Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) in Modern Software Engineering: A Comparative Study of Jenkins and GitHub Actions

Session

Computer Science and Communication Engineering

Description

The rapid evolution of software delivery models has shifted the focus from manual releases toward fully automated pipelines. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) have become central pillars of modern software engineering, enabling faster iterations, early defect detection, and consistent delivery across environments. Among the most widely adopted tools for implementing CI/CD are Jenkins, an open-source automation server known for its extensibility, and GitHub Actions, a cloud-native CI/CD platform tightly integrated with GitHub repositories. This paper provides a comparative analysis of Jenkins and GitHub Actions in the context of DevOps practices, focusing on setup complexity, scalability, customization, integration flexibility, and cost-efficiency. The research highlights how Jenkins excels in flexibility and plugin support for hybrid infrastructures, while GitHub Actions simplifies workflow management through YAML-based declarative pipelines and seamless GitHub integration. The study emphasizes practical implementation scenarios in modern web projects, including Node.js and .NET Core applications.By evaluating both platforms through performance metrics and developer experience, the paper aims to guide software teams in choosing an optimal CI/CD solution aligned with their project scale and organizational maturity.Expected Results.The study is expected to demonstrate that while Jenkins offers superior customization and control for large-scale enterprise environments, GitHub Actions provides a more accessible, integrated, and cloud-native approach suitable for modern agile teams. Comparative results will underline trade-offs in setup effort, scalability, and automation efficiency, offering concrete recommendations for organizations adopting CI/CD pipelines in different contexts.

Keywords:

CI/CD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Software Automation, Cloud-native Pipelines, Workflow Orchestration, Agile Delivery, Software Engineering

Proceedings Editor

Edmond Hajrizi

ISBN

978-9951-982-41-2

Location

UBT Lipjan, Kosovo

Start Date

25-10-2025 9:00 AM

End Date

26-10-2025 6:00 PM

DOI

10.33107/ubt-ic.2025.99

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Oct 25th, 9:00 AM Oct 26th, 6:00 PM

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) in Modern Software Engineering: A Comparative Study of Jenkins and GitHub Actions

UBT Lipjan, Kosovo

The rapid evolution of software delivery models has shifted the focus from manual releases toward fully automated pipelines. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) have become central pillars of modern software engineering, enabling faster iterations, early defect detection, and consistent delivery across environments. Among the most widely adopted tools for implementing CI/CD are Jenkins, an open-source automation server known for its extensibility, and GitHub Actions, a cloud-native CI/CD platform tightly integrated with GitHub repositories. This paper provides a comparative analysis of Jenkins and GitHub Actions in the context of DevOps practices, focusing on setup complexity, scalability, customization, integration flexibility, and cost-efficiency. The research highlights how Jenkins excels in flexibility and plugin support for hybrid infrastructures, while GitHub Actions simplifies workflow management through YAML-based declarative pipelines and seamless GitHub integration. The study emphasizes practical implementation scenarios in modern web projects, including Node.js and .NET Core applications.By evaluating both platforms through performance metrics and developer experience, the paper aims to guide software teams in choosing an optimal CI/CD solution aligned with their project scale and organizational maturity.Expected Results.The study is expected to demonstrate that while Jenkins offers superior customization and control for large-scale enterprise environments, GitHub Actions provides a more accessible, integrated, and cloud-native approach suitable for modern agile teams. Comparative results will underline trade-offs in setup effort, scalability, and automation efficiency, offering concrete recommendations for organizations adopting CI/CD pipelines in different contexts.