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Launch HN: Bitrise (YC W17) – Continuous Integration and Delivery for Mobile Apps

152 points by thebloodrabbit ↗ HN
Hi, we’re the founders of Bitrise (https://www.bitrise.io/) in the YC W17 batch — YC's first-ever Hungarian startup!

Bitrise is a Continuous Integration and Delivery platform specifically for mobile apps. We started working on Bitrise when we were running our dev agency, building apps for clients. It was frustrating to go through all the manual tasks when somebody needed a fresh build, or when all the bugs piled up before releases. We wanted to automate all the manual aspects of app development so we could get back to coding, because that’s what we loved to do.

We’ve started with iOS CI/CD, because that seemed to be the hardest and that’s what we had the most experience in. For starters we had to build up a scalable Mac infrastructure, since iOS apps can only be compiled on a Mac machine. That was tough.

We also wanted to make setting up and maintaining CI way easier, without scripting, but having the same level of customizability. We’ve come up with an easy workflow and step system, where steps are ready-made and reusable building blocks responsible for one task, like git cloning, deploying to HockeyApp, etc, and workflows are a succession of these steps. All of these steps are open source, and since we started the library grew to more than 100 integrations, around 30 added by the community (https://www.bitrise.io/integrations).

Tens of thousands of apps are being built on Bitrise including Foursquare, InVision, Pagerduty, Grindr. We are attracting so many apps because we are the most open platform in this space. In addition to our step library, we’ve open sourced our CLI, our webhook service and all of our build images, and we’re growing together with our awesome community.

We raised $200k in 2015 and became profitable last year. We feel extremely grateful and lucky to have gotten here, being a 7-people dev shop in Europe. Now we’re joining YC and we have big plans to take Bitrise to the next level!

We’d love to hear your feedback and are happy to answer any of your questions. Thanks!

59 comments

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baronofcheese
I love bitrise, especially since it is free for OSS projects. This means I don't need a build server at home for iOS, whenever I need to build and release my iOS libraries. It is fast. It is flexible and gives you the possibility of making your build pipeline using their blocks and other OSS blocks around on GitHub. You can use build scripts such as Cake, Fake and many more. More importantly the guys behind bitrise are very helpful when encountering issues.

Good job so far!

thebloodrabbit
We love having you in our community as well :) Thanks for the kind words!
alimoeeny
Can you elaborate on what you have that Travis does not?
birmacher
With Travis you have to use their yml and reimplement your whole configuration per app every time. On Bitrise with the reusable integrations you can simply just drag & drop more than 100 integrations like HockeyApp and with only adding your API token you are ready to go. However we also have the YML file and an open source CLI, so you can run the same thing locally. Also when you add your app to Bitrise we will scan it and instantly give you a workflow that builds, tests and deploys your app.
baronofcheese
Would also seem that Travis doesn't have Xamarin support, or so it appears.
birmacher
Yup, that's correct :) Also if you are comparing us to Travis, we have both Bitbucket & GitLab integrations in addition to GitHub.

Our build machines are faster to use, too, because the most used VMs are pre-booted, which saves 1-2 minutes.

viktorbenei
Couple of additional things:

- Local CLI / runner: http://devcenter.bitrise.io/bitrise-cli/

- Trigger Map, to configure what to build when: http://devcenter.bitrise.io/webhooks/trigger-map/

- Linux/Android image available as an open Docker container: http://devcenter.bitrise.io/docker/run-your-build-locally-in...

- Open source, offline workflow editor (UI, beta): https://discuss.bitrise.io/t/offline-workflow-editor-workflo...

- (GitHub,) Bitbucket and GitLab (full API) support, and additional webhook support for Slack (trigger a build from Slack), visualstudio.com, gogs, deveo git repos through the open source Webhook processor (https://github.com/bitrise-io/bitrise-webhooks) - the last two were contributed by the community ;)

[dead] trapacska
If you want to cut hateful hours of deploying, give it a go with Bitrise. Thank you for your awesome service and support!
scosman
We use bitrise for iOS CI. Nothing but great things to say about them!
jclardy
I've used bitrise for about the past year as an iOS dev at a fairly small company. I really have no complaints with the service. Super easy to setup and maintain an app on there. Also a ton of integrations (Slack, cocoapods, carthage, hockey app.) Our current setup is pretty simple, primarily creating an archive and posting a link to a slack channel, but we are hoping to start getting some tests running on there soon.
birmacher
Great to hear! If you need any help we are happy to help out, just reach out to us on the on-site chat / Slack :)
msencenb
Does the CLI work on ubuntu, or just mac?

