No-Code · head to head
Corteza vs Jenkins
Corteza
No-Code
Apache-licensed open source low-code platform, formerly Crust, positioned against Salesforce
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Jenkins
Technology
A self-hosted automation server that can build almost anything, through a plugin ecosystem that is also its main liability.
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Corteza planet Crust is a small company of roughly a dozen or so people, so the entire commercial support capability behind Corteza is thin and a large deployment can outgrow the vendors ability to respond.; Jenkins the controller is stateful and, in the open source distribution, has no high availability: build history, configuration and plugin state live on one filesystem, so every plugin upgrade and core update is downtime for every team using it, and a controller disk failure is a restore-from-backup event.
- They diverge on capability: Corteza covers Corteza Low Code, Jenkins covers Plugin ecosystem.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Corteza and Jenkins actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Corteza
- Corteza Low Code
- Automation and workflow
- Bundled CRM
- Case management
- Federation
- Role-based access control
- Corteza Messaging and integrations
- Self-hosted deployment
Only in Jenkins
- Plugin ecosystem
- Distributed agents
- Declarative and scripted pipelines
- Shared libraries
- Configuration as Code
- Credentials management
- Self-hosted anywhere
- Multibranch and organisation folders
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Corteza
- A European public body that needs a case management system on servers inside its own jurisdiction with an auditable licence and no per-seat vendor feenot Jenkins
- An NGO replacing a Salesforce donation that has run out, needing to keep the data model but remove the recurring costnot Jenkins
- An integrator building a regulated vertical application it intends to resell, requiring a permissive licence it can ship commerciallynot Jenkins
- A mid-size European company that wants one platform for internal applications and a sales pipeline without paying per seat as headcount growsnot Jenkins
Jenkins
- Builds that must touch physical hardware, such as embedded devices, test rigs or signing modules attached to a specific machinenot Corteza
- Air-gapped or heavily regulated environments where a hosted CI runner cannot be used at allnot Corteza
- Toolchains that hosted CI does not support, including node-locked commercial licences for EDA, CAD or simulation softwarenot Corteza
- Organisations with years of existing Jenkins pipelines where the migration cost currently outweighs the operational cost of stayingnot Corteza
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Corteza
- Planet Crust is a small company of roughly a dozen or so people, so the entire commercial support capability behind Corteza is thin and a large deployment can outgrow the vendors ability to respond.
- No pricing is published for Planet Crusts support, hosting or implementation services, so the true running cost of a supported deployment cannot be estimated without a sales conversation.
- The connector ecosystem is small compared with commercial low-code platforms, so integrations with common SaaS tools usually mean writing against the REST API rather than installing something.
- Hiring is hard: almost nobody has Corteza on a CV, so you are training internal developers on a niche platform and you cannot easily replace them.
- The bundled CRM is a starting point rather than a mature product, and teams that expect Salesforce-equivalent sales functionality out of the box will spend months building the gap themselves.
Jenkins
- The controller is stateful and, in the open source distribution, has no high availability: build history, configuration and plugin state live on one filesystem, so every plugin upgrade and core update is downtime for every team using it, and a controller disk failure is a restore-from-backup event.
- Capability comes from around 1,900 community plugins of very uneven maintenance, and the Jenkins security team regularly publishes advisories for plugins whose maintainer has gone; in some cases the advisory itself states that no fix is available and the only remedy is to stop using it.
- Plugin upgrades are coupled: one plugin can require a newer core or a newer version of another plugin, so applying a single security fix cascades into a coordinated upgrade of a dozen components on a timetable you did not choose.
- Pipelines are Groovy running under a sandbox and a continuation-passing-style transformation, so ordinary Groovy constructs sometimes fail in non-obvious ways, and the debugging skill you build transfers to no other CI system.
- It is free to licence and expensive to run: somebody must own the controller, the agents, the Java version, the credentials store and the plugin upgrade cycle, and that recurring staff cost is the usual reason organisations move to hosted CI even when Jenkins works.
- Leaving is costly by construction, because shared libraries, plugin-specific pipeline steps and accumulated freestyle jobs have no mechanical translation into GitHub Actions or GitLab CI, so the migration is a rewrite whose price grows every year you defer it.
