Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Travis CI VS Docker Compose

Compare Travis CI VS Docker Compose and see what are their differences

Travis CI logo Travis CI

Simple, flexible, trustworthy CI/CD tools. Join hundreds of thousands who define tests and deployments in minutes, then scale up simply with parallel or multi-environment builds using Travis CI’s precision syntax—all with the developer in mind.

Docker Compose logo Docker Compose

Define and run multi-container applications with Docker
  • Travis CI Travis CI for Simple, Flexible, Trustworthy CI/CD Tools
    Travis CI for Simple, Flexible, Trustworthy CI/CD Tools //
    2024-10-22

Founded in Berlin, Germany, in 2011, Travis CI grew quickly and became a trusted name in CI/CD, gaining popularity among software developers and engineers starting their careers. In 2019, Travis CI became part of Idera, Inc., the parent company of global B2B software productivity brands whose solutions enable technical users to work faster and do more with less.

Today, developers at 300,000 organizations use Travis CI. We often hear about the pangs of nostalgia these folks feel when they use Travis CI, as it was one of the first tools they used at the beginning of their career journey. We are still much here, supporting those who have stuck with us along the way and remaining the best next destination on your CI/CD journey, whether you’re building your first pipelines or trying to bring some thrill back into work that’s become overloaded with AI and DevSecOps complexity.

Our Mission:

We deliver the simplest and most flexible CI/CD tool to developers eager for ownership of their code quality, transparency in how they problem-solve with peers, and pride in the results they create—one LOC at a time.

Our Promise:

We aim for nothing less than to guide every developer to the next phase of their CI/CD adventure—even if that means growing beyond our platform.

  • Docker Compose Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-05-23

Travis CI

$ Details
paid Free Trial $13.75 / Monthly (Per Month, Per User)
Release Date
2011 January

Travis CI features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Travis CI offers a very user-friendly interface and straightforward setup process, making it accessible even for those new to CI/CD.
  • Integration with GitHub
    Seamlessly integrates with GitHub, allowing for automatic builds and tests triggered on pull requests and commits.
  • Wide Range of Language Support
    Supports numerous programming languages out of the box, providing built-in configurations for many common languages such as Python, Ruby, JavaScript, and Java.
  • Extensive Documentation
    Offers comprehensive and well-organized documentation, which can help users troubleshoot and understand complex setups.
  • Build Matrix
    Run your unit and integration tests across any combination of environments for comprehensive automation and absolute quality guarantees on your way to production.

Possible disadvantages of Travis CI

  • Pricing for Private Repositories
    Can become expensive for private repositories and larger teams, especially compared to some competitors that offer more generous free tiers.
  • Performance Issues
    Users have reported occasional performance issues, including slower build times and longer wait periods for queued jobs.
  • Limited Advanced Features
    Might lack some advanced features and customizations that are available in other CI/CD platforms, making it less suitable for very complex workflows.
  • Concurrency Limits
    Has limitations on the number of concurrent builds that can run, which can slow down development cycles for larger projects with many contributors.
  • Complex Configuration for Large Projects
    Configuration can become cumbersome and complex for large projects with intricate dependencies and multiple build steps.

Docker Compose features and specs

  • Simplified Multi-Container Deployment
    Docker Compose allows users to define and manage multi-container applications with a single YAML file, making it easy to deploy complex applications.
  • Infrastructure as Code
    Compose files are version-controlled, enabling teams to use best practices in infrastructure as code, repeatable builds, and consistent development environments.
  • Portability
    Applications defined with Docker Compose can be shared easily and deployed in any environment that supports Docker, enhancing development and operational consistency.
  • Ease of Use
    With simple CLI commands, developers can start, stop, and manage containers, reducing the complexity of container orchestration.
  • Environment Variables
    Docker Compose supports the use of environment variables, making it easier to configure applications and manage different environments (e.g., development, testing, production).
  • Isolation
    Compose creates isolated environments for different applications, preventing conflicts and allowing for more straightforward dependency management.

Possible disadvantages of Docker Compose

  • Not Suitable for Large-Scale Production
    Docker Compose is not designed for managing large-scale, production-grade applications. For more robust orchestration and scaling, systems like Kubernetes are typically used.
  • Single Host Limitation
    Docker Compose is intended for single-host deployments, which limits its use in distributed and multi-host environments.
  • Networking Complexity
    Networking between containers can become complex, especially as the number of services grows, which may require additional configuration and management.
  • Learning Curve
    While Docker Compose simplifies many tasks, there is still a learning curve associated with understanding Docker concepts, Compose syntax, and best practices.
  • Limited Built-in Monitoring
    Docker Compose has limited built-in monitoring and logging capabilities, necessitating the use of additional tools for comprehensive monitoring.
  • Resource Management
    Docker Compose does not provide advanced resource management features, which can lead to suboptimal resource usage and potential inefficiencies.

Analysis of Travis CI

Overall verdict

  • Travis CI is a widely used continuous integration service that is generally considered good for many development projects.

Why this product is good

  • Travis CI integrates seamlessly with GitHub, which allows for automated testing and deployment processes. It is simple to set up for open-source projects and supports multiple programming languages and operating systems. The platform's intuitive interface and extensive documentation make it accessible to both beginners and experienced developers.

Recommended for

  • Open-source projects
  • Teams looking for easy GitHub integration
  • Projects that require regular automated testing
  • Developers who value extensive community support
  • Projects with varying tech stacks, due to its multi-language support

Analysis of Docker Compose

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Docker Compose is a highly regarded tool in the containerization ecosystem. It provides a straightforward approach to orchestrating containers by creating a consistent local development environment that mirrors production settings.