I run my current CI/CD pipeline through jenkins for Rails, and I would like to keep everything running through jenkins. Is there a way to do this currently with bitrise?

viktorbenei
Sure, the CLI supports both Mac and Linux (we plan to support Windows in the future). As our Linux build environments are Ubuntu containers, you should have the best support there (actually on any Debian based distro, auto dependency management is only implemented for `apt` right now for example).
ppostigo
Great product! I was indeed waiting for something similar to appear in the market. I run an app creator, and app building and submission is a big pain.

Fastlane solves part of the problem, but I think you solve it all.

By the way, I've found this tweet: https://twitter.com/wercker/status/431757646333751296 Were a similar company explains that a service like this one is not allowed by Apple's EULA: http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/MacOSX.htm

Did you have any problem with Apple in the past?

birmacher
Great question! ( also you can use fastlane on Bitrise ;) )

We are using physical mac machines and according to their terms you can run as many virtual machines as many cores you have in the mac. However we have to get licenses for the VMs as well.

ericfr11
love Bitrise. It addresses all the needs for flawless iOS and Android CI, from build triggers to customized variables, and push to app stores.
martinald
This is a great product - by far the best solution to mobile CI I've seen. Serious congrats into getting into YC guys!
viktorbenei
Thank you - we're determined to keep providing the best solution, YC will definitely help in that ;)
hesamk
Bitrise is awesome. I have worked with Travis, Jenkinse and Circle and I do prefer Bitrise among them.

Keep Fucking Fire!!!

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alexprice
I love Bitrise. Revolutionary!!!
hamstercat
Bitrise is pretty great. CI for iOS and Android apps have never been easier. I'm currently on the free plan, but will gladly pay for a pro plan when/if my apps become profitable.
birmacher
Thanks! Best of luck with your app! ;)
nicoles
Congrats Bitrise team! I super love your product, and I've really enjoyed using it for my iOS projects!
vytis
Could you do a short comparison to what CircleCI is offering for iOS and what is Bitrise's advantage?
thebloodrabbit
Sure!

- Biggest difference is the reusable steps (e.g. add HockeyApp step, paste API token, good to go for deploy)

- Generally being more open - steps/integrations, stacks, CLI, webhook service, workflow editor are all open sourced

- Repository scanner - based on your configs you'll get a workflow to build, test and deploy your app in minutes

- You can download the bitrise.yml to run your workflows locally with our CLI: http://devcenter.bitrise.io/bitrise-cli/

- Trigger map, to configure what to build when: http://devcenter.bitrise.io/webhooks/trigger-map/

- (GitHub,) Bitbucket and GitLab (full API) support, and additional webhook support for Slack (trigger a build from Slack), visualstudio.com, gogs, deveo git repos through the open source Webhook processor (https://github.com/bitrise-io/bitrise-webhooks)

- Codesigndoc - an open source tool which, by running a line of command in your terminal exports all your necessary code signing files to upload to Bitrise

- We don't charge you for builds running over time limit

- You're able to use both Linux and macOS stacks on the same plan (either on free or paid)

grivescorbett
Bitrise is a wonderful product. Last year a close friend and I formed an LLC and built an iOS app on contract. There was an insane number of things that we had to figure out from scratch, but our CI Just Worked and allowed us to easily send install links to our client.
thebloodrabbit
That is so great to hear! Would love to hear more about your story!
mparis
Congrats on the launch guys! Bitrise is THE CI tool for iOS apps.
christop
Do the Docker containers that builds run in still provide root access to the Docker socket, allowing people to break out of the container?
thebloodrabbit
You have passwordless sudo access on the Docker containers, however when you kick off a new build we will create a new VM just for the build and start the docker container inside it, making sure that nobody can ramble around :)
christop
Thanks. Is this setup with the per-build VM and Docker server access intended so that users could set up multiple linked containers for integration testing, etc.?
birmacher
Yup, we wanted to give you full access during the build, to achieve whatever you would like to do.
joeblau
I've been using Buddy Build and I really enjoy their environment. How does this compare to that?
thebloodrabbit
Good question!

