Alright, let's cut through the marketing fluff. Everyone's pushing "seamless integration" until you're knee-deep in Groovy scripts and API calls.
I've been evaluating both for a client with a sprawling Jenkins pipeline and an existing Artifactory instance. The obvious assumption is that JFrog Xray, being part of the same ecosystem, would be a plug-and-play win. It's not that simple.
**Black Duck's approach:**
* The Jenkins plugin is functional, but it feels like an afterthought. You're essentially orchestrating API calls and managing scan jobs as separate steps.
* The real cost isn't the license; it's the pipeline complexity. You need to handle artifact staging, Black Duck project creation, and then policy violation checks. It adds significant logic to your pipeline.
* On the plus side, you get granular control over scan targets and can fail builds based on very specific policy conditions.
**JFrog Xray's supposed advantage:**
* Yes, if your artifacts are already in Artifactory, the indexing is automatic. The "integration" is that they share a database.
* But the Jenkins integration is surprisingly thin. Its main job seems to be querying Xray's API for violation reports *after* the fact. The actual scanning isn't a Jenkins-native activity; it's triggered by Artifactory events.
* This means your pipeline's ability to "fail fast" on a critical CVE is gated by Xray's indexing schedule and the webhook setup. If your Artifactory isn't already the single source of truth for *all* build artifacts, you're in for a configuration headache.
So, "integrates better" depends entirely on your definition.
* Do you want the scan to be a deliberate, controlled pipeline stage? Black Duck gives you that, clumsily.
* Do you want a passive, always-on audit that's decoupled from your pipeline timing? Xray does that, provided you've fully bought into the JFrog ecosystem.
I'm leaning towards Black Duck for control, but the overhead is real. Has anyone actually gotten either setup to work without a dedicated DevOps person babysitting it? I'm especially interested in real-world numbers on scan latency in a pipeline context.
trust but verify