CruiseControl [.Net] vs TeamCity for continuous integration?

Question

i would like to ask you which automated build environment you consider better, based on practical experience. i'm planning to do some .Net and some Java development, so i would like to have a tool that supports both these platforms.

i've been reading around and found out about CruiseControl.NET, used on stackoverflow development, and TeamCity with its support for build agents on different OS-platforms and based on different programming languages. so, if you have some practical experience on both of those, which one you prefer and why.

currently, i'm mostly interested in the ease of use and management of the tool, much less in the fact that CC is open source, and TC is a subject to licensing at some point when you have much projects to run (because, i need it for a small amount of projects).

also, if there is some other tool that meets the above-mentioned and you believe it's worth a recommendation - feel free to include it in the discussion.

Answer 1

I have recently setup cc .net. It is a great application but does require a bit of patience. You will be editing config files in notepad alot :)

It has been around a while so its well supported and you can normally find someone who has done what you wantto do before. The web interface is .net as well which was a plus for us as we are a Microsoft shop.

I havent used TeamCity but I have heard quite a few recommendations of it and it looks pretty.

Answer 2

A third option you might want to consider: Thoughtworks' Cruise. It's built on CruiseControl, but offers a lot more features, easier setup, etc, etc. Not free (or open source).

http://studios.thoughtworks.com/cruise-continuous-integration

Answer 3

Without wanting to throw alternative tools at you :-)

Hudson is a great open source alternative, I have used CC and CC.net, and I confess i do think they are fantastic tools. I am pondering switching to hudson as it apears a lot easier to setup and maintain.

https://hudson.dev.java.net/

Answer 4

I have used them both successfully on different projects. From a setup and administrative standpoint Team City is far easier to deal with. You don't have to hack around with .config files like you do with CC and setup is a breeze. Since you do not have a lot of projects I would recommend Team City over CC until you get to the point that Team City costs $$.

Answer 5

I had an experience setting up and running CruiseControl (Java version) on Linux during my previous company. Like most people suggest, it is not the most trivial thing to setup. You need to understand its framework in order to come up with the workable/managable config. However, once you passed that hump, I feel that CruiseControl is pretty flexible enough to allow you to do different sort of things to fit different scenarios.

Besides, CruiseControl documentation, its wiki page also has some useful information as well.

I do not have a direct experience with TeamCity. Though its pre-test commit feature looks interesting enough.

The other CC tool that you might give it a look is Bamboo from Atlassian. It is a lot more easier to setup and the interface is nicer. Though, it is not as flexible as what CruiseControl offers.

Answer 6

I have worked on and with Continuous Integration tools since the one that spawned Cruise Control (java version). I've tried almost all of them at some point. I've never been happier than I am with TeamCity. It is very simple to set up and still provides a great deal of power. The build statistics page that shows build times, unit test count, pass rate etc. is very nice. TeamCity's project home page is also very valuable. For simple .NET projects you can just tell TeamCity where the solution is and what assemblies have tests and that is all it needs (other than source control location). We have also used some complicated MSBuild scripts with it and done build chaining. I have also gone through two TeamCity upgrades and they were painless.

CruiseControl.NET also works well. It is trickier to set up but it has a longer history so it is easy to find solutions on the web. Since CruiseControl.NET is open source you also have the option of adding or changing whatever you like. I had used CruiseControl.NET since its release and wrote some of the early code for cc.tray (thankfully re-written by someone who knew better).

Cruise, from ThoughtWorks, also looks quite good but I don't see a compelling reason for me to switch. If I were starting a new project I might give it a try, but TeamCity has done a great job of making the simple things simple while making the complex quite painless.

Edit: We just upgraded to TeamCity 5.0 a few weeks ago and it was another painless upgrade. It let us take advantage of the improved code coverage capabilities and GIT support. We are also now using the personal build and pre-tested commit features that have been in for a while. I just thought I should update the answer to indicate that TeamCity keeps improving and is still easy to use.

Answer 7

I have used both CC.net and TeamCity. I am tasked with setting up and installing TeamCity for my organization (5 developers). Our organization uses some uncommon practices and tools (at least, for orgs of our size), such as Perforce for source control and multiple build agents running on heterogeneous operating systems, which caused some initial setup headaches. However, the support via email was absolutely top-notch in getting everything set up. I received answers to my dumb questions in literally minutes.

The interface is intuitive and responsive, as well as feature-packed. The product feels very expensive. Configuration is easy, and the web interface is intellegent enough to update itself without any restarting of the agent or server services, or even refreshing of the page.

I feel like we're using just about every advanced feature of the product and have found no bugs at all so far. Ndepend integration, nested NAnt scripts, Perforce version labeling, you name it, we're doing it.

I highly recommend TeamCity to anyone looking for a continuous integration server, or any build server, really.

Answer 8

Make sure the system that you decide on scales to the number of projects that you'll need it to handle...

I use CruiseControl.Net but I wouldn't recommend it for building lots of projects... I have a (possibly slightly strange) arrangement where I have many C++ static libraries which I compose into applications. Each library depends on other libraries and the apps pull in a set of libs and build. Each lib has a test suite. Each app has a test suite. I build for 5 compilers and variations of (windows) platforms.

The first thing I found was that CC.Net's project triggers aren't really quite what you need and the multi-trigger doesn't play well with project triggers. The way project triggers work (they use remoting to connect to the server where the project is stored (even if it's a project that is managed by the same instance of CC.Net) and then pull all projects from that server and search the list sequentially looking for the project that you're interested in...) means that they don't scale well. Once you get above a certain number of projects you'll find that CC.Net is taking most of the CPU for your build machine.

Of course, it's open source, so you can fix it... And, I'm sure it's fine for small numbers of non-interdependent projects.

For more details of the problems I had and some patches for CC.Net see here http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/cat_ccnet.html

Answer 9

My favorite CI server by far is Hudson. Easy to set up and maintain, lots of nice graphs for showing trends to developers and non-developers, and free.

I am using TeamCity currently on a project and I'm generally pleased with it, but many of the graphs it generates aren't especially useful, and it is more complicated to configure than Hudson.

That said, TeamCity is powerful, free for many uses, and has one killer feature: Remote Run. You can "pre-commit" your check in straight from IDEA or Eclipse, run one or more build configurations on the TeamCity server, and only commit the changes if the build is successful (e.g., compiles and all tests pass).

Given that you could get both TeamCity and Hudson up and running in a few hours, it might be worth grabbing both and running them side-by-side, along with any others (such as CruiseControl) that you can think of. If you can't stand a CI server up quickly to do a side-by-side comparison, then at least you have a data point for easy of install and/or configuration.

Answer 10

I was/I'm a big fan of CC.NET. We have currently 5 projects in CruiseControl, and works great. Writing config files with hand can be painfull but it's okay.

But.

After the Kona: Continuous Integration and Better Unit Testing screencast (the first 1/3 about TeamCity) I'll check TeamCity too. I love the integrated unit test dashboard and the configuration interface.

I think everybody should watch this video before choosing CC.NET or TeamCity.

p.s.: I hope there is a valuable CC.NET video on the net too.