head to head · open source
jenkins vs jx
jenkins has 26,559 GitHub stars, 9,834 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped today. jx has 4,690 stars, 791 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped today. jenkins leads on adoption by 466% (26,559 vs 4,690 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; jx is written in Go under Apache-2.0. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, jx 17%. jx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (cicd, continuous-delivery, continuous-integration, devops), 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 | jx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 791 |
| 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 jx if
- You want the jx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and jx 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 jx
Jenkins X is an open source continuous integration and continuous delivery system for Kubernetes that automates CI and CD with preview environments on pull requests, built on cloud native pipelines from Tekton, and its jx component is the modular command line CLI used to drive it.
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Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or jx more popular?
jenkins has 26,559 GitHub stars and jx has 4,690. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and jx free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and jx under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and jx?
jenkins is written in Java and jx in Go. 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 jx?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,559 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose jx if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.