Gradle vs qmake

Gradle Build Tool is a free, open-source system for automating software builds across projects of different types and sizes. Build logic can use either Kotlin DSL or Groovy DSL. Incremental builds, caching and parallel task execution support the build process, while Gradle downloads and manages transitive dependencies from Maven- and Ivy-compatible repositories. The Gradle Wrapper can provision a build environment and specify the Gradle version used by a project. Its ecosystem covers JVM, Android, C/C++, Swift, Objective-C and assembler projects, and it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. The Tooling API lets IDEs and other tools inspect projects, run builds, receive progress events and cancel operations. Listed support includes Android Studio and Ant, plus Checkstyle, CodeNarc, PMD and JaCoCo. Gradle includes dependency verification. The maker says open-source security fixes are limited by its end-of-life policy; its Security Subscription offers prioritized fixes under SLA and extended maintenance, but does not guarantee a clean scanner report when findings come from third-party libraries.

qmake manages builds for applications, libraries and other components by turning project files into Makefiles. Its `.pro` files can define source files, configuration, libraries and include paths. It supplies build rules for Qt's moc and uic tools, with templates for applications, libraries and plugins. Projects can specify third-party libraries, and qmake can use pkg-config for supported libraries such as D-Bus and ogg. It can generate Microsoft Visual Studio project files and, on macOS, Xcode project files. Platform notes cover iOS universal binaries, frameworks and bundles. In Qt 6, qmake remains supported for building Qt applications, but cannot compile custom Qt plugins or libraries that rely on Qt 5 build-system internals. Qt warns that building an untrusted project can execute code on the build machine. The Qt Community Edition is free under LGPL or GPL terms, with source-code obligations and limited access to some Qt capabilities.