I’ve been a long term fan of Anthill. It was always so much easier to configure than Cruise Control and, even though the feature set was slimmer, it did everything I needed in an automated build/continuous integration tool.
Lately, however, I’ve been taking Hudson for a spin as an Anthill replacement, and it has totally blown me away. The cool Ajaxy console window that keeps in sync with your build’s stdout as it happens, the RSS feed for builds, ability to easily see CVS mods for a particular build, integrated test reporting, and very easy to use and slick UI all combine for a killer automated build tool.
The other big sell is that there is no Unix command prompt fiddling required. The whole app installs as a single WAR - and everything can be configured with from a browser.
Just one gotcha for new players, you’ll want to set your app server’s environment to include a HUDSON_HOME (on Glassfish, use /Configuration/System Properties from the console as shown below), so you don’t end up with build artifacts in the scratch area of your deployed Hudson war. Once that’s done, just replace with the latest Hudson war as it comes out and all your settings will just keep on trucking.
Big props to the Hudson guys for a fantastic build tool that’s a snap to configure and use. Awesome stuff - my new automated build tool of choice!