GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available.
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Platforms
- Linux

CMake is described as 'Family of tools designed to build, test and package software. CMake is used to control the software compilation process using simple platform and compiler independent configuration files. CMake generates native makefiles and workspaces that can be used in the compiler' and is a Build System in the development category. There are more than 25 alternatives to CMake for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Mac, Windows, BSD and Self-Hosted apps. The best CMake alternative is Gradle, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like CMake are Maven, GNU Make, Premake and SCons.
GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available.

Task is a task runner / build tool that aims to be simpler and easier to use than, for example, GNU Make.
Waf is a Python-based framework for configuring, compiling and installing applications.
Rake is a software task management and build automation tool. It allows you to specify tasks and describe dependencies as well as to group tasks in a namespace.
qmake is a tool from The Qt Company that helps simplify the build process for development project across different platforms. qmake automates the generation of Makefiles so that only a few lines of information are needed to create each Makefile.
pypyr is an open source task-runner for automation pipelines. pypyr lets you script sequential tasks in a simple yaml format with conditional execution, loops, error handling and retries for any step in your pipeline.


GNU Automake is a programming tool that produces portable makefiles for use by the make program, used in compiling software.

BuildAMation is a build system and project generator for C and C++ desktop applications, with an extensible architecture. It is written in C#, and works on Windows, Linux and Apple OSX. Build modes supported are a multithreaded native command line build, VisualStudio solution...
Reggae is a (meta) build system with multiple front (D, Python, Ruby, Javascript, Lua) and backends (make, ninja, tup, custom). This is alpha software, only tested on Linux and likely to have breaking changes made.
Apache Buildr is a build system for Java-based applications, including support for Scala, Groovy and a growing number of JVM languages and tools. We wanted something that’s simple and intuitive to use, so we only need to tell it what to do, and it takes care of the rest.