head to head · open source
portainer vs jenkins
portainer has 38,523 GitHub stars, 2,907 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jenkins has 26,559 stars, 9,834 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 45% (38,523 vs 26,559 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; jenkins is written in Java under MIT. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, jenkins 37%. portainer 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
| portainer | jenkins | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 27K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 9.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick jenkins if
- You want the jenkins feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and jenkins fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments, distributed under the zlib licence and aimed at homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware.
read the full portainer overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or jenkins more popular?
portainer has 38,523 GitHub stars and jenkins has 26,559. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and jenkins free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and jenkins under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and jenkins?
portainer is written in TypeScript and jenkins in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, portainer or jenkins?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,523 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose jenkins if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.