model | ||
| SaaS subscription: Semaphore provides a typical cloud computing pay-as-you-go plan and Enterprise plans with per-seat price | Jenkins is open source and free to use, but lack of support and maintenance add to total cost of ownership |
“We eliminated waiting times at the end of each sprint, which were usually very challenging as we deploy a lot of changes on the last day, with Semaphore’s automatic CI scaling. We are now paying 38% of what we would be paying somewhere else and experience is great.”
Krzysztof Szromek
CTO @ Exlabs
“It may seem that Jenkins is cheaper than Semaphore. But, after a while, the benefits are very clear: your team becomes more efficient.”
César Luiz dos Anjos
CEO na Asseinfo
Case studies
These teams have switched from Jenkins to Semaphore. Discover their ROI:
“We were using Jenkins to build the old system, and it was hard to maintain and quite painful. We looked at other hosted CI services, but they were very unreliable. When we found Semaphore, we got our application up and running pretty quickly. We now use it for all projects.”
Lukas Oberhuber
CTO at Simply Business
“Semaphore allows us to build anywhere from two to twenty branches in parallel, each one in a threaded environment. We had thousands of tests that were running for a really long time and with Semaphore we got the build to run in under 20 minutes.”
Artem Lypiy
QA Lead at 500px
“Semaphore 2.0 allows us to build, tag, push, and run Docker images easily. This makes building a powerful pipeline where we can deploy to our Kubernetes cluster fairly easily and quickly.”
Nic Cavigliano
Senior Software Engineer