Difference between MsBuild and MsDeploy

Question

While learning continuous integration, i come across both of these terms. And i got confused. May be it is a very silly question. But i want to know in continuous integration process what are the role of MsBuild.exe and MsDeploy.exe. Can i use one over other. Or do they have there own purpose.

I have also tried to use both options but while using them i got following error on server request timeout for "www.serverurl/MsDeployAgentService"

Should i use www.serverurl.com/msbuild.axd or www.serverurl.com/MsDeployAgentService.

As far as i understand, they both build and publish application with config transform. Please help me out.

Answer 1

MSBuild is a hierarchical target-based build system. It's intent it to run general purpose tasks related to building an application, and is primarily focused around compilation. Visual Studio uses this when you build your project.

MSDeploy (or Microsoft Web Deploy) is a CLI and library for deploying files (and other configuration) between servers. It handles concepts like authentication, skipping files and environment-specific parameters. Visual Studio uses this when you select "Publish".

Answer 2

You can't build using msdeploy, but you can build and deploy using msbuild or you can build with msbuild and deploy with msdeploy