--- title: Apache Ant Reviews meta_title: 'Apache Ant Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 24 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Apache Ant works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 3.8 review_count: 24 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-07' parent_category: name: CI/CD Tools url: https://www.g2.com/categories/ci-cd-tools --- # Apache Ant Reviews **Vendor:** The Apache Software Foundation **Category:** [Build Automation Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/build-automation) **Average Rating:** 3.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 24 ## About Apache Ant Apache Ant is a Java library and command-line tool whose mission is to drive processes described in build files as targets and extension points dependent upon each other. The main known usage of Ant is the build of Java applications. Ant supplies a number of built-in tasks allowing to compile, assemble, test and run Java applications. Ant can also be used effectively to build non Java applications, for instance C or C++ applications. More generally, Ant can be used to pilot any type of process which can be described in terms of targets and tasks. ## Apache Ant Reviews ### 1. A swiss army knife that you can fully customize yourself - if you invest the time and effort **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Peter B. | Hands-on Engineering Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 07, 2016 **What do you like best about Apache Ant?** Ant can basically build anything - or wrap the build of anything, really. It is highly customizable and configurable, and can be used for most any kind of software build process or automation, even mixing and matching different builds (c/c++, java, etc) and driving them from the same build tool. **What do you dislike about Apache Ant?** Convention beats configuration, and there are a whole lot of other build tools out there that have established conventions, pluggable features, etc. With ant you have to "roll your own" system for most things, even for very lower level things. If you need to highly customize (i.e. do it differently from most everyone else doing the same or similar) and control every detail of your build, then ant will let you do it. But this isn't a best practice - the more you can follow convention for java builds (maven) or mixed builds (python wheels from makefiles, ruby tars from rake, etc) the more you will be able to get contemporary help and solutions. **Recommendations to others considering Apache Ant:** Look to use a more convention-based tool if you can, if you think you need this level of absolute and total customization it is likely you're doing something else wrong with your design/architecture. **What problems is Apache Ant solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've used ant to build various software systems, and it did a fine job. The benefits were that it could build anything we wanted, and produce exactly the build artifacts we needed. Problems were that once the person who wrote the antfile had moved on, even to another group/department, deciphering what they had done (and why) often involved a fair amount of heads cratching and experimentation. ### 2. helpful but become overtaken **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 22, 2015 **What do you like best about Apache Ant?** - Automatize the build process; - OS indipendent scripting; - permits to enstablish a build process also when there isn't any. **What do you dislike about Apache Ant?** - Verbosity on simple tasks; - Issues during build can be tricky to spot due a lot of exception wrapping. **What problems is Apache Ant solving and how is that benefiting you?** The main problem solved by and is provide a sort of structured build process when, for instance, the client you're working for doesn't have any determined build process. In those scenarios ANT can be a game changer. ## Apache Ant Discussions - [What is Apache Ant used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-apache-ant-used-for) - [View Apache Ant pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-ant/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=2§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-10+18%3A30%3A43+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=b858ca09-3f12-4ef5-9576-90b789b6cdde&secure%5Btoken%5D=9f5e586b14514945688b12cbd11970d3095a4404688cc3168c9781a0fcd18548&format=llm_user) ## Apache Ant Integrations - [Apache Tomcat](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-tomcat/reviews) ## Top Apache Ant Alternatives - [Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/red-hat-ansible-automation-platform/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (369 reviews) - [Jenkins](https://www.g2.com/products/jenkins/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (561 reviews) - [CircleCI](https://www.g2.com/products/circleci/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (501 reviews)