head to head · open source
jenkins vs pyinfra
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars, 9,819 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pyinfra has 6,064 stars, 564 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jenkins leads on adoption by 341% (26,719 vs 6,064 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; pyinfra is written in Python under MIT. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, pyinfra 9%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| jenkins | pyinfra | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 564 |
| 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 pyinfra if
- You want the pyinfra feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pyinfra 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 pyinfra
pyinfra turns Python code into shell commands and runs them on your servers. Execute ad hoc commands and write declarative operations. Target SSH servers, local machine and Docker containers. Fast and scales from one server to thousands. Think ansible but Python instead of YAML, and a lot faster. Getting Started • Examples Repo • Chat on Matrix Documentation • Help & Support • Contributing Why pyinfra? Design features include: + 🚀 Super fast execution over thousands of hosts with predictable performance. + 🚨 Instant debugging with realtime stdin/stdout/stderr output ( vvv ). + 🔄 Idempotent…
read the full pyinfra overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Cloud Infrastructure Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Cloud Infrastructure Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or pyinfra more popular?
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars and pyinfra has 6,064. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and pyinfra free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and pyinfra under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and pyinfra?
jenkins is written in Java and pyinfra in Python. 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 pyinfra?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,719 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pyinfra if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.