How to Migrate Off Jenkins: The Road to Modern CI/CD

Jenkins is a legend. It’s been a cornerstone of continuous integration (CI) for two decades, helping developers automate testing, build pipelines, and accelerate delivery. It’s hard to overstate its impact. Yet, while  Jenkins remains a symbol of innovation from a bygone era, its age is showing. For organizations modernizing their CI/CD workflows, migrating off Jenkins isn’t just a matter of preference—it’s becoming necessary.

This blog explores why Jenkins’ retirement is on the horizon and provides practical guidance for transitioning to more modern, scalable platforms like Harness. Respectfully, it’s time for the butler to enjoy a well-earned drive into the sunset.

Why Jenkins’ Golden Era Is Ending

Jenkins emerged in an era of simpler workflows and limited deployment targets. Back then, virtual machines dominated, and containerization wasn’t even a buzzword. CI was the star of the show, and CD was an afterthought. Jenkins did an incredible job solving the problems of its time.

Fast forward to today, and the world has changed:

• Cloud-Native Complexities: Applications now span multiple clouds, leverage microservices, and demand fast, reliable releases. Jenkins’ architecture, designed long before these innovations, struggles to keep pace.
• Plugin Chaos: Jenkins’ open plugin framework enabled vast customization. But with over 1,800 plugins—many outdated or unsupported—teams often face brittle dependencies and unpredictable behavior.
• Pipeline Sprawl: Decentralized, ad-hoc Jenkins pipelines—bespoke scripts  created by countless teams—lack standardization, making maintenance a nightmare.
• Governance Gaps: Modern CI/CD pipelines must meet stringent compliance requirements. Jenkins, built for developer speed, lacks the RBAC, audit, and security controls needed for today’s regulatory environment.

For all its strengths, Jenkins is no longer the best fit for organizations seeking to innovate at scale. The good news? Migration offers an opportunity to build something better.

Why Migrating Off Jenkins Is Hard

Let’s not sugarcoat it. Migrating off Jenkins is a big project. Here’s why:

1. Plugin Dependencies

Jenkins pipelines often rely on numerous plugins, many of which may no longer be supported. Untangling these dependencies to replicate functionality elsewhere is a heavy lift.

2. Snowflake Pipelines

Every Jenkins pipeline is unique. Teams have spent years creating bespoke scripts tailored to specific workflows. Reproducing  these in a new system—while standardizing for the future—requires careful planning.

3. Cultural Resistance

Jenkins is familiar, and change can be uncomfortable. Teams often worry about disruptions, learning curves, and potential downtime.

4. Legacy Workflows

Older pipelines, built for monolithic apps or VM-based deployments, don’t align with modern cloud-native workflows. Migrating is a chance to reimagine these workflows. It’s also a challenge.

A Playbook for Migrating Off Jenkins

Getting off Jenkins is more than switching tools. It’s a chance to update your CI/CD strategy to align with modern software delivery needs. Here’s a detailed step-by-step approach to guide your migration:

1. Audit and Assess

Begin with a thorough analysis of your Jenkins environment:

• Pipeline Inventory: Catalog your pipelines, identifying those critical to your workflow. Many organizations discover 20–30% of their pipelines are obsolete and can be retired, reducing migration scope.
• Plugin Dependencies: List all plugins and assess their purpose and usage. Determine which plugins support critical functionality that must be replicated in the new system.
• Usage Patterns: Analyze how frequently pipelines run and their failure rates. This will help prioritize which ones to address first.

2. Standardize Pipelines

Don’t carry over the chaos of Jenkins’ snowflake pipelines:

• Create Templates: Define common pipeline templates for repeatable processes, such as Maven builds or containerized deployments.
• Pipelines as Code: Adopt “pipelines as code” principles to ensure uniformity, maintainability, and scalability across teams.
• Governance Rules: Establish guardrails for pipeline design, such as mandatory security scans and predefined deployment workflows.

3. Start Small with a Pilot

Prove the value of your new platform by starting small. We recommend starting with 20-30% of your organization. 

