Summary

BuzzFeed's goal is to be the defining media company for the AI era. To support this mission, it partnered with Bitrise to transform its mobile development approach, resulting in faster build times, improved testing reliability, and higher-quality releases. Now with the right mobile foundations in place, BuzzFeed is free to focus on innovation and exploring new ways to engage its loyal mobile audience.

Challenge

To focus on creating new mobile experiences for its loyal audience, BuzzFeed realized it needed to transform its mobile development approach to make its pipeline more reliable, efficient, and fast. The company's legacy technology (a hybrid mix of Jenkins and Circle CI) was hampering its progress with painfully long waits for iOS and Android updates.

"Frequently, we had to wait weeks, even months, to receive access to new releases. As a result, we couldn't build, test, or experiment with new features or widgets on iOS or Android—leaving us constantly playing catch-up."
‍_{Josh Walker, Principal Software Engineer, BuzzFeed}

It was an intensively manual process; for instance, limited server space meant the build manager had to clean out the archives before each build.
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Also, there was always a concern that something installed on one of the local machines could compromise the security of the final release. " There was no guarantee everything would go to plan. It was a stressful and risky process," explained Josh.

With BuzzFeed's legacy mobile solution, test reliability was also a challenge. As Josh explained, "We were constantly struggling with flaky tests, especially UI tests. Test failures became so frequent that we removed the requirement for all tests to pass, resorting to checking them one by one instead.”

"Our goal was to achieve faster builds, early access to new releases, and ultimately a solution we could rely on without constant oversight from our team."
‍_{Josh Walker, Principal Software Engineer, BuzzFeed}

Solution

Bitrise products adopted:

Insights

Release Management

Build Cache

CI/CD

“We selected Bitrise because of its strong mobile focus and reputation for providing fast access to the latest mobile releases. It checked all the boxes we were looking for and more.”
_{Josh Walker, Principal Software Engineer, BuzzFeed}

BuzzFeed migrated from its legacy solution to Bitrise in a matter of days, “migrating and converting everything over to Bitrise was straightforward and painless. We tested it, and it worked perfectly on the first go—no issues at all, which was fantastic,” shared Josh.

Since then, BuzzFeed has continued to evolve its use of Bitrise, recently switching to Bitrise Pipelines to host its builds as well. “Moving to Bitrise’s hosted solution took just a simple configuration change. The UI is excellent—so straightforward that even our non-technical teams can now easily install builds," shared Josh.

BuzzFeed has also incorporated Bitrise Insights in its mobile testing implementation uploading test artifacts that can be used to flag and resolve issues before they impact customers.

“Previously, we would spend time debating why a test failed multiple times—it was a guessing game. Now, with Bitrise Insights, all the data is at our fingertips. I can just go in, find the test, get the exact failure percentage, and then work on improving that. It’s transformed our approach to testing."
_{Josh Walker, Principal Software Engineer, BuzzFeed}

Results

"The biggest win has been the boost in build speed. With Bitrise, our build times have dropped from over 30 minutes to as little as 5 in some cases. Now, I can kick off a build, grab a coffee, and come back, and it’s done. The whole process is much more straightforward and predictable. I can focus on one thing at a time, which is every developer’s dream."
‍_{Josh Walker, Principal Software Engineer, BuzzFeed}

• Structured and well-organized builds

  Previously, BuzzFeed's builds were mixed together, making it difficult to track specific versions. Now, Bitrise keeps everything organized—adding new apps is simple, and builds are clearly separated. This allows BuzzFeed to keep one eye on the bigger picture while focusing on one set of builds at a time.
• Enhanced build and test reliability

  Bitrise has significantly increased build and test reliability, giving the team greater confidence in test results and reducing the time spent repeating tests and investigating problems. It is now possible to run builds without constantly monitoring them.
• Accelerated release cycles

  Faster release cycles have reduced delays and minimized the chance of bugs creeping in, allowing for smoother and higher-quality releases.
• Rapid access to the latest releases

  Previously, it could take weeks or months to get access to the latest iOS or Android updates. Now, with early access to beta versions, users can test and experiment with new features before the official release.
• Trust to deliver

  Bitrise has strengthened trust in BuzzFeed’s mobile development team. With a more efficient and reliable process, the team can focus on delivery rather than explaining setbacks and delays to stakeholders.

“We talk about builds a lot less. We no longer have to explain last-minute delays to our stakeholders or why we can't release because we're waiting on a build server update. With Bitrise, we have the confidence that no news is definitely good news."
‍_{Josh Walker, Principal Software Engineer, BuzzFeed}

The future

As BuzzFeed looks to the future, it continues to focus on experimenting and exploring new ways to evolve its mobile development. To this end, it's ready to take advantage of any new features and capabilities Bitrise offers to gain a competitive edge and drive greater efficiencies across its development processes.

"I have been really impressed by Bitrise's evolution. Every time we meet with the team, we hear about new features and products designed to solve our problems and help us build faster, such as Release Management and Build Caching. All this innovation shows it's a strong product, and they really care about the developer experience. Bitrise doesn't just focus on getting things up and running; it also works to make developers' lives easier by solving the many challenges they face every day. That's great news for us here at BuzzFeed.
_{Josh Walker, Principal Software Engineer, BuzzFeed}

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