Ansible is a powerful tool for automation to the provision of the target environment and to then deploy the application. It helps you to do the configuration management, application deployment, task automation, and also IT orchestration. It can run tasks in a sequence and create a chain of events happening on different servers of devices.
And Jenkins is a popular tool for IT automation and employed for CI/CD to provision the target environment.

Jenkins

Jenkins is the most popular open-source automation server that was written in a java programming language. It facilitates the automation process of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) within the software development process.

Jenkins supports over 1,400 plugins for other software tools. These plugins expand Jenkins into five years; platforms, UI, administration, source code management, and build management.

Jenkins is easy to install and use. It provides an impressive browser-hosted project management dashboard.

Some of the common reasons to evaluate and choose Jenkins include:

• Open-source and free
• Widely employed and well documented
• Vibrant user community
• Integration with a large variety of tools and technologies.
• Plugin support
• Easy to install, configure and upgrade
• Distributed builds
• Monitoring external jobs
• Support for various authentication methods, notification, version control system, etc.

Ansible

Ansible is an IT automation tool. It can deploy software, configure systems, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as CD (Continuous Deployment) or zero downtime rolling updates.

Automation simplifies complex tasks, not just making developers’ jobs more manageable but allowing them to focus attention on other tasks that value to an organization.

In other words, it frees up time and increases efficiency. Ansible is rapidly rising to the top within the world of automation tools.

Ansible uses the simple YAML syntax. One of the other features of Ansible is its Agentless architecture. For automating configuration management, a lightweight and secure solution is Ansible. There are several modules in Ansible. Within Jenkins pipeline, applications could be deployed, and the environment could be provisioned using the Ansible tool.

Let’s see some advantages and features of Ansible:

• Ansible is an open-source tool.
• No special coding skills are required to use Ansible’s playbooks.
• Ansible allows you to model even highly complex IT workflows.
• You can orchestrate the entire application environment no matter where it is deployed. You can also customize it based on your needs.
• You do not need to install any other software or firewall ports on the client systems you want to automate.
• You do not need to set up a separate management structure.
• Because you don’t have to install any extra software, there is more room for application resources on your server.
• Ansible is designed to be very simple, reliable, and consistent for configuration management.

Jenkins vs. Circle CI Comparison Table

The subsequent are the primary comparison between Jenkins and Circle CI:

Jenkins Ansible
Easy to install. Hard to install.
Many plugins are available for Jenkins. It supports fewer plugins.
It supports C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, and other languages. It supports C, Python, JavaScript, and Ruby language.
Jenkins is free. Ansible is not free, but the free trial version is available.
It supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and others. It also supports Windows, Mac OS X, and others. But Windows can be a pain.
It is not light weighted. It is very light weighted.
Jenkins is not easier to set up and configure. Ansible is easier to use, configure, and set up the installation.
It was licensed under MIT license. It was licensed under a proprietary commercial license.
It is a server-based tool. It is a cloud-based tool.

Jenkins Vs Hudson

Hudson is a CI (Continuous Integration) server for Java development. The development of this platform started with Hudson while Jenkins was forked from Hudson when Sun was acquired by Oracle who aimed to develop a commercial version of the software. Since the fork, Jenkins has grown to be much more than a CI solution.

Jenkins and Hudson both run inside servlet containers on Java application servers, allowing for easy integration into your existing workflow. They both are a key part of our Java development process. We make use of both servers and are gradually moving across all our instances to Jenkins.

Jenkins

Jenkins supports over 1,400 plugins for other software tools. These plugins expand Jenkins into five years; platforms, UI, administration, source code management, and build management.

Jenkins is easy to install and use. It provides an impressive browser-hosted project management dashboard.

Some of the common reasons to evaluate and choose Jenkins are:

Hudson

Hudson is a CI (continuous integration) tool which is written in Java, which runs in a servlet container such as Glassfish or Apache Tomcat application server. It supports SCM tools such as Git, CVS, Perforce, ClearCase and RTC and can execute Apache Maven and Apache Ant-based projects, as well as arbitrary shell scripts and Windows batch commands.

There are subsequent features of Hudson:

• Hudson is open-source and free.
• Ease of installation and use

You can easily write plugins to support tools/processes in your team. And after you give, they can be employed by others as well.

• Distributed build support
• Inter team support
• Extensive control outside Hudson and this is possible because of programmable control interface
• Hudson is employed in providing easily readable URLs for most of the pages such as “last successful build” and “promoted build”.
• Localization is available in French, English, Germany, Japanese, Russian, Turkish, and Brazilian. Even you can easily create your own localization bundle.
• Hudson builds on general-purpose building blocks.

Jenkins vs Hudson Comparison Table

There is no such difference between Hudson and Jenkins. Jenkins is actually the renamed version of Hudson.

After disagreements between Oracle and Hudson creators, the latter decided that Hudson was to be forked and Jenkins CI. Jenkins is the continuation of the Hudson open-source project, under the original creator and towards an open-source future; Hudson is now under the Oracle’s wing with more structure around it.

The subsequent are the primary comparisons between Jenkins and Hudson:

Jenkins Hudson
Jenkins is extendable open-source continuous integration server. Hudson is Extensible continuous integration server.
Jenkins was forked from Hudson. Hudson is the CI tool.
Jenkins is employed by companies Netflix, Facebook, ebay, LinkedIn, Instacart etc. Hudson is employed by companies Logo Yazilim, TableAir UAB and OptoSweden AB.
Jenkins is integrated with Slack, Datadog, BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, JBoss, etc. tools. Maven is integrated with tools JavaScript, Java, HTML5 and Tuleap.
Jenkins support a lot of plugins. Hudson support less plugins as compare to Jenkins.

So, this brings us to the end of blog. This Tecklearn ‘Comparison of Jenkins with Ansible and Hudson Frameworks’ blog helps you with commonly asked questions if you are looking out for a job in DevOps. If you wish to learn Jenkins and build a career in DevOps domain, then check out our interactive, Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training, that comes with 24*7 support to guide you throughout your learning period. Please find the link for course details:

Continuous Integration with Jenkins

Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training

About the Course

Tecklearn has specially designed this Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training Course to advance your skills for a successful career in this domain. This course helps you learn server automation, continuous integration, build and configuration tools, Jenkins master-slave architecture, different types of plugins, implementing automated testing and more through hands-on projects and exercises. Upon completion of this online training, you will hold a solid understanding and hands-on experience with Jenkins.

Why Should you take Continuous Integration with Jenkins Training?

• Average salary of Jenkins Professional is $110k (Indeed.com Salary Data)
• Jenkins is an open-source automation server which enables developers around the world to reliably build, test, and deploy their software.

What you will Learn in this Course?

Introduction to DevOps

• What is Software Development
• Software Development Life Cycle
• Why DevOps?
• What is DevOps?
• DevOps Lifecycle
• DevOps Tools
• Benefits of DevOps
• How DevOps is related to Agile Delivery
• DevOps Implementation

Continuous Integration with Jenkins

• Introduction to Continuous Integration and Jenkins
• Jenkins Management
• Jenkins Master Slave Architecture
• Tools Required for CI
• Understanding CI/CD Pipelines
• Creating an end-to-end automated CI/CD Pipeline
• Jenkins Versions

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