• Select Low-Risk Pipelines: Migrate non-critical pipelines first to test the new system’s capabilities.
• Validate Integrations: Ensure key integrations, like secret management or artifact repositories, function seamlessly.
• Show Quick Wins: Demonstrate faster build times or safer deployments to build momentum within the organization.

4. Operate in Parallel

Maintain Jenkins alongside your new platform for a transitional period:

• Dual Running: Allow teams to compare pipeline performance, stability, and efficiency on both platforms.
• Gather Data: Track metrics such as build times, failure rates, and maintenance effort. Use these metrics to justify full migration.
• Identify Gaps: Note any missing features or functionality to address before a full switchover.

5. Train and Transition

Bring your teams along with the change:

• Training Programs: Offer hands-on training for developers and DevOps engineers to familiarize them with the new platform’s interface and capabilities.
• Documentation: Create internal wikis and how-to guides to ensure teams can self-serve common questions.
• Build Champions: Leverage early adopters as advocates to mentor and support others during the transition.

6. Enforce a Hard Deadline

Avoid lingering on Jenkins by setting a firm cutoff:

• Milestone Celebrations: Host a “Jenkins Sunset” event to mark progress and motivate teams.
• Strict Deadlines: Communicate clear dates for decommissioning Jenkins to ensure alignment across the organization. Legacy systems eventually represent operational and security risks.
• Decommission Safely: Gradually shut down Jenkins instances, verifying all critical workflows are fully operational on the new platform before the final cutoff.

With this structured approach, your migration won’t just move you away from Jenkins but will position your organization to thrive with a modern, scalable CI/CD platform. If some Jenkins instances remain, it can be easy to forget about them and leave them relatively unpatched, creating a security gap.

How Harness Simplifies Migration

Harness was designed with migrations in mind. Its modular, AI-powered platform provides everything you need to transition seamlessly from Jenkins while setting your organization up for the future.

1. Automated Pipeline Conversion

The Harness team can provide tooling to automate the migration of Jenkins pipelines. While this will migrate projects quickly, keep in mind that if you move everything over in an automated fashion, you will have replicated the snowflake problem. It's probably best to use the automation to seed your template creation.

Once pipeline have been moved over, Harness simplifies pipeline management with visual editors, YAML templates, and reusable components. You’ll spend less time recreating Jenkins pipelines and more time optimizing workflows.

2. Scalable, Cloud-Native Architecture

Harness’ Kubernetes-native architecture ensures you’re ready for modern cloud-native deployments. No more fighting Jenkins’ controller-runner limitations.

3. Built-In Governance

Harness includes robust RBAC, policy-as-code, and compliance capabilities, making it easy to enforce guardrails while empowering developers.

4. Continuous Improvement

Harness’ AI capabilities reduce build times, identify flaky tests, and optimize pipelines automatically. Developers spend less time waiting and more time innovating.

Case Study: Ancestry’s Journey Beyond Jenkins

Ancestry.com is, a leader in family history services. With most of its developers already familiar with Jenkins, Ancestry managed delivery and integration using Jenkins as a CI solution extended to CD. But every team had a different process for building and shipping code. Without any consolidated governance, the company had little consistency in how products were developed, when code was pushed live, if quality checks were in place, or if a canary was deployed before going live. It left Ancestry with 80 to 100 distinct Jenkins instances, requiring additional cost to be stood up and maintained.

Ancestry partnered with Harness to consolidate, simplify, and modernize their CI/CD and saw fantastic results"

• Pipeline maintenance effort reduced by 80:1.
• Deployment frequency tripled.
• Downtime decreased by 50%.

‍Read the case study here. 

The Time Is Now

Jenkins has had an incredible run. But modern software delivery demands tools that scale effortlessly, integrate seamlessly, and empower teams to innovate without friction. Migrating off Jenkins isn’t just about moving away from an old tool; it’s about building a better future for your CI/CD processes.

Platforms like Harness make this transition achievable and worthwhile. With the right strategy, you can thread the needle between modernization and continuity—and let the butler retire in style.

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