What problems is Buddy solving and how is that benefiting you?
Switching to Buddy.works three years ago felt like a massive weight lifted.
This SaaS solution has completely revolutionized our CI/CD, proving far superior to our previous self-managed Jenkins setup.
Here's why we're so impressed:
Unmatched Ease of Use: Buddy.works' intuitive interface means developers of all experience levels can quickly build and manage pipelines. Onboarding new team members takes minutes, not days, and visual debugging makes troubleshooting a breeze.
Zero Infrastructure Overhead: As a SaaS platform, Buddy.works handles all the server maintenance, scaling, and high availability. We no longer worry about provisioning, patching, or securing infrastructure, freeing up valuable engineering time.
Powerful Features, Simplified Configuration: Despite its user-friendly GUI, Buddy.works offers robust features. Its extensive library of pre-built actions for popular services (AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, etc.) accelerates pipeline creation. We benefit from smart caching for faster builds and easy parallelization, all configurable with or without YAML.
Seamless Integrations: Buddy.works integrates effortlessly with our existing tools, from Git providers like GitHub and GitLab to various cloud platforms.
Focus on Development, Not Maintenance: The biggest win is the ability to shift our focus from managing CI/CD infrastructure to developing features and innovating. This has led to faster release cycles and higher-quality software.
Predictable Cost: Unlike the hidden costs of self-managed Jenkins, Buddy.works offers transparent, usage-based pricing. We only pay for what we use, without the added expenses of server maintenance or dedicated DevOps staff for the CI/CD system itself.
Before Buddy.works, Jenkins was our workhorse.
While powerful and highly customizable, it came with a hidden cost: the immense overhead of management and maintenance.
We quickly realized that "free" open-source software like Jenkins often isn't truly free when you factor in the engineering hours spent on:
Infrastructure Management: Provisioning and maintaining servers, ensuring adequate compute resources, managing disk space, and dealing with network configurations. Scaling Jenkins for growing teams and projects was a constant battle, requiring dedicated DevOps expertise.
Plugin Hell: Jenkins' extensibility relies heavily on a vast ecosystem of plugins. While offering flexibility, this also meant:
Compatibility Issues: Plugin conflicts were a nightmare, often breaking existing pipelines after an update.
Security Vulnerabilities: Keeping track of security advisories for hundreds of plugins and patching them promptly was a continuous and critical task.
Maintenance: Plugins require updates, configuration, and troubleshooting, adding a significant layer of administrative burden.
Complex Configuration: Writing and maintaining Groovy-based Jenkinsfiles for complex pipelines was often a steep learning curve for developers, leading to bottlenecks and requiring specialized knowledge. The UI, while functional, felt dated and could be clunky for new users.
Security Responsibility: The entire security posture, from server hardening to access control, rested solely on our shoulders. This was a significant responsibility, requiring ongoing vigilance and expertise.
Buddy.works has empowered our team with faster, more reliable, and less stressful software delivery, fostering a truly efficient DevOps culture. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.