Buddy launched as a downloadable VM in May 2015 under the name Meat!. The service was initially free but employed a proprietary license, causing dissatisfaction among web-developers. Meat! was rebranded to Buddy in November 2015 and released as a cloud-only service. The on-premises version, nicknamed Buddy GO, was released in September 2016.[1] Switching from VM to Docker allowed installation on any Linux-based server, including Amazon EC2, DigitalOcean, and Microsoft Azure. Shortly after, the company launched Guides,[2] a dedicated website section with use cases and workflow automation strategies, later reproduced to Medium, a popular blogging platform. On September 21, 2016, the service was featured on Product Hunt.[3]
Configuration is performed by arranging predefined actions into sequences called pipelines. Pipelines can be triggered automatically on push to branch, manually, or recurrently. Actions include Docker-based builds, deployment to FTP/SFTP and IaaS services, delivery to version control, SSH scripts, website monitoring and conditional notifications. Contrary to other CI tools like JenkinsorTravis CI, Buddy does not use YAML files to describe the process, although the company stated support for .yml files is currently in the works.[4]
Buddy features a native code hosting solution with Git commands, such asgit log, git show, git blame, git diff reproduced into the GUI. Other features include a cloud editor with blame tool and syntax highlight, push permissions, merge requests and visual branch management.
