When comparing Fabricate vs Jam, the Slant community recommends Fabricate for most people. In the question“What are the best open-source build systems for C/C++?” Fabricate is ranked 14th while Jam is ranked 15th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Can run tasks in parallel
Pro Avoids any step doing nothing
Detects input/output file changes and if input files didn't change, doesn't run the command again.
Pro Easy to script
Fabricate uses Python as a scripting language. Being a fully usable language and an easy one at that, makes Fabricate rather easy to script.
Pro Has a central package repository
A central repository provides more guarantees about the availability of the package. With requiring directly from repository urls, the entire project could potentially be taken down on a whim.
Pro Community is focused on client side javascript
Because Jam only manages Javascript and only works on the client side, you have the assurance that any packages listed are AMD compatible for asynchronous loading.
Pro Architecture independent
Jam's only a front-end package manager, the rest of your server can be on a different architecture or framework. No matter what the architecture, Jam will integrate easily with it.
Pro Provides the best AMD compatibility allowing for better asynchronous loading
Jam requires AMD (Asynchronous Module Definition), which means faster package loading, as it can be done asynchronously.
Cons
Con Not maintained
Con Forced AMD compatibility means fewer libraries
AMD is currently not as popular as CommonJS modules, which means if a library isn't supported, you'll have to deal with it yourself.