Bazel
Bazel is an open-source build and test tool similar to Make, Maven, or Gradle. It is optimized for building large, multi-language software projects efficiently by incrementally building only what has changed.
Bazel: Open-Source Build & Test Tool
An open-source build and test tool optimized for large, multi-language software projects, incrementally building only changed components
What is Bazel?
Bazel is an open-source build and test automation tool maintained by Google. It is designed for building large-scale, multi-language software projects efficiently and quickly by only rebuilding what needs to be changed after code changes.
Some key features of Bazel include:
- Incremental builds - Bazel tracks code dependencies and builds only what needs to be rebuilt, speeding up the build process significantly for large projects.
- Scalable - Bazel distributes builds across multiple machines, allowing very large projects to be built quickly.
- Language agnostic - Bazel supports multiple programming languages like Java, C++, Python, Go, etc.
- Extensible and customizable - Users can write custom build rules and plugins to extend Bazel.
- Reproducible builds - Bazel guarantees reproducible builds by precisely tracking all inputs and dependencies.
- Large ecosystem of rules - Bazel comes with 700+ predefined rules for common languages and build processes.
Bazel is used by large companies like Google, Pinterest, Stripe, Dropbox for building critical production software efficiently and reliably.
Bazel Features
Features
- Fast, incremental builds
- Scales to very large codebases
- Language-agnostic
- Hermetic and reproducible builds
- Supports multiple platforms
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Very fast build times
Easily build large projects
Reproducible builds
Language-agnostic
Active open source community
Cons
Steep learning curve
Requires buy-in from entire team
Not as feature-rich as alternatives like Gradle
Official Links
Reviews & Ratings
Login to ReviewThe Best Bazel Alternatives
Top Development and Build Tools and other similar apps like Bazel
Here are some alternatives to Bazel:
Suggest an alternative ❐
CMake
CMake is an open-source, cross-platform tool designed to build, test, and package software. It works by generating native makefiles and workspaces that can be used in the compiler environment of your choice.Some key features and benefits of CMake include:Compiler-independent build processes - CMake abstracts away compiler differences and allows you...
GNU Make
GNU Make is a build automation and compilation management tool that was created in 1976 and is now maintained by the GNU Project. It automates the process of building executable programs and libraries from source code using a file called a Makefile which specifies how the project is compiled.Makefiles contain...
Maven
Maven is a software project management and build automation tool used primarily for Java projects. It handles dependencies, builds, tests, reporting, and packaging for Java code in an automated fashion.Some key features of Maven include:Dependency Management - Maven downloads Java libraries and dependencies your project needs so you don't have...
SCons
SCons is an open source software construction tool that can be used as an alternative to Make. It is used to build software applications and libraries from source code. Some key things about SCons:Written in Python and uses Python scripts for its configuration files, making SCons highly customizable and easy...
Meson
Meson is an open-source build system designed to be extremely fast and easy to use. It aims to improve upon existing build systems like Autotools and CMake by providing better defaults, intuitive syntax, and useful error messages that help developers debug issues faster.Some key highlights of Meson include:Very fast build...
Ninja Build
Ninja is an open-source build system designed to build software quickly. It is small and lightweight but very fast due to its focus on performance and speed of compilation. Some key highlights of Ninja:Ninja files are simple and easy to write to describe the build processIt can compile projects significantly...
Gradle
Gradle is an open-source build automation tool focused on flexibility and performance. It builds upon the features of Apache Ant and Apache Maven, while providing a more flexible way to declare build logic through a Groovy-based domain-specific language (DSL), avoiding XML configuration.Some key features and advantages of Gradle include:Build scripts...
Premake
Premake is an open-source build configuration tool designed for C and C++ projects across Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems. It allows developers to define their project build configurations and rules in a portable script, which Premake then processes to generate the native project files and build scripts needed for...
Autoconf
Autoconf is an extensible package of M4 macros that produce shell scripts to automatically configure software source code packages. It was created in 1994 to simplify the compilation of GNU software on a variety of Unix and Unix-like systems.Autoconf generates a configuration script for a package from template files that...
Yake
Yake is an open-source, lightweight automatic keyword extraction Python library and command-line tool. It allows for unsupervised keyword extraction from single documents by selecting the most relevant keywords based on statistical analysis and linguistic information about the input text.Some of the key features and benefits of Yake include:Completely unsupervised approach...
Makepp
Makepp is an open source build utility and build automation tool designed as an improved drop-in replacement for GNU Make. It provides several advantages over traditional Make:Simplified syntax and project structure - No convoluted Makefile scripts requiredReliable dependency tracking - Automatically tracks all file dependenciesFaster builds - Builds code incrementally,...
