Tool Shortlist
DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development systems and IT operations to create a workflow to shorten and improve the development lifecycle and provide continuous delivery with high-quality results. There are an array of tools available to DevOps teams and organizations that are easy to implement, and can significantly improve the efficiency of development and virtualization.
In this article, I aim to inform you of just some of those tools to help you make the best decision for your teams.
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best devOps automation solution? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for a clean and organized user interface that is easy to navigate with the ability to view everything you need from a single dashboard.
- Usability: I look for tools with slight learning curves, but with effective features, so all team members can navigate and work collaboratively
- Integrations: I look for the most complimentary integrations that allows development teams the capacity to thoroughly streamline their processes
- Cost vs Value: I look for the best user experience for a competitive price
DevOps Automation Tools Key Features
- CI/CD: The ability to build and run CI/CD jobs efficiently
- Performance Monitoring: The ability to monitor your websites and applications for errors after deployment
- Reporting System: The ability to run reports so you are able to catch errors and reduce downtime
Overviews Of The 10 Best DevOps Automation Tools
Here’s a brief description of each DevOps automation software solution to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
Docker
Creates containerized environments for web and mobile applications
Docker is an open-source Linux based platform that enables DevOps to build and run your CI/CD jobs and applications efficiently and as a result, reduces infrastructure costs to operations teams and streamlines the configuration management of your development lifecycle. Applications within Docker are platform-independent.
Docker boasts a suite of entire DevOps tools which creates containerized environments for web and mobile applications. This allows you to reduce testing conflicts, and the container makes the environments more portable and secure. The tool also allows you to access the containers and execute applications from a remote environment.
Docker provides integration with project management tools such as Azure DevOps.
Docker is a fully open-source DevOps automation tool and is free to use.
Raygun
Obtain crash reports so you can quickly and accurately fix bugs
Raygun is an application performance monitoring tool (APM) that allows DevOps teams to identify performance issues. The tool offers the ability to link back to the problematic line of the function, API call or source code. Raygun also offers the ability to see first hand into how users are experiencing your applications.
Raygun offers a robust crash reporting system which allows you to fix bugs quickly and accurately. The feature provides the ability to diagnose and resolve issues with user experience. The feature is easy to use as developers can pinpoint the root causes of bugs without having to rely on logs and support tickets.
Raygun integrates with project management tools such as Asana and Jira, and notification applications such as Slack and PagerDuty.
The cost of Raygun starts at $4/month for Crash Reporting. The tool also offers a free trial.
Splunk Enterprise
provides exemplary visualization of machine data
Splunk is a DevOps automation tool that allows DevOps teams to search, analyze and visualize machine data and logs in real-time. The tool also allows you to analyze the machine state and identify failure points in the hardware. Splunk provides the ability to collect data from multiple sources quickly.
Splunk provides DevOps teams with the best visualization of machine data through its easy and organized user interface. The tool offers functionality such as filter capability, so you are able to filter logs, and graph generation, so you can obtain performance feedback and recurring issues.
Splunk provides integrations with applications such as Jira.
Splunk provides pricing upon request. The tool also offers a free trial.
Git
best for version controlling
Git is a popular DevOps tool that is widely used by companies such as Facebook, and is popular amongst remote teams. The tool allows you to track the progress of development work and maintain various versions of the source code. Git can be used on operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
Git offers a robust version control feature which allows developers and contributors to revert back to any version of their build should errors occur in the code. The tool allows you to create branches and git flows, as well as browse code history. Git uses host repositories such as GitHub, which allows you to push up your work for code review.
Git integrates with platforms such as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket.
Git is free to use.
Gradle
Automation tool that accelerates developer productivity in multiple programming languages
Gradle is an app development and open-source build tool focused on providing build automation and support for developers in multiple programming languages. Gradle supports DevOps through the entire software development lifecycle, from compiling, building, and packing apps with a flexible working model.Gradle is extremely popular with developing Java virtual machine projects on GitHub. Gradle’s enterprise platform is one of the few that combines software build performance acceleration with analytics. It is of huge benefit for large, monolithic codebases and repositories.Gradle provides fast incremental builds, which save a lot of time in CI/CD pipelines during compilation and test code execution. The tool also provides valuable features such as web-based build visualization, collaborative debugging, and fine-grained build comparison (only in Gradle Enterprise).Gradle has a list of integrations with at least 35 tools such as Liquibase, Buddy, Bitrise, Dependabot, Flyway, and so on. Gradle is free for individual developers. Pricing for Gradle Enterprise is available upon request.
Bamboo
Allows you to build, test and deploy your apps with one tool
Bamboo is a CI/CD DevOps tool that allows you to automate your delivery pipeline. The tool has an organized and easy user interface allowing your DevOps teams to navigate their daily tasks and automations.
Bamboo offers an extensive suite of features that allow you to write and run test cases, apply continuous integration and deploy your applications to the production environment. The tool allows you to run tests in parallel on your build, which saves your team time, as well as configure multiple branches, write the script and execute it.
Bamboo integrates with project management platforms such as Jira as well as Bitbucket.
The cost of Bamboo starts at $1,200.00/year for 1 remote agent. The tool also offers a free 30-day trial.
