The leading open source automation server that provides 1,900+ plugins to support building, deploying, and automating any project for continuous integration and delivery.
Jenkins is the most widely adopted open source automation server, powering CI/CD pipelines for over 300,000 installations worldwide. Originally forked from Hudson in 2011, Jenkins has grown into the backbone of software delivery for organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises.
Jenkins provides a self-hosted, extensible automation platform that supports continuous integration, continuous delivery, and general-purpose build automation through its Pipeline-as-Code approach. Teams define their build, test, and deployment workflows in a Jenkinsfile stored alongside project source code, enabling version-controlled, peer-reviewed CI/CD configuration using either a structured Declarative syntax or a full-featured Scripted Pipeline DSL built on Groovy.
The platform's distributed controller-agent architecture allows organizations to scale build capacity horizontally across physical servers, virtual machines, Docker containers, and Kubernetes pods. A single Jenkins controller can orchestrate hundreds of agents running on heterogeneous operating systems â Linux, Windows, and macOS â enabling cross-platform builds from a unified management plane.
With over 1,900 community-contributed plugins available through the Jenkins Update Center, the platform integrates with virtually every tool in the modern DevOps ecosystem: Git, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, GCP, Terraform, Ansible, Maven, Gradle, npm, Jira, Slack, and hundreds more. This extensibility makes Jenkins adaptable to nearly any workflow, language, or infrastructure.
Jenkins is governed by the Continuous Delivery Foundation (CDF) under the Linux Foundation, ensuring vendor-neutral stewardship and long-term viability. The project maintains a weekly release cadence for cutting-edge features and a Long-Term Support (LTS) line updated every 12 weeks for production stability. Over 800 contributors have committed code to Jenkins core, and the plugin ecosystem is maintained by thousands of community developers globally.
Key statistics underscore Jenkins' market position: 300,000+ known installations, 1,900+ plugins, 250,000+ active Jenkins controllers reporting anonymous usage data, and consistent ranking as the #1 CI/CD tool in developer surveys including the CD Foundation's annual report. Jenkins processes millions of builds daily across industries including finance, healthcare, government, telecommunications, and technology.
Jenkins Configuration as Code (JCasC) enables fully reproducible controller setup through YAML files, eliminating manual UI-based configuration and supporting infrastructure-as-code practices. Multibranch Pipelines automatically discover branches, tags, and pull requests, creating build jobs without manual intervention. These capabilities, combined with zero licensing costs and full infrastructure control, make Jenkins the platform of choice for organizations that prioritize flexibility, compliance, and cost efficiency in their CI/CD strategy.
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Jenkins pipelines are defined in a Jenkinsfile stored in the project's source repository, enabling version control, code review, and audit trails for CI/CD configuration. Two syntax options are available: Declarative Pipeline provides a structured, opinionated format with predefined sections (agent, stages, steps, post) ideal for standard workflows, while Scripted Pipeline offers full Groovy programming for advanced scenarios like dynamic stage generation, complex conditional logic, and custom library integration via Shared Libraries.
Jenkins' controller-agent model distributes build workloads across multiple machines, operating systems, and cloud environments from a single management plane. Agents can run on physical servers, virtual machines, Docker containers, or Kubernetes pods, connecting via SSH, JNLP, or WebSocket protocols. Labels and node affinities route builds to appropriate agents based on OS, toolchain, or hardware requirements, enabling cross-platform compilation and testing from a unified pipeline.
The Jenkins Update Center hosts over 1,900 community-contributed plugins covering source control (Git, SVN, Mercurial), build tools (Maven, Gradle, npm), cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), notification services (Slack, email, PagerDuty), security scanning (SonarQube, OWASP), and artifact management (Nexus, Artifactory). Plugins are installed and managed through the Jenkins UI or CLI, and JCasC enables declarative plugin configuration for reproducible environments.
JCasC eliminates manual UI-based configuration by defining the entire Jenkins controller setup â security settings, credentials, tool installations, plugin configurations, and system properties â in human-readable YAML files. These files can be version-controlled, peer-reviewed, and applied automatically on startup, enabling reproducible Jenkins environments and supporting infrastructure-as-code practices for disaster recovery and multi-environment deployments.
Multibranch Pipeline automatically discovers branches, tags, and pull requests in source repositories and creates corresponding pipeline jobs without manual configuration. Organization Folders extend this to entire GitHub or Bitbucket organizations, scanning all repositories for Jenkinsfiles and creating multibranch pipeline jobs automatically. This enables at-scale CI/CD where new repositories and branches are picked up and built without any manual Jenkins configuration.
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In 2025-2026, Jenkins received a significant UI redesign led by contributor Jan Faracik, delivering a modernized header and interface for a more contemporary look and feel. Jenkins won the DevOps Dozen award for 'Best CI/CD Tool' in 2025, reinforcing its community standing. The Jenkins Kubernetes plugin received major performance improvements for pod provisioning and cleanup, and JCasC expanded support for additional plugin configurations. Security hardening continued with improvements to the Jenkins security advisory process and faster patch cycles for critical vulnerabilities. The project also enhanced Pipeline durability and restart recovery, reducing the impact of controller restarts on in-flight builds.
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