Best GNU Make Alternatives in 2026
Taken from Build Automation Software, where GNU Make is listed too, in the same order.
- 1
8.3 Club scoreAWS CodeBuild
AWS CodeBuild is a managed continuous integration service that runs scripts to compile, test, and package code.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · Web
- 2
8.0 Club scorefastlane
fastlane is a free, open-source platform for automating iOS and Android app development and release workflows.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · iPhone and iPad
- 3
7.9 Club scoreNx
Nx is a build system for JavaScript and TypeScript monorepos, with plugins that extend it to other languages.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · Web
- 4
7.9 Club scoreBazel
Bazel is a free, open-source tool for automating software builds and tests across languages and platforms.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 5
7.9 Club scoreFASTBuild
FASTBuild is a free, open-source build system for compiling software on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 6 7.9 Club score
Apache Maven
Apache Maven is a free build tool for Java projects.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
- 7
7.9 Club scoreSCons
SCons is a free, open source software construction tool positioned as a cross-platform alternative to Make.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
- 8 7.9 Club score
Ninja
Ninja is a free build system focused on evaluating incremental builds quickly.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 9 7.9 Club score
Shake
Shake is a Haskell library for writing build systems as an alternative to tools such as make.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 10 7.8 Club score
Open Build Service
Open Build Service (OBS) automates building and distributing binary packages from source code in a consistent, reproducible way.
- Free plan
- Linux · Web · API · Self-hosted
- 11
7.7 Club scoreXmake
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · iPhone and iPad
- 12
7.7 Club scoreGradle
Gradle is a free, open-source build system that automates software builds across projects of different types and sizes.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · API
- 13 7.6 Club score
distcc
distcc distributes C, C++, Objective C, and Objective C++ compilation across networked machines.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
- 14
7.6 Club scoreRush
Rush is a monorepo manager for JavaScript teams that keep many packages in one Git repository.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 15
7.6 Club scoreWaf
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 16
7.6 Club scoreGN
GN is a free meta-build system that generates build files for Ninja.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 17 7.5 Club score
Google Cloud Build
- Free plan
- Linux · Web · API
- 18
7.5 Club scorePremake
Premake is a free command-line tool that reads a scripted software project definition and generates project files for toolsets such as Visual Studio, Xcode and GNU Make.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- 19 7.4 Club score
qmake
qmake is a build tool that expands project files into Makefiles for applications, libraries, and other components.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · iPhone and iPad
- 20
7.4 Club scoreBuck2
Buck2 is a free build system from Meta for large-scale repositories that use multiple programming languages.
- Free plan
- Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted