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How long does average Unity Cloud Build take?

Discussion in 'Unity Build Automation' started by evgro, Jul 9, 2019.

  1. evgro

    evgro

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2016
    Posts:
    7
    Hello, I'm thinking about using Unity Cloud Build for my project. I want to know how long does average Unity Cloud Build take?
    Does it true that exitsts limitation if you're using the free version of Unity?
    Does Unity Cloud Build put an hour cooldown between builds?
    Is it worth it?
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2019
    evgro, Jul 9, 2019
    #1

  2. ollieblanks

    ollieblanks

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2017
    Posts:
    460
    Unfortunately there is not a straightforward answer to this question as there is not an average Unity project.

    I can tell you that Cloud Build takes slightly longer than building locally as it has more processing to be done compared to just building from the editor. E.g. Cloning your repository, setting up the build environment, compiling the library, pre and post processing, uploading artifacts and more.

    As a general rule, iOS builds take longer than other platforms due to running of Xcode as well.

    There are no limitations when using Cloud Build with the free version of Unity. A long time ago, before the release of Teams, there was an hour cooldown for free users. Now there is only a 5 minute cooldown between builds of the same Build Target.

    In my humble opinion, yes, but I may be slightly biased. :) I urge you to start a free trial of Teams Advanced and test it out for yourself!

    Hope that helps.
     
    ollieblanks, Jul 9, 2019
    #2
    evgro likes this.

  3. Trivium_Dev

    Trivium_Dev

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2017
    Posts:
    78
    Our Windows builds take about 10 mins - but our applications are relatively small, mostly 2D/Canvas UI programs (they aren't really even games since we don't make games...). Locally we can make Windows builds in a minute or two, so there's a rather large difference there. iOS can take upwards of an hour whereas locally it could probably be done in 15 minutes - but with a lot more hassle since you need to use a Mac to do the XCode part and all our developers use Windows.

    Overall though, even with the increased time to build, I think it's very much worth it, for the following reasons:
    • The builds are available online so they are easy to distribute
    • For iOS builds you don't have to deal with the "need a Mac" part (and I hate working on Macs/iOS...).
    • For Android builds it's nice because you don't have to mess with installing Android packages that are needed (and seem to always give me problems, Unity Hub is suppose to address this at some point I believe though).
    • For WebGL builds you can test the app right through UCB (not perfect but better than having to upload it to your own server first).
    • The builds are saved indefinitely (for paid users at least, not sure if there's a free tier anymore and if it keeps builds forever), so if you ever need to rollback to a previous build you can easily do that.
    • There's a full API you can use to access your builds and download them - our programs come with an "update manager" that I developed that checks UCB and if there's a new build it will download and install it.
    • It's a bit easier than attempting to setup your own build server (such as Jenkins), though it probably costs more in the long run - depending on your comfort level of setting up a Jenkins/build server; for me UCB is cheaper simply because setting up a Jenkins server is such a hassle and requires so much maintenance to keep running correctly that my time is better spent elsewhere and it ends up just being cheaper to pay for UCB.
     
    Trivium_Dev, Jul 9, 2019
    #3
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