CI Tool Smackdown

Distinctive Features

AntHill Pro

   - build agent
   - distributed
   - manage many build machine
   - artifact repository
   - intergrated with scm, defect, test
   

UrbanCode Automation Server

   - automates simple tasks where the build lifecycle features of AnthillPro are a bit too much.

Hudson

   - does what ant hill pro does but free.
   - can do distributed builds
   - easier to setup than cruisecontrol
   - coverture and sonar used along hudson to present the results.

Build Beat

   - config wizard
   - 100% .Net implementation
   - 3.0 -> plugin architecture
   - runs cross platform with mono. (open source framework to run .net on non-windows)
   - support distributed build
   - built on a relational database
   - ease of use
   - security but not integrated with LDAP

Cruisecontrol

   - broad user community
   - plugin architecture
   - CI comparison metrics plugins
   - can do distributed builds
   

CI factory

   - use cc.NEt
   - packages lots of tools that have proven records
   - free and open source
   - automated branching
   - based on subversion.
   - constrained by a bunch of preset convention

ElectricCommander

   - command line interface for flexibility
   - scalable architecture
   - diagnostics.  some automation around root cause analysis
   - security, supports LDAP

What is missing?

   - Better stability
   - Correlate failures
       - other metrics/trends.  ex: pull stats from mercury