David C. Wyld et al. (Eds): EMSA, SEA, AIFU, NLCAI, BDML, BIoT, NCOM, CLOUD, CCSEA, SIPRO - 2022 pp. 73-89, 2022. CS & IT - CSCP 2022 DOI: 10.5121/csit.2022.120608 BUILD AUTOMATION TOOLS FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN MAVEN, GRADLE AND BAZEL Mridula Prakash L&T Technology Services, CTO Office, Mysore, India ABSTRACT The automated processes will play an increasingly vital role in continuous integration as the pace of design and development of new software picks up. With the importance of software build automation tools taking center stage, the present paper undertakes a comparative analysis of three best available solutions - Maven, Gradle and Bazel. We aim to evaluate the solutions based on their efficiency and performance in the context of software build automation and deployment. There are some fundamental differences in the way each tools approach builds. The aim of this study is also to provide the reader with a complete overview of the selected build automation tools and, the relevant features and capabilities of interest. In addition, the paper leads to a broader view on the future of the build automation tools ecosystem. KEYWORDS Automated process, Build automation tools, Maven, Gradle, Bazel. 1. INTRODUCTION The build automation process involves automating tasks about software build, including the compilation of source code into binary code, packaging the binary code, and running the automated tests; as the final procedure. The process helps in reducing down time, optimizing costs, and simplifying the overall development process. Over the years, given the growing demand for software development globally, a series of tools have emerged to provide a streamlined continuous integration framework. Build automation tools can be broadly classified into two types namely: 1. Build automation utility 2. Build automation servers The build automation utilities consist of a range of solutions, including, Gradle, Maven, Bazel, and Cmake. Their primary purpose of these tools is to generate software builds by compiling and linking the source code. The build automation server, on the other hand, comprises of continuous integration-based web servers, with instances including continuous management tools, and continuous integration tools. We first provide a comprehensive overview of the emerging tools like Gradle, Maven and Bazel and then proceed to summarize with the latest trends and the way forward.