BuildMaster vs Hydra

BuildMaster is a self-hosted CI/CD platform for automating software builds and deployments and managing releases. Teams can assemble pipelines with no-code templates, drag-and-drop editing, or scripts in OtterScript, PowerShell, Python, Bash, and Windows Batch. It connects to GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, Bitbucket, and other source control services, and can bring in artifacts from tools such as Jenkins and TeamCity for deployment across environments. Release workflows can include approvals, deployment windows, variable prompts, automated checks, and manual or automatic promotion between stages. Docker workflows cover image tagging and pushing, container start and stop, and environment-specific runtime configuration. Listed targets range from Windows services, IIS, and Linux or Unix servers to Azure, Terraform, FTP, Kubernetes, and mobile apps. Role-based access can be scoped by application and environment, and Software Composition Analysis integration can identify vulnerabilities in third-party components. It is self-managed on premises or in private or public cloud. The free plan is free; Enterprise plans start at $2,995 a year.

Hydra is a continuous integration service for projects based on Nix. It checks out project source periodically or continuously, builds it, runs tests, and produces reports. Work is organized into jobsets whose inputs can trigger builds when they change; jobsets can also depend on one another. Flake jobsets are supported when their outputs expose a hydraJobs attribute set. Jobs can produce packages, ISO images, or tarballs, and jobset inputs can use Git checkout sources. Hydra also provides a JSON API. It is aimed at Nix and NixOS package developers, not people who only need to use NixOS. Hydra is open source under GPL-3.0 and listed at free. It is self-hosted, with no hosted option listed, and running it is currently supported only on NixOS; the repository recommends the NixOS module for production. Flake evaluation is restricted from accessing files outside the Nix store. Some state is stored in the database, so backups are needed, and the wiki reports that hydra-queue-runner can sometimes leave queued builds unscheduled.