B2

B2 makes it easy to build C++ projects, everywhere.

You name your executables and libraries and list their sources. B2 takes care about compiling your sources with right options, creating static and shared libraries, making executables, and other chores — whether you’re using gcc, msvc, or a dozen more supported C++ compilers — on Windows, OSX, Linux and commercial UNIX systems.

Simple and high level build description.

In most cases a name of target and list of sources is all you need.

Portability.

Most important build properties have symbolic names that work everywhere. Why memorize compiler flags necessary for multi-threaded 64-bit shared library, if B2 can do it for you?

Variant builds.

When you build the same project twice with different properties, all produced files are placed in different directories, so you can build with 2 versions of gcc, or both debug and release variants in one invocation across all cores.

Global dependencies.

No matter what directory you build in, B2 will always check all dependencies in your entire project, preventing inconsistent binaries. And it’s easy to use one B2 project in other, again with full dependency tracking.

Usage requirements.

A target can specify properties, like include paths and preprocessor defines, that are necessary to use it. Those properties will be automatically applied whenever the target is used.