GNU Make vs. Gradle Build Tool (Open Source)

GNU Make is a great tool for simple builds where language-specific options are not available, or to provide shortcuts for common commands (e.g., "make build" as shorthand for "go build ..." with a bunch of flags). However, it is complementary to other build systems. It does not replace them, which is perhaps one of its greatest strengths as well (works with existing ecosystem instead of trying to do everything). GMU Make it simple to get started with, and the philosophy of understanding how sources map to outputs, as well as the dependency graph, are beneficial.

Incentivized

Gradle Build Tool is more suitable with the Java projects. It has helped us to automate the build part of the devops cycle. Its configuration and Groovy script is really easy to understand and can be implemented with ease. It can be used both for automation and manual buids of the projects. Gradle Build Tool is easy to use and easy to integrate.

• Performance and accuracy of cross-module dependencies.
• Simple to write and easy to understand.

Incentivized

• Gradle's methods to manipulate files is very flexible. It minimizes the amount of code one has to write to copy, move, or expand zip or tar files.
• Gradle uses Groovy, which is a Java like language. This allows for most computer engineers to come up to speed fairly quickly, for writing or maintaining gradle code.
• Gradle also supports DSL (Domain Specific Language), which is based on Groovy. The DSL language allows engineers to automate build jobs that otherwise could be very cumbersome to maintain or modify.

Incentivized

• No dependency management tools (but there are no cross-platform tools of this type anyway)
• Tedious to do cross-compilation (Debug & Release builds, 32- and 64-bit builds, x86/ARM builds)

Incentivized

• I'd like to see a way to specify how to run only certain tests in parallel, I tried this feature and for tests that involve interaction with SQL Databases sometimes I can't because of deadlocks.
• Not sure if there is something else, gradle has been working really good for us and they are adding improvements all the time which is awesome. I used to think the performance is a deal but the latest versions are addressing this issue very well

Incentivized

Gradle's language construct is good

Incentivized

I have tried to use Gradle for projects several times in the past, but there is just so much work in maintaining the build file that it quickly becomes untenable. I have been using Maven for many years, and even though the build file can be complex, it works without maintenance between releases.

Incentivized

In general, it is fair to say the support is sufficient although we do not deal with support directly. There are a lot of forum people chiming in with suggestions or recommendations of particular usage or issues we run into. Since it is open software, patch and fixes will be available from time to time. A lot of information is available in the web now for knowing GNU Make from learning, example, teaching, etc.

Incentivized

Gradle has been an excellent tool for Android development. It has helped us create multiple versions of the app for different environments. It also takes care of all the packaging needs in the background without having to write all the code related to that. It is a no brainer to use Gradle with Android applications.

Incentivized

I'm a full-stack developer that has used various build tools, including Maven, Gradle, and NPM/yarn. For our C projects, I also investigated CMake and Ninja, but they seemed more difficult to learn and more tedious to work with. GNU Make is a single binary that can be easily downloaded, even for Windows under MingW32, is straightforward to learn, and works pretty well despite its age.

Incentivized

[Gradle is] a more modern version of open source build tools like Ant and Maven.
Whereas the build config was XML files which were tedious and error
prone, the modern DSL usage of Groovy to write these build files is a
great advancement. Also these config files can be inherited from top
level to each associated project.

Incentivized

• Streamline the build based on a lot of existing component being done, reusable.
• Commonly understandable, therefore, rampup effort is small.

Incentivized

• In a distributed development environment, once we established a strong CI/CD model, Gradle proved to be a great choice to automate the various processes. Gradle also provides much flexibility, which is essential in today's development environment. The important benefit is that the CI/CD engineers can support development's needs quickly and reliably. This in turn supports faster testing and deployment, which generates higher ROI.

Incentivized