Terraform
DevOps automation tool for cloud infrastructure deployment, provisioning and modification
Terraform is an open-source, self-managed infrastructure-as-code platform from HashiCorp designed to automate cloud components. It has the distinction of being the industry standard, and therefore one of the most used tools to deploy cloud services in the enterprise.Terraform makes it simple and easy to manage cloud services through the ability to codify cloud APIs into declarative configuration files. Terraform can be used to deploy and provision all your infrastructure in all major cloud providers like Google Cloud Platform, AWS, and Azure. In addition to being used to orchestrate automation to ensure consistency, Terraform is also leveraged for change management.Terraform helps create effective DevOps workflows, such as a deployment pipeline. Terraform also supports complex cloud infrastructures without the risks through the use of state files and execution plans.Terraform has built-in version control integration and the ability to execute triggers. These allow you to automate Terraform with GitHub Actions and deploy Terraform infrastructure with CircleCI. Terraform has a free tier that includes features such as remote operations, state management, and private module registry. Its Term and Governance tier starts at $20/user/month.
Jenkins
Best for CI/CD
Jenkins is an open-source tool and continuous integration server that allows you to automate the build cycle of your application project. The tool is highly customizable, and provides instant feedback and issue warnings if a build is broken. Jenkins’ server can be set up on operating systems such as Linux and Microsoft Windows machines as well as Mac OS.
Jenkins streamlines your CI/CD by allowing you to automatically commit your code to repository, run test cases, and fetch reports through its robust pipeline feature. The tool provides hundreds of plugins that support developing, deploying, and automating any application, and allows you to install only the plugins or features you require.
Jenkins integrates with DevOps tools such as Azure DevOps, AWS, and Ansible. Jenkins also integrates with GitHub.
Jenkins is a fully open-source tool and is free to use.
Kubernetes
Provides better upgrade of software without any downtime
Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool that allows you to manage containers at a large scale. The tool can be run on in-house data centers as well as on the public cloud. Kubernetes is a Linux based tool.
Kubernetes allows you to upgrade software without any downtime, streamlining your processes and reducing development time. DevOps teams can automate the management of hundreds of containers, and the hierarchy of nodes, clusters and pods makes application deployment scalable, and if any pod is not working, then Kubernete’s automatically selects another pod.
Kubernetes offers pricing on request.
Buddy
Uses flexible automation DevOps pipelines for your application lifecycle
Buddy is a CI/CD tool that allows you to automate your DevOps practice in order to eliminate repetitive tasks. The tool has an intuitive user interface whereby you can build and deliver projects with a single click of git push.
Buddy allows you to define every aspect of your continuous delivery process. The tool offers the ability to create your builds and run tests in the development environment, and deploy your applications to the production environment, as well as write custom scripts. Buddy also allows you to carry out website monitoring, improving your metrics.
Buddy offers easy configuration via YAML and GUI, as well as continuous deployment with platforms such as GitHub, Docker and Bitbucket.
The cost of Buddy starts at $75/month. The tool also offers a free version as well as a free trial.
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The 10 Best DevOps Automation Tools Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Docker Creates containerized environments for web and mobile applications | Not available | Visit Website | |
2 | Raygun Obtain crash reports so you can quickly and accurately fix bugs | Free Trial | $4/month for Crash Reporting | Visit Website |
3 | Splunk Enterprise provides exemplary visualization of machine data | offers a free plan that allows you to index only 500 MB/day. | $2000/year for 1 GB/day | Visit Website |
4 | Git best for version controlling | Not available | Visit Website | |
5 | Gradle Automation tool that accelerates developer productivity in multiple programming languages | Not available | Pricing for Gradle Enterprise is available upon request | Visit Website |
6 | Bamboo Allows you to build, test and deploy your apps with one tool | 30 Days Free Trial | $1,200.00/year for 1 remote agent | Visit Website |
7 | Terraform DevOps automation tool for cloud infrastructure deployment, provisioning and modification | Not available | $20/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | Jenkins Best for CI/CD | Not available | Visit Website | |
9 | Kubernetes Provides better upgrade of software without any downtime | Not available | Visit Website | |
10 | Buddy Uses flexible automation DevOps pipelines for your application lifecycle | Free Trial | $75/month | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- Terraform - A cloud infrastructure provisioning tool that allows DevOps teams to build and change infrastructure via the use of state files and execution plans
- Gradle - An automation tool for multiple programming language application development that allows you to control testing, deployment, and publishing to the production environment
- SeleniumHQ - An open-source umbrella platform for a range of tools which allows you to automate browser testing
- CHEF - A configuration management tool written in Ruby and Erlang that allows you to automate your processes and tasks, and accelerate recovery time after an issue occurs
- Nagios - An open-source application for monitoring your systems and infrastructure as well as alerting services for servers and applications
- BitBucket - A Git-based repository hosting service that has inbuilt CI/CD functionality
- GitHub - A code hosting platform for application development and version control using Git as well as allowing collaboration with fellow developers
What are DevOps automation tools?
DevOps automation tools allow development teams to streamline their development lifecycle by automating deployment of applications to the server. The tools provide features such as facilitated feedback loops between development teams and IT operations so updates are deployed faster to the production environment.
Related: WHAT IS DEVOPS RELEASE MANAGEMENT AND 4 BEST PRACTICES
What do you think about this list?
The best thing about these DevOps automation tools is that there are endless integration opportunities with other development tools, allowing you to carry out the full extent of your development lifecycle. DevOps automation reduces time and cost to development teams, and I hope this list helps with your decision to choose the right tool for your organization.
To learn more about these and other tools on the market today, be sure to follow our blog and newsletter.
Also Worth Checking Out: CI/CD PIPELINE OVERVIEW: WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT