Shopify, the leading global commerce company, empowers millions of merchants across the globe with an all-in-one platform to start, scale, market and run their businesses. Its core mission is to make commerce better for everyone, and a key part of that is optimizing its mobile app experience to meet the growing needs of its merchants. To achieve this, it partnered with Bitrise, migrating from its in-house solution to Bitrise's full CI/CD solution. The result: faster builds, greater efficiency, and more time to focus on merchant needs and future growth.
Before Bitrise, Shopify had its own in-house mobile platform for executing mobile builds and continuous integration (CI), which included a number of external tools.
While the in-house solution was stable, the team began questioning whether it was time to explore external options. Aligned with its motto, "Merchant success is our success," the team wanted to improve efficiency across its build process so engineers could focus more on merchant needs and high-impact projects.
"We started questioning whether it was better to look outside for an off-the-shelf solution that could offer us more functionality and help improve our merchant experience."
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
Shopify wanted a partner with mobile development expertise and the experience necessary to address the specific requirements that come with it so they could scale their capabilities and improve build performance, as Yasmin explained, “Mobile development moves at a completely different pace than web and backend. When it’s included as part of broader CI builds, it can be easy to overlook its different needs.”
"At Shopify, we manage six different mobile apps, each with its own nuances that require different tweaks. It was important for us to find a partner that understands the unique challenges of mobile development and could provide the ideal CI environment for it."
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
Additionally, as Shopify's in-house setup included several different tools, engineers had to switch between multiple interfaces to complete different aspects of the build cycle, slowing down the process. As a result, consolidating its toolset and simplifying its build environment became a top priority.
"We wanted a solution that would streamline our build environment and consolidate several tools into one, making it easier for our engineers to access everything in one place,"
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
In its search for a new CI/CD solution, Shopify evaluated several options on the market. Bitrise stood out for several reasons, chief among them its mobile development expertise, which was a crucial requirement for Shopify. Additionally, many team members at Shopify, including Yasmin, had positive experiences working with Bitrise at previous companies.
"What sets Bitrise apart for us is its focus on mobile. It also has a strong reputation for providing fast updates to the latest iOS and Android updates which was equally important for us. It was the only solution that consistently came up in my user interviews across different developer levels at Shopify, giving us the confidence to move forward.”
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
"We wanted to work with a company that would become a business partner: one that has a comprehensive understanding of the mobile space and can help us move ahead. Bitrise stood out as an obvious choice to us. We knew that having a continuous integration, continuous delivery, and release management solution in one place would make our engineers' lives easier."
Colin Gray, Principal Developer, Mobile, Shopify
During the proof of concept evaluation, Shopify was able to compare Bitrise side-by-side with its existing solution, enabling them to better understand Bitrise and the positive changes it would bring to the team and be confident that moving to Bitrise would not negatively impact the merchant experience.
"Being able to compare Bitrise side-by-side with our existing solution during our evaluation was a game-changer. It allowed us to clearly assess the differences in CI, release management, and maintenance tasks. We could pinpoint the work we'd save, identify upgrades, and see what additional benefits Bitrise brought to the table. Bitrise's support during the trial, including the guidance and assistance of experts like Ben and Silvercast, was crucial. It was the cherry on top for me."
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
The migration from Shopify's in-house solution to Bitrise was completed in under three months—much faster than the team had anticipated. "The speed at which we were able to migrate was a pleasant surprise for all of us," shares Colin.
"Migrating to a new solution can feel daunting, but thankfully with Bitrise, everything went really smoothly. The team was always helpful and available to answer any questions we had, which for me, made a huge difference."
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
Before Bitrise, Shopify's CI was maintained by a central team that managed a fleet of self-hosted CI runners. The CI system's outputs were not tailored to mobile builds, which led many mobile engineers to believe the system was faulty. This resulted in the team being overburdened with support requests.
With Bitrise, Shopify was able to onboard its mobile team directly to the platform, eliminating reliance on the central CI team and helping to build a culture of self-service.
"All of our engineers are encouraged (and expected) to contribute to our CI code. Bitrise's attention to UX and documentation has made it very easy for developers to onboard quickly, and we are always finding new features for code sharing and faster CI. I especially like the attention to debugging. Fixing CI issues can be a slog, but Bitrise has put a lot of work into making it as painless as possible."
Colin Gray, Principal Developer, Mobile, Shopify
As a result of the new setup with Bitrise, Shopify also has the stability and consistency it needs in its mobile development to support the company's wider monorepo strategy (a software development strategy in which the code for multiple projects is stored in the same repository).
With Bitrise, we've been able to maintain a stable infrastructure, which was crucial for us. Availability is also great. We haven't had to roll anything back or deal with any issues since. It’s been a huge win for us all round.”
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
"With Bitrise, we've unlocked the equivalent of four engineers' worth of time. It's really helped to ease the pressure on the team and given us time back to focus on other priorities."
Colin Gray, Principal Developer, Mobile, Shopify
"We wanted more than just a vendor relationship; we wanted a partner we could grow and evolve with, which is exactly what we've found with Bitrise."
Yasmin Benatti, Software Engineer, Shopify
With Bitrise, Shopify is well-positioned to advance its mobile strategy and take its efficiency to the next level. The team now has the tools and time needed to focus on its wider mono repo strategy and continue providing value to its merchants.
Our organization is very fluid, people move teams and change roles which has a direct impact on our technical requirements and how our code is organized. It's great to have a partner like Bitrise that can keep pace with our changing needs. Going forward, we want to keep leveraging Bitrise to improve our efficiency and reduce our CI/CD build time even further."
Colin Gray, Principal Developer, Mobile, Shopify
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