Why this product is good

  • Docker Compose is considered good because it simplifies the management and deployment of multi-container Docker applications. It allows developers to define and run multi-container environments using a simple YAML file, increasing productivity and facilitating version control. This is especially useful for development, testing, and staging environments.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking to manage multi-container Docker applications effortlessly.
  • Teams needing to ensure consistent development and testing environments.
  • Projects that benefit from automated container orchestration without complex setups.
  • Organizations that use Docker containers in their workflow and need a simple tool to orchestrate them.

Travis CI videos

Setting Up Your First Build

More videos:

  • Tutorial - CI/CD Core Concepts
  • Tutorial - How to Get Started with Travis CI in 0 to 5 Minutes

Docker Compose videos

Docker Compose | Containerizing MEAN Stack Application | DevOps Tutorial | Edureka

More videos:

  • Demo - What is Docker Compose? (with demo)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Travis CI and Docker Compose)
Continuous Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
DevOps Tools
80 80%
20% 20
Continuous Deployment
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Travis CI and Docker Compose

Travis CI Reviews

The Best Alternatives to Jenkins for Developers
Travis CI is another popular cloud-based CI/CD solution that integrates well with GitHub. Known for its simplicity and ease of setup, Travis CI is a great choice for open-source projects or teams that primarily work with GitHub repositories. Its configuration is based on a YAML file, making it easy to define and manage build workflows.
Source: morninglif.com
Top 10 Most Popular Jenkins Alternatives for DevOps in 2024
Travis CI is known for its simple setup, quick parallel builds, and support for multiple architectures, including popular enterprise options like IBM PowerPC and IBM Z. It’s claimed that pipelines require approximately 33% less configurable code than other CI/CD solutions, which helps make the platform more approachable. Use it instead of Jenkins when you want a fast...
Source: spacelift.io
10 Jenkins Alternatives in 2021 for Developers
You might find that Travis CI proudly promotes the fact that they have more than 900,000 open-source projects and 600,000 users on their platform with Travis CI. Automated deployment can be quickly established by following the tutorials and documentation that are currently available on their website.
The Best Alternatives to Jenkins for Developers
Travis CI is a continuous integration and testing CI/CD tool. It is free of cost for open source projects and provides seamless integration with GitHub. It supports more than 20 languages, like Node.js, PHP, Python, etc. along with Docker.
Continuous Integration. CircleCI vs Travis CI vs Jenkins
Travis CI is recommended for cases when you are working on the open-source projects, that should be tested in different environments.
Source: djangostars.com

Docker Compose Reviews

We have no reviews of Docker Compose yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Docker Compose should be more popular than Travis CI. It has been mentiond 44 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.

Travis CI mentions (6)

  • Front-end Guide
    We used Travis CI for our continuous integration (CI) pipeline. Travis is a highly popular CI on Github and its build matrix feature is useful for repositories which contain multiple projects like Grab's. We configured Travis to do the following:. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Flutter
    CI/CD for autobuild + autotests (Codemagic or Travis CI). Source: over 2 years ago
  • How To Build Your First CI/CD Pipeline With Travis CI?
    Step 2: Log on to Travis CI and sign up with your GitHub account used above. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • What does a DevOps engineer actually do?
    Some other hosted CI products, such as CircleCI and Travis Cl, are completely hosted in the cloud. It is becoming more popular for small organizations to use hosted CI products, as they allow engineering teams to begin continuous integration as soon as possible. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • Hosting an Angular application on GitHub Pages using Travis CI
    1. Let's create the account. Access the site https://travis-ci.com/ and click on the button Sign up. - Source: dev.to / about 4 years ago
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Docker Compose mentions (44)

  • 7 Docker Compose Tricks to Level Up Your Development Workflow
    These tricks—profiles, environment overrides, build caching, healthchecks, custom logs, named volumes, and file extensions—can transform how you use Docker Compose. They save time, reduce errors, and make your workflows more flexible. Try them in your next project, starting with profiles or healthchecks to see immediate wins. Check the Docker Compose documentation for deeper dives, and experiment with these... - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago
  • 5 Developer Pain Points Solved by Internal Developer Platforms
    Docker Compose for local development environments. - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • Connecting RDBs and Search Engines — Chapter 1
    This removes all container volumes and resets everything to its initial state. See the official documentation for more details. - Source: dev.to / 29 days ago
  • Docker Compose and Devcontainers for Microservices Development
    This tutorial assumes familiarity with Docker, Docker Compose, Devcontainers and that your services have Dockerfile implemented. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Building a bot to talk to my cats
    I talk a lot about using containers for local development. The container that I always used was some running LLM container that I pulled from the Docker Hub official AI image registry. I initially started dev work by just running npm start to get my app running and test connecting to a container, and then I got more savvy with my approach by leveraging Docker Compose. Docker Compose allowed me to automatically... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Travis CI and Docker Compose, you can also consider the following products

Jenkins - Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration server with 300+ plugins to support all kinds of software development

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

CircleCI - CircleCI gives web developers powerful Continuous Integration and Deployment with easy setup and maintenance.

Docker Swarm - Native clustering for Docker. Turn a pool of Docker hosts into a single, virtual host.

Codeship - Codeship is a fast and secure hosted Continuous Delivery platform that scales with your needs.

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service