Alternatives to Bazel
An open-source build and test system for multi-language projects, with incremental builds and caching. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Bazel
An open-source build and test system for multi-language projects, with incremental builds and caching.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Bazel.
Gradle
An open-source build automation tool for Java, Kotlin and Android projects, with Kotlin and Groovy build scripts.
Gradle offers build caching and parallel execution with Kotlin or Groovy scripts, focused on Java, Kotlin and Android projects rather than arbitrary multi-language monorepos.
CMake
The de facto standard build system generator for C and C++, producing native build files for whatever toolchain is on the machine.
CMake generates native build files for C and C++ across many platforms and IDEs, but lacks Bazel's built-in distributed caching and multi-language monorepo focus.
Nx
A monorepo build system with caching and task orchestration for faster local builds and CI.
Nx is an MIT-licensed monorepo build system with task caching and orchestration aimed at speeding up CI, with fewer build rules to learn than Bazel.
Meson
An open-source build system for C, C++, Rust and other languages focused on speed and readability.
Meson provides a readable build language with fast incremental builds for C, C++ and Rust, with a smaller ecosystem and deliberately limited logic compared with Bazel rules.
Apache Maven
A build and dependency management tool for Java projects based on a project object model.
Apache Maven offers conventional Java builds and dependency management through Maven Central, with verbose XML configuration and no Bazel-style multi-language caching.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Ninja
A small, fast build system designed to run build files generated by tools such as CMake.
Dagger
A container-based engine for writing build and CI pipelines as code and running them anywhere.
Container Structure Test
A command-line tool for validating the structure and contents of container images against defined tests.
Cargo
Rust's build system and package manager.
GoReleaser
A command-line release automation tool that builds, packages, signs and publishes software binaries.
Jenkins
A self-hosted open source automation server for building, testing and deploying software projects.