The main differentiator might be that our platform is more open compared to Buddybuild's enclosed ecosystem approach. That means we allow much more customizability while having the same, fast initial project setup. Bitrise grows with the community, both by helping each other and developing extensions, like new steps/integrations and other tools.

We feel that Buddybuild is great for smaller projects, but Bitrise can provide more for more complex apps with more rigorous development cycles and needs, which is the feedback we get back from these type of companies as well.

We also have Xamarin support, which may or may not be interesting for you.

dennispi
As one of the Founders of buddybuild, I'd like to perhaps also provide another perspective on this specific thread.

We certainly don't think of buddybuild as a closed ecosystem.

In fact, our users are able to customize buddybuild infinitely to meet the needs of their workflow (details can be found here: https://www.buddybuild.com/blog/customizing-the-build-proces...)

Further, while buddybuild is favored by thousands of because it can can auto-provision iOS devices for you on the fly. Meaning, you never have to deal with provisioning profiles and UDIDs ever again.

We also care deeply about making sure that teams can involve and engage their end users as part of the development process. One of the reasons we built buddybuild is because of the frustration sending builds to our users... AND then never hearing back from them. Phones are great devices for "consuming content", but it became obvious that the physical form factor of the device tends to result in infrequent feedback which was often ambiguous.

So, we build an SDK that gives you high quality and actionable bug reports from beta users. With a simple screenshot, testers can file bug reports that include graphically annotated screenshots, feedback notes and their device metadata.

We also have a feature called "Instant Replay", which lets you watch a video of the exact steps required to reproduce a crash. Instant Replay works in conjunction with our Crash Reporting solution to offer you both the exact lines of code that caused a crash as well as the exact sequence of events that lead up to it (https://www.buddybuild.com/blog/introducing-instant-replay)

Thousands of teams with fairly complex needs use buddybuild every single day. They teams like Slack, Meetup, FireFox, Wordpress and others..

You can read why they made the choice to use buddybuild here: http://www.buddybuild.com/customers

poliuk
Hey! Really cool product. Is this compatible with cordova/phonegap build apps?
chrisstott
I just wanted to extend congratulations from the team at buddybuild!

It's awesome to see the mobile developer tools ecosystem as a whole expanding.

It wasn't too long ago that mobile teams had to use web CI products, awkwardly repurposed to build & deploy their iOS and Android apps - imposing on them a huge maintenance burden and slowing down the development of their apps.

Great tools help build great products, and the future for mobile development tools is very bright today.

birmacher
Thanks Chris, that's very kind of you all!
pavlakoos
How does it compare to Jenkins?
thebloodrabbit
- First and foremost, the biggest advantage is that it's hosted. You can forget about having and maintaining your own build machines. Every build you kick off will start from the same clean VM, thus never giving you a false positive/negative.

- No need to worry about tooling maintenance anymore. Best example is when a new Xcode version is released, usually lots of things break. We test these out quickly and release the new version in a way that won't give you headache.

- You have the same kind of control over your build environment, but an easier time with project setup with our scanner and reusable steps. This means, you can do scripting, but you don't have to.

- Team and organization management features

- You don't lose the advantages of open source

- You get awesome tech support along with a very helpful community

- You get a much more intuitive and nicer UI/UX

We hear from a lot of our users coming from Jenkins how it took up more time for them to maintain the build machines than it actaully saved, while not always delivering proper build results, lacking the always clean kickoff state.

the_greyd
A small nitpick with your website. In your front slideshow "as a service" is moving(forward or backward depending on the term) as new terms take place in front of it. It would look better if it didn't move (and the words expanded on the left for the space they needed).