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DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development systems and IT operations to create a workflow that shortens and improves the development lifecycle, providing continuous delivery with high-quality results. The best DevOps tools for software development significantly improve the efficiency of development and virtualization.

In this article, I've gathered a list of the best DevOps tools for software development. I'll share each platform's key features, pricing, and a peek at the interface to help you make the best decision for your team.

What are DevOps Automation Tools?

DevOps automation tools allow development teams to streamline their development lifecycle by automating deployment of applications to the server. These SaaS tools provide features such as facilitated feedback loops between development teams and IT operations so updates are deployed faster to the production environment.

Overviews Of The 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.

1

New Relic

Best robust observability for application performance monitoring (APM)

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.3
415 reviews

Free version available

From $49/user/month

New Relic is a DevOps automation tool that offers a wide range of monitoring and analytics tools for software developers and DevOps teams. It helps you keep an eye on the performance of your applications, servers, and infrastructure, making it easier to identify and fix issues before they become critical. The user-friendly interface and extensive documentation make it easy for both beginners and experienced users to get started with the tool.

New Relic excels in DevOps automation by providing comprehensive observability, application performance monitoring (APM), and infrastructure monitoring capabilities. Its unique features include real-time insights into application performance, transaction tracing for pinpointing bottlenecks, and monitoring of cloud infrastructure. New Relic stands out from competitors by offering a user-friendly interface, extensive integration capabilities with popular tools, and the ability to collect and analyze data from various sources to provide a holistic view of system health. 

Key features include backend monitoring, Kubernetes monitoring, mobile monitoring, model performance monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, log management, error tracking, network monitoring, vulnerability management, and browser monitoring. 

Integrations include over 500 apps, like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, CI/CD tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, and Travis CI, communication tools like Slack and PagerDuty, and other monitoring and analytics tools like Grafana, Datadog, and Splunk. It also has an API you can use to build custom integrations.

New Relic costs from $49/user/month and offers a free plan for 1 user and 100 GB/month of data ingest.

2

Docker

Best for creating containerized environments for web and mobile applications

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6
200 reviews

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.

3

Raygun

Best for obtaining crash reports so you can quickly and accurately fix bugs

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4
74 reviews

Free Trial

$4/month for Crash Reporting

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.

4

Splunk Enterprise

Best for providing exemplary visualization of machine data

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2
317 reviews

offers a free plan that allows you to index only 500 MB/day.

$2000/year for 1 GB/day

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.

5

Ansible

Best for teams with no coding experience

60-day free trial

From $5000/year

Ansible is an agentless configuration management tool that offers continuous delivery and allows you to easily deploy your applications. The tool automates repetitive tasks, such as intra-service orchestration and cloud provisioning.

Ansible allows you to connect nodes and to push modules to them from one place without the need for coding ability. This allows you and your team to execute the modules and the tool will automatically remove the modules when you have completed the action. This allows you to streamline your processes as well as for ease of performance monitoring.

Ansible integrates with Jenkins, Travis CI, and Team City as well as development tools such as Github.

Ansible offers customized pricing upon request.

6

Kubernetes

Best for scalable application deployment

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 making application deployment scalable, and if any pod is not working, then Kubernete’s automatically selects another pod.

Kubernetes offers pricing on request.

7

Puppet

Best for performance monitoring

Free Trial

Puppet is a cross-platform configuration management tool that allows you to configure, deploy and manage your servers. The tool allows you to configure each host in your infrastructure and containers, and manage your servers by dynamically scaling up and down the machines.

Puppet automatically keeps your entire infrastructure in its desired state, which allows your team consistency and keeps you compliant. The tool allows you to monitor your applications, and makes tracking changes and issues easy through a robust reporting feature.

Puppet integrates with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket and notification applications such as Slack and PagerDuty.

Puppet provides pricing on request. The tool also offers a free trial.

8

Git

Best for version controlling

Free To Use

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.

9

Bamboo

Best for running tests in parallel with your build

30 Days Free Trial

$1,200.00/year for 1 remote agent

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.

10

Buddy

Best for writing custom scripts

Free Trial

$75/month

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.

The Best DevOps Automation Tools Summary

Tool Trial Info Price
1
New Relic

Best robust observability for application performance monitoring (APM)

Free version available

From $49/user/month Website
2
Docker

Best for creating containerized environments for web and mobile applications

Not available

Website
3
Raygun

Best for obtaining crash reports so you can quickly and accurately fix bugs

Free Trial

$4/month for Crash Reporting Website
4
Splunk Enterprise

Best for providing exemplary visualization of machine data

offers a free plan that allows you to index only 500 MB/day.

$2000/year for 1 GB/day Website
5
Ansible

Best for teams with no coding experience

60-day free trial

From $5000/year Website
6
Kubernetes

Best for scalable application deployment

Not available

Website
7
Puppet

Best for performance monitoring

Free Trial

Website
8
Git

Best for version controlling

Not available

Free To Use Website
9
Bamboo

Best for running tests in parallel with your build

30 Days Free Trial

$1,200.00/year for 1 remote agent Website
10
Buddy

Best for writing custom scripts

Free Trial

$75/month Website

Other Options

Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list.

  1. Gradle

    Best for accelerating developer productivity in multiple programming languages

  2. Jenkins

    Best for CI/CD

  3. Terraform

    Best for cloud infrastructure deployment, provisioning and modification

  4. QA Wolf

    End-to-end testing solution with a team of QA experts for support

  5. TestRail

    Best DevOps automation tool with test management functionality

How I Selected the Best DevOps Automation Tools

Choosing the best DevOps automation tools took careful research and significant time. My process began by creating a long list of the most popular DevOps automation tools on the market based on user rankings. I assessed each software vendor’s website to ensure their testing platform covered all the basic features that a DevOps team would need to manage their processes from end-to-end.

Next, I used my selection criteria below to help me make my final selections. Using these criteria as a framework, I compared each DevOps automation tools to see how it stacked up to the rest of the list. 

Selection Criteria

What do I look for when I select the best DevOps automation solution? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria: 

  1. 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.
  2. Usability: I look for tools with slight learning curves, but with effective features, so all team members can navigate and work collaboratively
  3. Integrations: I look for the most complimentary integrations that allows software development teams the capacity to thoroughly streamline their processes 
  4. Cost vs Value: I look for the best user experience for a competitive price

DevOps Automation Tools Key Features

  1. CI/CD: The ability to build and run CI/CD jobs efficiently 
  2. Performance Monitoring: The ability to monitor your websites and applications for errors after the deployment process
  3. Reporting System: The ability to run reports so you are able to catch errors and reduce downtime

Related: WHAT IS DEVOPS RELEASE MANAGEMENT AND 4 BEST PRACTICES

People Also Ask

If your software development team is considering working with a DevOps automation tool, you likely have some questions before you get started. Let’s take a look at some of the FAQs about DevOps automation tools.

Next Steps

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. 

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Also Worth Checking Out: CI/CD PIPELINE OVERVIEW: WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT

By Jess Charlton

My name is Jess, and I am a writer and Digital Marketing Technician specializing in quality assurance testing of Content Management Systems for corporations. My expertise lies in frontend and backend software testing using a variety of QA testing tools. Find me on LinkedIn.