While Jenkins serves as the core engine of modern DevOps, CloudBees CI is the enterprise-grade vehicle built around it. Open-source Jenkins offers a robust, community-driven framework, but CloudBees CI (the successor to the CloudBees Jenkins Platform) provides the scalability and governance large organizations require.
The primary difference lies in reliability. While standard Jenkins can suffer from “plugin hell,” CloudBees offers verified plugin tiers and centralized management. The name “CloudBees” reflects a vision of the cloud populated by “bees”—symbolizing collaborative, hardworking developer teams in a hive-like ecosystem. This identity was solidified in late 2010 when CloudBees merged with InfraDNA, the company founded by Jenkins’ creator, Kohsuke Kawaguchi.
Today, global giants like Salesforce and HSBC use CloudBees CI to consolidate fragmented “islands of Jenkins” into a unified backbone. By leveraging features like Active-Active High Availability and Configuration as Code (CasC), these enterprises achieve zero-downtime failover and standardized security for thousands of developers, turning complex automation into a streamlined, mission-critical asset. Additional users include Capital One, U.S. Air Force, and Autodesk.
Practical Applications
- Scale: Manages thousands of developers via active-active high availability (HA) for zero-downtime failover and shared agents to pool resources.
- Security: Enforces advanced RBAC, compliance automation, and verified plugins across pipelines.
- Efficiency: Leverages Configuration as Code (CasC) for consistent setups, optimizes build times, and cuts infrastructure costs.
