head to head · open source
jenkins vs aws-cdk
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars, 9,819 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aws-cdk has 12,958 stars, 4,665 forks, 2,863 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jenkins leads on adoption by 106% (26,719 vs 12,958 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; aws-cdk is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, aws-cdk 36%. aws-cdk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| jenkins | aws-cdk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 4.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jenkins if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick aws-cdk if
- You want the aws-cdk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and aws-cdk fits your workflow better
About jenkins
Table of Contents About What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Downloads Getting Started (Development) Source Contributing to Jenkins News and Website Governance Adopters License About In a nutshell, Jenkins is the leading open source automation server. Built with Java, it provides over 2,000 plugins to support automating virtually anything, so that humans can spend their time doing things machines cannot. What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Use Jenkins to automate your development workflow, so you can focus on work that matters most. Jenkins is commonly used for: Building projects Running tests to…
read the full jenkins overview →
About aws-cdk
AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) The AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open source software development framework to define cloud infrastructure in code and provision it through AWS CloudFormation. It offers a high level object oriented abstraction to define AWS resources imperatively using the power of modern programming languages. Using the CDK’s library of infrastructure constructs, you can easily encapsulate AWS best practices in your infrastructure definition and share it without worrying about boilerplate logic. The CDK is available in the following languages: JavaScript, TypeScript (Node.js =…
read the full aws-cdk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or aws-cdk more popular?
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars and aws-cdk has 12,958. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and aws-cdk free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and aws-cdk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and aws-cdk?
jenkins is written in Java and aws-cdk in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, jenkins or aws-cdk?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,719 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose aws-cdk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.