[scrivanodev]

How does Bazel help reduce build times?

[DrBazza]

Build artifact caching, and also build farm.

In the non-Bazel world, that's ccache and distcc

https://bazel.build/remote/caching

https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-buildfarm

[phyrex]

It caches build artifacts in a blob store and just downloads them instead of compiling them where possible

[scrivanodev]

I see, but that's also possible with CMake right? You can use ccache or sccache via -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache/sccache.

[actionfromafar]

Sure. If you have any doubts at all that you need Bazel, you don’t need Bazel.

[phyrex]

I suppose, but you’d be limited to a small number of supported languages, whereas bazel works for just about anything. Like my sibling commenter noted, you only need it if you really need it.

[lunfard000]

You are making it sound like it was a compilation process optimization, but it is just CI thing.