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GNU Make VS CMark

Compare GNU Make VS CMark and see what are their differences

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GNU Make logo 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.

CMark logo CMark

CMark is CommonMark implementation based on the C reference, which is a rationalized version of the Markdown syntax coming with the spec.
  • GNU Make Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-12
  • CMark Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-01

GNU Make features and specs

  • Portability
    GNU Make is highly portable and can be used across various Unix-like operating systems as well as on Windows.
  • Dependency Management
    It efficiently handles complex dependencies between various parts of the software, ensuring that changes are propagated properly.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source software, GNU Make is freely available and can be modified according to user needs.
  • Wide Adoption
    It is widely adopted in the industry, which means that there is extensive documentation and a large community for support.
  • Efficiency
    GNU Make speeds up the build process by only recompiling the necessary parts of the codebase.

Possible disadvantages of GNU Make

  • Complex Syntax
    The syntax of GNU Makefiles can become very complex, especially for large projects, making them hard to read and maintain.
  • Limited Cross-Platform Scripting
    While the tool itself is cross-platform, Makefiles can sometimes include shell commands that are not portable.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Beginners may find it challenging to grasp the concepts and syntax of GNU Make, leading to a steep learning curve.
  • Debugging Difficulty
    Debugging Makefiles can be difficult, with limited tools available to trace or step through the make process.
  • Performance Bottlenecks
    For extremely large projects, performance can become an issue, as the evaluation of dependencies might become slow.

CMark features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Analysis of GNU Make

Overall verdict

  • Yes, GNU Make is a robust and reliable tool for managing build processes. Its long-established reputation and widespread use in both open-source and commercial projects underline its effectiveness and flexibility.

Why this product is good

  • GNU Make is widely used because it automates the build process, efficiently handling dependencies and detecting minimal sets of changes in source files. It is highly customizable, supports non-recursive builds, and integrates well into various development environments.

Recommended for

  • Software developers working on C/C++ projects
  • Teams looking to automate build processes
  • Projects that require cross-platform build capabilities
  • Developers who prefer command-line tools
  • Open-source project maintainers

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GNU Make and CMark)
Front End Package Manager
Monitoring Tools
0 0%
100% 100
JS Build Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Tool
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using GNU Make and CMark. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CMark seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 6 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.

GNU Make mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of GNU Make yet. Tracking of GNU Make recommendations started around Mar 2021.

CMark mentions (6)

  • Why Is This Site Built with C
    Using a portable minimal markdown dependency (such as cmark [1]) I think markdown can be quite a low barrier here. I personally do similar to what you have described on my blog, with an additional cmark conversion and find it quite simple [2]. [1] https://github.com/commonmark/cmark. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Ask HN: What's the simplest static website generator?
    I use GNU make. Write content in markdown, feed it to https://github.com/commonmark/cmark to create html. I intended to splice files together using xslt but echo and cat written in the makefile sufficed. I'm not totally sure I'd recommend that but I do like the markdown => html flow. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Building a Personal Internet from Markdown Files
    I seem to be in the middle of trying to build something similar to this. I want it to run on an android phone but otherwise the same sort of idea, offline-first information I want access to. There's some weirdness around android browsers refusing to load html from the phone itself on security grounds. The OP uses a "progressive web app" which seems to be the proper way to do this at some point in the past, but... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Using Rust with Elixir for code reuse and performance
    Yeah no doubt it, although in this case the C implementation has been a long running project that's under the official commonmark GitHub repo at https://github.com/commonmark/cmark. But I think the most important thing here is an Elixir NIF already exists to use it. The blog post as is leaves readers having to implement ~100 lines of Elixir code to use the Rust version because the authors of blog post didn't... - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago
  • How do I link and use a c library?
    I'm confused about how to use a c library (specifically, cmark) from zig. Source: about 4 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing GNU Make and CMark, you can also consider the following products

CMake - CMake is an open-source, cross-platform family of tools designed to build, test and package software.

CrystalMark - CrystalMark is a full included benchmark application that can be utilized for surveying the execution and capacities of a PC.

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

Bazel - Bazel is a tool that automates software builds and tests.

SBT - SBT is a build tool for Scala, like Ant or Maven but with hieroglyphics.

fio - Generate I/O for benchmarking, stress testing, verification or workload reproduction purposes.