Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

build2 VS CMake

Compare build2 VS CMake and see what are their differences

build2 logo build2

build2 is an open-source (MIT), cross-platform build toolchain for developing and packaging C and...

CMake logo CMake

CMake is an open-source, cross-platform family of tools designed to build, test and package software.
  • build2 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-08-12
  • CMake Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-09-21

We recommend LibHunt CMake for discovery and comparisons of trending CMake projects.

build2 videos

Review of LUXA’s hard gel BUILD2 in BLUSH | NAILS | Nail overlay

CMake videos

CMake for Dummies

More videos:

  • Review - CppCon 2017: Mathieu Ropert “Using Modern CMake Patterns to Enforce a Good Modular Design”
  • Review - Hunter, a CMake driven package manager for C/C++ projects - Daniel Friedrich - Lightning Talks

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to build2 and CMake)
Front End Package Manager
Package Manager
100 100%
0% 0
JavaScript Package Manager
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CMake should be more popular than build2. It has been mentiond 51 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

build2 mentions (16)

  • C++ Papercuts
    As the name suggests, this wraps the whatever build system that the dependency is using rather than replacing it with Meson. Say if you depend on Boost and Qt, you will end up using both Boost Build and CMake in addition to Meson (most likely there will be a couple of more build systems if you are also building Boost's and Qt's own dependencies such as ICU). This has two major drawbacks: 1. The build in... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Sharing Saturday #472
    Which reminds me that I could package libtcode for build2 as that's what I'm using for MEGASTRUCTURES. I already packaged ENTT and fmt before and it's available on the OSS repository so it might be quite easy to do if libtcod dont have too many dependencies. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Sharing Saturday #469
    After build2 devs added a missing feature that was preventing me from correctly running the python scripts from godot-cpp that generates the C++ bindings (the build2 devs were actually hitting similar issues and I was lucky to reach it while they were working on a solution), I managed to complete a working version of the build2 package of godot-cpp. As a reminder, godot-cpp is the library you need to use that... Source: about 1 year ago
  • Sharing Saturday #467
    The first step is to do some scaffolding to easily build my C++ model from Prototype 1 as a Godot Extension, which also implies building godot-cpp which can be done with Scons or CMake easily as their scripts are provided, but I actually want to use build2 which is what I like to use these days in my own projects in C++. I could build godot-cpp in CMake and then link to it using my project under build2 but I kind... Source: about 1 year ago
  • CPP, C++ Pain Points from the results of the 2023 Annual C++ Developer Survey reviewed
    On the subject of the difficulties with setting up a CI pipeline, I want to give a shout-out to Build2, which is incredible in this regard. Source: about 1 year ago
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CMake mentions (51)

  • Top 7 C++ Tools to explore in 2024 if it's not already the case.
    CMake stands for "Cross-platform Make" and is an open-source, platform-independent build system. It's designed to build, test, and package software projects written in C and C++, but it can also be used for other languages. Here's an overview of CMake and its features:. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • My first Software Release using GitHub Release
    When doing research for this lab exercise I looked at both vcpkg and conan. Both are package managers that would automate the installation and configuration of my program with its dependencies. However, when it came to releasing and sharing my program my options were limited. For example, the central public registry for conan packages is conan-center, but these packages are curated and the process is very... - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • A little help for a C++ newbie
    Install the CMake program using your system package manager, e.g. Sudo apt-get install cmake. Source: 9 months ago
  • Questions Regarding working with Mingw_w64, MSYS2, and CMake on Windows
    Oh I just assumed it was talking about the one from cmake.org since I was having trouble. I can now confirm that mingw-w64-cmake and the binary from cmake.org do operate in mostly identical ways. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Questions Regarding working with Mingw_w64, MSYS2, and CMake on Windows
    Then looking at any one of the many examples provided on cmake.org, it's clearly a viable way to do set(CMAKE_*), (e.g., set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11) Set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED True)). Of course, another way to set these variables is to use the -D flag as you suggested, but I was just wondering why you would prohibit using set(CMAKE_*). Source: about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing build2 and CMake, you can also consider the following products

Conan - Conan is an Action-Adventure, Hack and Slash and Single-player video game developed by Nihilistic Software and published by THQ.

GNU Make - GNU Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

Vcpkg - C++ Library Manager for Windows, Linux, and macOS

SCons - SCons is an Open Source software construction tool—that is, a next-generation build tool.

Hunter package manager - CMake driven cross-platform package manager for C/C++.

Ninja Build - Ninja is a small build system with a focus on speed.