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Comparison · DevOps
Jenkins vs Undertow
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Jenkins and Undertow — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Jenkins vs Undertow: at a glance
What is Jenkins?
Jenkins is shrinking its own war file and rebuilding its UI, one weekly release at a time
The weekly train is dominated by two long efforts: an incremental redesign of the experimental Manage Jenkins UI, and a deliberate campaign to unbundle plugins from jenkins.war. 2.577 drops bouncycastle, the Command Agent Launcher, JAXB, the SSH server and more, following 2.574's removal of JUnit, Mailer and the matrix plugins. Interleaved security releases ship with no detail beyond a one-line note.
What is Undertow?
Undertow 2.4.0 clears three CVEs and finally lands long-open HTTP/2 and timeout requests
Undertow's 2.4 line opened in May 2026 with a release that combines three CVE fixes with a backlog of feature requests, several of them years old judging by their issue numbers — in-flight request processing time tracking, comments in the predicate language, a configurable async context timeout replacing a hard-coded one, HTTP/2 GOAWAY connection management, a TLS protocol version exchange attribute, and a method to invalidate all cache paths. The two releases since have been small: a handful of Jiras in 2.4.1, and a 2.4.2 whose entire release note is the sentence that it was tagged.
Jenkins vs Undertow: editorial side-by-side
Jenkins
5.0DEVOPSINFRA · APIS
Jenkins is shrinking its own war file and rebuilding its UI, one weekly release at a time
◆ Current state
The weekly train is dominated by two long efforts: an incremental redesign of the experimental Manage Jenkins UI, and a deliberate campaign to unbundle plugins from jenkins.war. 2.577 drops bouncycastle, the Command Agent Launcher, JAXB, the SSH server and more, following 2.574's removal of JUnit, Mailer and the matrix plugins. Interleaved security releases ship with no detail beyond a one-line note.
◆ Where it's heading
Two releases cutting 20 MB each signal that unbundling is sustained policy, not a one-off — the core is being reduced toward a minimal server with plugins as an explicit choice. The UI work is methodical and unglamorous: scrollable side panels, sticky build bars, standardised dialogs and command palettes. Neither effort is close to finished.
◆ Prediction
More bundled plugins will be pulled in coming releases, and the experimental Manage Jenkins UI should keep absorbing pages until it can drop the experimental label.
Undertow
0.0DEVOPS
Undertow 2.4.0 clears three CVEs and finally lands long-open HTTP/2 and timeout requests
◆ Current state
Undertow's 2.4 line opened in May 2026 with a release that combines three CVE fixes with a backlog of feature requests, several of them years old judging by their issue numbers — in-flight request processing time tracking, comments in the predicate language, a configurable async context timeout replacing a hard-coded one, HTTP/2 GOAWAY connection management, a TLS protocol version exchange attribute, and a method to invalidate all cache paths. The two releases since have been small: a handful of Jiras in 2.4.1, and a 2.4.2 whose entire release note is the sentence that it was tagged.
◆ Where it's heading
The 2.4.0 pattern — a long-deferred feature backlog shipping in the same release as security fixes — suggests features move when a release has to happen anyway rather than on their own schedule. What did ship points at operational control: timeouts that were hard-coded becoming configurable, connection lifecycle handling for HTTP/2, and attributes exposing TLS and timing detail to whatever sits above the server. Enabling test runs on JDK 25 in 2.4.1 is the only forward-looking item in the two follow-up releases.
◆ Prediction
With three entries and one substantive release among them, there is little to extrapolate from; the JDK 25 test enablement is the one thread that implies more work, pointing at runtime compatibility rather than features as the near-term focus.
Alternatives to Jenkins and Undertow
Other DevOps products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Jenkins or Undertow.
Manticore Search
Six releases in a week: one new capability, one revert, the rest corrective
Tigris
Tigris still ships features inside essays, and the newest one is a recycle bin.
Workato
Workato just made itself the control plane for every MCP server in the building.
ASP.NET Core
Four branches on a servicing drumbeat, with 10.0 taking the only real fixes.
Laravel
Laravel runs two trains in lockstep, and 13.x is still where features land.
See all Jenkins alternatives → · See all Undertow alternatives →
Recent activity from Jenkins and Undertow
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoJenkinsJenkins 2.577 unbundles another 20 MB of plugins from the war
- 7d agoJenkinsJenkins 2.576 security release
- 7d agoJenkinsJenkins 2.575 security release
- 22d agoJenkinsJenkins 2.574 removes JUnit, Mailer and the matrix plugins from the war
- 1mo agoJenkinsJenkins 2.573 refreshes job status icons
- 1mo agoJenkinsJenkins 2.572 adds password complexity rules and tightens deserialization
- 1mo agoUndertow2.4.2.Final
- 2mo agoUndertowUndertow 2.4.1 makes the HTTP/1.1 reason-phrase optional
- 2mo agoUndertowUndertow 2.4.0 fixes three CVEs and adds HTTP/2 GOAWAY handling
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Jenkins and Undertow?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Jenkins is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Jenkins better than Undertow?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Jenkins is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other DevOps products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Jenkins?
Top Jenkins alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Jenkins alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/jenkins for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Undertow?
Top Undertow alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Undertow alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/undertow for the full list with editorial commentary on each.