Bitrise on AWS: macOS virtualized CI builder

My main use case for Bitrise  is for CI/CD, which means generating the build, deploying the build into the Play Store and App Store.

I am from the mobile field, and we were generating manual builds, which took more time, so we selected Bitrise . We wrote scripts over Bitrise, set up our application, and generated the application using the AAB and APK formats.

In the product that I am working on, I share two frequent builds to the QA, product team, and management, so I generate multiple builds—seven to eight builds in a day, which sometimes takes more than an hour or two hours. By using Bitrise, my two hours of daily effort was reduced. I simply go to Bitrise and generate the build, so there is no manual effort required for me to generate the build.

I use GitHub Actions  as well, but Bitrise has an option to upload multiple keystores. I uploaded the keystore and generated some values including the keystore name, keystore password, alias, and keystore name. I mapped those keys to the global variables in Bitrise, assigning these keystore values to particular variables and picking the keystore based on my script. If I am working on product X, I pick this keystore; if I have product Y, I pick a different keystore.

I am using Bitrise totally for CI/CD, generating the build and deploying the build into the Play Store.

One of the best features is setting up multiple applications. The best feature is that we have a single code for multiple applications and multiple keystores for generating multiple applications and multiple APKs. Bitrise has the support to use multiple keystores, by which we can generate multiple unique applications and deploy them directly to the Play Store.

Bitrise is positively impacting our organization by saving manual effort—saving two hours of every developer effort. In Android, it saves two hours, but in iOS, when we are generating the iOS build, it takes more than an hour. With Bitrise, as a team of 10 to 12 people, we are able to independently generate the build and save overall 20 to 40 hours per day.

If a developer saves two hours of time, he can spend these two hours on any particular feature or any CRS completion. We just need to go to Bitrise and generate the build, and the build will create in parallel while I can complete my work on my local system.

Bitrise has to work more on the error part. Sometimes I face issues when I trigger a build to generate, and I get a build failed without getting the proper log, which sometimes makes the user too annoyed. In local, it works fine, but in Bitrise, I am facing issues. We should not get any option that requires updating the workflow or anything. This is something Bitrise has to improve.

I have been using Bitrise for the last three years.

Bitrise is stable.

Scalability is great. Whenever I am doing anything, I have not felt any glitch; it is working as expected.

Customer support for Bitrise is awesome; they are responding very quickly. Sometimes I face issues in Bitrise, so I reach out to the support team, and they reply within a given timeframe, so I am happy with the customer support as well. They are very quick. I would rate the customer support a 10 out of 10.

Before Bitrise, I set up Jenkins  for research and development purposes; my company set up Jenkins , and I have tried GitHub Actions  as well.

I chose Bitrise because it is extremely easy and simple to integrate, and you can set it up with Bitbucket .

If I am saving my developer efforts, it is helping my team to focus on other parts, which helps me and my team to deliver more features. If we deliver more features, it will ultimately generate revenue for my company.

For the pricing part, I discussed with my manager, who was happy, so I am also happy. He is able to get the approval every year, and we have an active subscription right now, so it is good for us, and I am okay with the licensing and setup cost.

I choose a rating of 8 out of 10 for Bitrise because it is fulfilling almost all my needs regarding deploying the build into the Play Store, managing multiple applications, and doing everything. I am keeping two points off just because of error handling; whenever we are getting an error, we do not have much clarity on the error side.

We are using Bitrise, specifically bitrise.com, and we are doing some scripting and setting up in my local. We have integrated our Bitbucket  with Bitrise.

I recommend others to use Bitrise; it will save your time for generating manual effort and deploying the build into the Play Store, making that part easier without any manual effort to generate the application, deploy it into the Play Store, and handle tasks like that.

For our mobile application development, we have integrated Bitrise  with our Git  repository, mainly GitHub . Whenever the code is pushed or pulled, the pipelines get triggered and then connected to the mobile development tools. Bitrise  builds the environment and compiles the application. We integrated the notification tool to receive build updates. Bitrise can also integrate with the internal testing tools, which is very beneficial for us. Bitrise gives us the full development life cycle automation, and it is very good to use.

Every mobile application development needs automation for building and testing and then deploying. Bitrise has given us a perfect platform which is needed for the automation in mobile applications. The teams which are building iOS and Android applications with frequent updates can benefit significantly. For some updates, we can do manual things, but for frequent updates, Bitrise is very useful and suitable for the teams. It gives faster feedback on code changes, making it good for frequent changes.

Bitrise offers pre-configured workflow steps, which are designed specifically for mobile applications. Because of these pre-defined workflow steps, it simplifies tasks like building iOS and Android apps, running test cases, and generating artifacts. These pre-defined workflow steps have helped our team because when our code is pushed to GitHub  and creates a request, it simplifies the tasks like building iOS and Android apps, running test cases, and generating artifacts.

Bitrise has impacted our organization positively because the experience was very smooth. The platform has provided a clean dashboard so that our team can monitor the build and the pipeline execution, including what the status of that pipeline and build are. Bitrise workflow settings are relatively simple because of the CI/CD templates which it offers for mobile applications. The documentation was also very useful for advanced pipelines, making it a reliable platform for managing mobile build automation.

One improvement Bitrise can have is enhanced debugging tools for analyzing failed builds. If any build gets failed and there is availability of a debugging tool, then it will become easy for us to debug that build problem.

I chose nine out of ten because the improvement that a debugging tool for analyzing the failed build is important. If it is present, then it would become easy for us to debug and it would become a perfect ten.

I have been using the solution for the past six months.

The process I have described covers how we have integrated Bitrise in our mobile application automation. My overall rating for this product is nine out of ten.