NAnt or MSBuild, which one to choose and when?

Question

I am aware there are other NAnt and MSBuild related questions on Stack Overflow, but I could not find a direct comparison between the two and so here is the question.

Answer 1

One of the major draws of MSBuild for me (on Windows platforms) is that it comes as part of .NET itself. That means that any Windows machine that is up-to-date with Windows Update will have MSBuild available. Add to this the fact that C# compiler is also part of .NET itself and you have a platform that can build projects on clean machines. No need to install Visual Studio behemoth. NAnt, on the other hand, has to be explicitly installed before a build can be triggered.

Just for the record, I've used NMake, Make, Ant, Rake, NAnt and MSBuild on non-trivial builds in the past (in that order). My favourite is MSBuild, hands down (and I do not favour it because "that's what Visual Studio uses"). IMHO, it is a very under-appreciated build tool.

I would compare NAnt vs. MSBuild to the difference between procedural and functional programming. NAnt is quite straightforward and you-get-what-you-see. MSBuild on the other hand requires a bit more thought. The learning curve is steeper. But once you "get it", you can do some amazing things with it.

So I would recommend looking at MSBuild if you also gravitate towards functional or logical style programming - if you are willing to invest a bit of time and effort before seeing tangible results (of course, I also strongly believe that the investment eventually pays off and you can do more powerful things more efficiently).