head to head · open source
jenkins vs itamae
jenkins has 26,559 GitHub stars, 9,834 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped today. itamae has 1,132 stars, 118 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. jenkins leads on adoption by 2,246% (26,559 vs 1,132 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; itamae is written in Ruby under MIT. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, itamae 10%. jenkins was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | itamae | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 118 |
| 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 itamae if
- You want the itamae feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and itamae fits your workflow better
About jenkins
Jenkins is an open source automation server built with Java and released under the MIT license. It lives in the continuous integration and continuous delivery ecosystem, where it has served as a central automation hub for roughly sixteen years. The project is developed in the open on GitHub, where it has accumulated 26,546 stars and 9,833 forks, and it is distributed through the official jenkins.io website alongside documentation, plugin listings, and release notes. Two release lines are maintained: a weekly line that carries all new features, improvements, and bug fixes, and a Long Term Support line that receive…
read the full jenkins overview →
About itamae
Simple and lightweight configuration management tool inspired by Chef. CHANGELOG Concept Chef like DSL (but not compatible with Chef) Simpler and lighter weight than Chef Only recipes Idempotent Installation Getting Started Create a recipe file as recipe.rb : And then execute itamae command to apply a recipe to a local machine. Or you can apply a recipe to a remote machine by itamae ssh . You can also apply a recipe to Vagrant VM by itamae ssh vagrant . You can find further information to use Itamae on Itamae Wiki. Enjoy! Documentation Run tests Requirements: Vagrant Get Involved Join Slack team Presentations / A…
read the full itamae overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or itamae more popular?
jenkins has 26,559 GitHub stars and itamae has 1,132. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and itamae free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and itamae under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and itamae?
jenkins is written in Java and itamae in Ruby. 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 itamae?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,559 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose itamae if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.