# How AWS Powers Gradle's Open Source Build Tool

DevFeed: [How AWS Powers Gradle's Open Source Build Tool](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-aws-powers-gradle-s-open-source-build-tool-24641.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.gradle.org/how-aws-powers-gradle-open-source>)

Author: Bo Zhang

Published: 2026-06-09T04:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The Gradle Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-gradle-blog.md>)

Topics: [Gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gradle.md>), [Amazon Web Services](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws.md>), [ci](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ci.md>), [Testing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/testing.md>), [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>), [Security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/security.md>), [AWS IAM](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws-iam.md>), [Amazon EC2](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/amazon-ec2.md>), [Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/amazon-elastic-kubernetes-service.md>), [Amazon S3](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/amazon-s3.md>), [OpenID connect (OIDC)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/oidc.md>)

Tags: [amazon-ec2](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/amazon-ec2.md>), [amazon-eks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/amazon-eks.md>), [amazon-rds](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/amazon-rds.md>), [aws](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/aws.md>), [aws-identity-and-access-management-iam](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/aws-identity-and-access-management-iam.md>), [ci](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ci.md>), [gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gradle.md>), [oidc](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/oidc.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/testing.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains how AWS supports Gradle's open source build tool, including plugin distribution through Amazon S3, large-scale builds and tests on Amazon EC2 and Amazon EKS, performance tracking with Amazon RDS, and layered security and observability services.

## Source excerpt

The Gradle Build Tool runs a lot of the world's software. Millions of developers use it every day, and almost every Android app on your phone was built with it. So somebody, somewhere, is kicking off a Gradle build right now. And the next one. And a thousand more in the next minute. For all of them, it has to be fast, and it has to be there. That isn't free. Behind the open source project sits a plugin portal serving hundreds of millions of downloads a month, a CI fleet running millions of tests, a performance lab watching for regressions, and the security tooling that guards a supply chain a lot of the industry depends on. All of it runs on AWS. Here's how. Downloading plugins The Gradle Plugin Portal at plugins.gradle.org is where the community publishes the plugins that extend Gradle. Every plugin JAR it serves (thousands of them, downloaded around 200 million times a month) lives in Amazon S3. That's what lets us be the front door for the plugin ecosystem without running a fleet of file servers ourselves. Building and testing Gradle itself Most of our AWS bill goes here. Every commit to Gradle triggers hundreds of separate builds and tens of thousands of tests across our supported operating systems and architectures. That fleet runs on: Amazon EC2, with auto-scaling to match capacity to demand. Amazon EKS, which orchestrates our containerized Test Distribution agents. Amazon ECR, which stores the agent container images. Keeping Gradle fast A build tool only earns trust if it stays fast. Every commit runs through our performance test suite, and the results land in Amazon RDS, where we compare against history and catch regressions before they reach users. Securing the build Protecting a build tool means protecting a supply chain. Our CI authenticates to AWS through AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) with GitHub OIDC. That gives us keyless, short-lived credentials, and any secrets we still need are pulled on demand from AWS Secrets Manager and AWS Systems Man