What is Jenkins?
An open-source automation server for building CI/CD pipelines.
Jenkins is one of the oldest and most widely deployed CI/CD automation servers. Pipelines are defined in a Jenkinsfile using Groovy DSL or declarative syntax. Jenkins has a massive plugin ecosystem (1800+ plugins) for integration with nearly every tool. It's highly flexible but operationally complex — you manage the Jenkins server, plugins, and agents yourself. Many teams are migrating from Jenkins to GitHub Actions or GitLab CI for simpler operations.
Deep Dive Guide
github actions vs gitlab ci vs circleci
Related Terms
More CI/CD Terms
Blue-Green Deployment
A release strategy using two identical environments to achieve zero-downtime deploys.
Canary Deployment
Gradually rolling out a new version to a small percentage of users before full release.
CI/CD
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery — automating build, test, and deploy pipelines.
Feature Flag
A configuration mechanism to enable or disable features without redeploying code.
Flagger
A Kubernetes operator automating canary deployments, A/B tests, and blue-green releases.
GitHub Actions
GitHub's built-in CI/CD platform for automating workflows triggered by repository events.
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