Let’s see how we can use ANT to deploy or retrieve one Salesforce Org’s metadata to another org. ANT performs actions faster than other two. ANT uses XML instructions to perform the appropriate operation like deploy, retrieve, list metadata and so on.

ANT: A free tool from Apache that can be used for scripting build operations and in the case of Salesforce, retrieve and deploy one Salesforce org’s metadata to any other org.

Eclipse IDE: By using Eclipse IDE you can deploy Salesforce metadata from one org to another but it involves more manual intervention.

Change sets: Change sets are primarily available only in Production and Sandbox instances, you cannot use Change sets to deploy/retrieve metadata to other unrelated Salesforce Orgs.

Let’s understand a little more about each of them: Custom Tool (you can create your own custom utility to deploy/retrieve metadata using the metadata API).

Change sets are only one of the many ways available by which you can deploy one Salesforce Org’s components to other. When starting with Salesforce, you learn about how change sets can be used to deploy changes between related orgs. As Salesforce projects and deployments get more complex, it is a good idea to learn more about the different deployment options that Salesforce provides.

Install ant for salesforce