CircleCI vs. Codemagic

Based on our experience, CircleCI is well-suited for automating mobile app release cycles. For example, to release an iOS app, you would need to build, sign, and upload it to TestFlight, which requires a dedicated Mac in the office. But with CircleCI, you can have macOS executors, so you don't have to manage a physical build machine. Another benefit is that CircleCI's certified AWS Orbs abstract away complex authentication and deployment logic, allowing us to build, push, and deploy Docker containers to Amazon ECS with minimal configuration and high reliability. CircleCI is less suited for smaller projects where the development and deployment are not that extensive, for example, a static site. Once you have built a static site, you probably won't make any further changes, so there's no point in paying for it.

Incentivized

For companies currently investing in Flutter app deployment, the CD/CI automation that Codemagic brings to the table is a game-changer. Its decision-making process needs to consider all the architecture in place and in a common scenario with other programming frameworks, the initial investments can seem high. In this sense, Flutter will reduce programming staff needs as you can attack multiple target environments and platforms easily, and at the same time the effort to get it working on app stores is now improved thanks to the focus Codemagic gave to support the FLutter community in targeting this solution to ease the process. If you invest in Flutter, you have to invest in Codemagic.

Incentivized

• Automated builds! This is really why you get CircleCI, to automate the build process. This makes building your application far more reliable and repeatable. It can also run tests and verify your application is working as expected.
• Simple. Unlike Jenkins, Teamcity, or other platforms, CircleCI doesn't need a lot of setup. It's completely hosted, so there's no infrastructure to set up. The config file does take a bit to understand, but if you follow their example and start with something small and add to it, you can get it up and going quicker than it first looks.
• Scales easily. Again, since it's all cloud-based, you don't have to manage or scale infrastructure. Simply subscribe to the number of containers you want, and scaling up just means buying more containers.

Incentivized

• Flutter Apps
• Deploy to appstores
• Build test apps
• Easy to scale up once ready
• Has extra seats and team settings, through paid options, to support the prior.

Incentivized

• While configuration is easy, the config files can get very very long.
• Price compared to some alternatives that are cheaper / free. Especially so if you are running multiple containers in parallel.
• Have experienced numerous outages (3-5) in the last few months where CircleCI has been down.
• Web documentation and tutorials haven't been as good as some of the competitors.

Incentivized

• One more seat available for free accounts, for the first year or trial.
• Improved and simplified secrets management to avoid security leaks.

Incentivized

The reliability & speed, it just works. The ability to spin up macOS runners and Docker containers on demand without managing hardware is a huge win. The Orbs system makes integrating with AWS and Slack incredibly easy, saving us weeks of custom scripting and providing real-time updates in our Slack channel. This makes it easy for us to track and ensures that everyone involved knows the status. Of course, it has drawbacks related to configuration complexity and, in some cases, cost transparency, but overall, it is an industry-standard, robust tool that solves our core infrastructure problems well.

Incentivized

It's pretty snappy, even with using workflows with multiple steps and different docker images. I've seen builds take a long time if it's really involved, but from what I can tell, it's still at least on par if not faster than other build tools.

Incentivized

Unless you have a reasonably large account, you're going to be mainly stuck reading their documentation. Which has improved somewhat over the years but is still extremely limited compared to a platform like Digital Ocean who invested in the documentation and a community to ensure it's kept up to date. If you can't find your answer there, you can be stuck.

Incentivized

I have used the Slack channel without any problems, and I have gained a lot of feedback from using this tool. I have also been invited to provide reviews for the app before but in an "informal" manner, and using their own channels via Slack.

Incentivized

Jenkins is usually self-hosted, Travis CI's infrastructure is largely unreliable (lots of tests time out for no discernable reason), and Semaphore encourages you to configure your CI/CD from a web UI. We like CircleCI because its hosted, our tests run largely as expected on their infrastructure, and we can configure it from a config file that we track in GitHub.

Incentivized

The steps to get Codemagic up and running are nothing compared to implementing a Jira solution and after using the CI/CD options it has enabled. For larger organizations that already have Jira, you might gain in the long run from features like automatic issue tracking and focused CI to remediate and test the apps. But if you are looking for true AGILE development, where you have teams that focus on value and need the CD process done easily, then Codemagic is a much better solution for emerging projects and companies to start.

Incentivized

• We pay over $5K/ month and we have high expectations for service. Sometimes I feel that we don't get the value, but only sometimes.
• We have had to build our own application to keep state and broker releases and deployments. We call our app deployer. I feel that CircleCI could do more to understand our needs and possibly build additional features that would enable us to invest less in build and deployment infrastructure and justify paying more for Circle.

Incentivized

• Reduce steps and time to deploy flutter apps
• Cost of build
• Invest in other areas of the architectural process to enhance the products built.

Incentivized