Pricing, plan by plan
Corteza
Free- Corteza communityFree
- Apache 2.0 licensed with no feature gating
- Low-code builder, workflow engine, CRM and case management included
- Self-hosted on your own infrastructure
- Planet Crust support and services$undefined/year
- Commercial support, hosting and implementation from Planet Crust
- Custom application development
- Training
Jenkins
Free- Open SourceFree
- Unlimited builds
- 1000+ plugins
- Self-hosted
- CloudBees CI$undefined/month
- Enterprise features
- High availability
- Role-based access
Which should you pick?
Choose Corteza if
- You need corteza low code.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
- You also want automation and workflow.
Choose Jenkins if
- You need plugin ecosystem.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Windows, Macos, Docker.
- You also want distributed agents.
Questions people ask
- Is Corteza or Jenkins better?
- Neither clearly leads. Corteza starts at Free and Jenkins at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Corteza or Jenkins?
- Corteza starts at Free and Jenkins at Free.
- Does Corteza or Jenkins run on more platforms?
- Corteza runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker. Jenkins runs on Linux, Windows, Macos, Docker.
- Can I use Corteza for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Corteza best used for?
- Corteza is most often used for a european public body that needs a case management system on servers inside its own jurisdiction with an auditable licence and no per-seat vendor fee, an ngo replacing a salesforce donation that has run out, needing to keep the data model but remove the recurring cost, an integrator building a regulated vertical application it intends to resell, requiring a permissive licence it can ship commercially, a mid-size european company that wants one platform for internal applications and a sales pipeline without paying per seat as headcount grows. Of those, a european public body that needs a case management system on servers inside its own jurisdiction with an auditable licence and no per-seat vendor fee and an ngo replacing a salesforce donation that has run out, needing to keep the data model but remove the recurring cost are not what Jenkins is typically brought in for.
- What can Corteza do that Jenkins cannot?
- Corteza covers Corteza Low Code, Automation and workflow, Bundled CRM, Case management. Jenkins covers Plugin ecosystem, Distributed agents, Declarative and scripted pipelines, Shared libraries.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Corteza: Is Corteza the same thing as Crust?
Yes. The project was branded Crust and renamed Corteza in 2019 when Crust Technology donated it to the Commons Conservancy.
Jenkins: Why choose Jenkins over GitHub Actions or GitLab CI?
When the build needs something hosted runners cannot give you: physical hardware, an air-gapped network, a node-locked commercial tool licence, or an unusual platform. If none of those apply, hosted CI is usually less work to own.
Corteza: Who owns the code?
The Commons Conservancy, a Dutch foundation. Planet Crust in Cork is the primary developer and sells commercial services around it.
Jenkins: Can Jenkins run in high availability?
Not in the open source distribution, which runs a single active controller. High availability and active-active controllers are features of CloudBees' commercial products. Open source deployments mitigate it with fast restores and, sometimes, multiple independent controllers.
Corteza: Is there a paid enterprise edition?
No. Corteza is Apache 2.0 with no feature gating. Planet Crust sells support, hosting and development instead of a restricted edition.
Jenkins: How risky are the plugins?
This is the main operational risk. Many plugins have a single volunteer maintainer, and Jenkins publishes security advisories for unmaintained plugins where no fix exists. Auditing which plugins you depend on and who maintains them should be a periodic task, not a one-off.
Corteza: Can it genuinely replace Salesforce?
For case management and a straightforward sales pipeline on a self-hosted footprint, yes. For a large sales organisation relying on AppExchange products and a mature ecosystem, no.
Jenkins: Do I need to know Groovy?
For declarative pipelines you can go a long way without it. Anything involving shared libraries, conditional logic or custom steps is Groovy, and it runs in a sandboxed, transformed environment where standard Groovy idioms sometimes behave unexpectedly.
Jenkins: What does it cost?
The software is free under the MIT licence. The cost is infrastructure and staff time to run controllers, agents and upgrades, plus a CloudBees subscription if you want high availability, support or centralised management of many controllers.
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