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DevOps tools are a broad category of software platforms and apps that can help teams throughout the software development lifecycle, from collaboration to code reviews to deployment. Because the category encompasses so many different types of tools, navigating the marketplace can be a challenge. To help you meet your own organization’s needs, we created this roundup of some of the more popular DevOps tools for common uses, including planning, configuration management, automated testing, and database development and operations.
Table Of Contents
What Are DevOps Tools?
DevOps tools are software and apps that facilitate the practices and principles of DevOps, a collaborative approach combining software development and IT operations. DevOps covers the entire software development lifecycle, which usually includes seven repeated steps:
Planning. In this phase, teams set goals for projects and strategize how to meet them. Planning tools can assist with creating tables, timelines, and charts.
Coding. In the next phase, software code is written to the specifications laid out in the planning phase. Tools used in this phase can help with writing and testing code.
Constructing. In this phase, software developers introduce the code and the project is rebuilt to accommodate it as needed. Version control tools can be a big help in this phase as new code is called for, reviewed, approved, and uploaded.
Testing. In this phase, code is tested for bugs and performance—rather than “one and done,” this phase is repeated until the desired results are achieved. Automated tools can run 24/7 to provide a more complete and efficient testing regiment.
Deploying. In DevOps the entire team works to ready the project for production, unlike more traditional software environments where this phase would be strictly the domain of the operations team. Deployment dashboards and automated deployment tools can support this process.
Operating. In this phase, the development project is tested in a production environment, including user testing to provide critical feedback. Automation tools like Cucumber and Robot Framework can test for operation issues.
Monitoring. In this phase, observation provides insight into how well the project works, how it is used, and how it can be improved in future iterations. Server monitoring tools like Headspin can detect issues and send alerts.
Types of DevOps Tools
When thinking about your company’s DevOps workflow, look for opportunities to introduce tools that can help streamline efficiency, promote collaboration, automate testing, and help manage systems. Most DevOps tools fall into the five general categories outlined below.
Tools for Collaboration
Collaboration tools foster communication and teamwork and facilitate remote work and geographically dispersed teams. They can help teams communicate throughout the project lifecycle, facilitate file-sharing, and track employee processes.
Tools for Planning
Planning tools help coordinate and organize tasks, set and track timelines, plan workflows, and align project goals. They can keep teams on track throughout the project lifecycle, not just in the planning stage, and provide up-to-date information on deadlines, priorities, and goals.
Tools for Configuration Management
Configuration management tools process and maintain the consistency of a system’s performance, requirements, and design. This allows insight into the entire system throughout the software development life cycle.
Tools for Automated Testing
Automation testing tools provide a framework for developers to create and run tests consistently and repeatedly for more efficient and accurate results.
Database Tools
Database tools help companies gather, update, transfer, and store company data. These tools often streamline and automate processes to ensure functions are managed efficiently.
20 Popular DevOps Tools
While some tools are purpose-built for the DevOps lifecycle, tools built for a wider range of industries and environments can also be useful in this context. Here’s our roundup of 20 of the most popular tools for DevOps on the market today:
1. Slack
Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration tool built primarily around a live chat technology similar to Internet Relay Chat but with more controls, direct chat, drag-and-drop file sharing, and development tool integration. Slack can improve communication and collaboration to ensure the development and operations teams are on the same page.
2. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration platform that integrates with all Microsoft software and systems. It offers one-on-one chat capabilities, group channels, file sharing, and video conferencing. Microsoft Teams help with team collaboration through messaging services, video calls, and application sharing to improve work quality and communication.
3. Open DevOps
Open DevOps software is part of Jira, Atlassian’s popular software development tool used in Agile development, a key component of DevOps. Open DevOps helps teams focus on building and operating projects while integrating partnering tools such as Bitbucket, Opsgenie, and Confluence. These tools can save time on coding reviews by testing and identifying any unexpected changes and minimizing content switching during the project development by adding comments, viewing attachments, making edits, and even detecting vulnerabilities.
4. Jenkins
Jenkins is a self-contained, open-source automation server often used for collaboration and integration in DevOps. Jenkins’ integration capabilities support code sharing, code review, notifications and reporting, and collaboration and communication within teams. It offers hundreds of plugins to support building, deploying, and automating any project.
5. Monday.com
Monday.com is a cloud-based platform that allows teams to create applications and project management software and can help teams collaborate, communicate, plan, and manage their DevOps processes. Project management within monday.com includes keeping tasks visible, budgeting, and creating a timeline to uniting teams and their systems.
6. Trello
Trello is a project management tool that uses organization boards, custom to-do lists, and cards to represent tasks. Its built-in automation can handle repetitive tasks like creating agendas, adding team members, and tracking due dates. Companies choose how to visualize projects with dashboards, timelines, tables, and more. Trello offers over 200 integrations with other DevOps software.
7. Azure DevOps
Best for Microsoft users, Azure DevOps is a planning tool that helps developers, project managers, and contributors create better application projects. It includes agile planning boards; Azure Pipelines to support continuous improvement/continuous deployment (CI/CD); GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps; Azure Test Plans for manual and exploratory testing; Azure Artifacts universal package repository; and a marketplace with over 1,000 extensions.
8. Chef
Cloud configuration management tool Chef configures and manages server applications and utilities. Its capabilities describe a series of resources for applications like Hadoop or MySQL, such as dependencies, packages, files, and services. It works at the cloud scale to optimize application delivery, secure cloud assets, move configuration to compliance management, and help achieve compliance audits.
9. Ansible
Ansible is a configuration management and automation tool for software deployment and client configuration covering Unix, Linux, and Windows. It uses JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and yet another markup language (YAML) instead of Infrastructure as Code (IAC) and works both on internal systems through OpenStack as well as Amazon EC2. It can configure systems, deploy applications, and help support system updates within advanced workflows and focuses on the security and reliability aspects of this technology as an integrated and streamlined software.
10. Puppet
Puppet Enterprise manages infrastructure as code (IAC), an IT infrastructure provisioning process in which systems are automatically built and provisioned with code instead of a scripting process. Because Puppet helps with the coding, the process is easily repeatable. Puppet makes for easier versioning, automated testing, and continuous delivery and can respond to problems or errors quickly.
11. Apache JMeter
Apache JMeter is an open-source pure Java automated testing tool used for DevOps and designed to test a system’s functional behavior while measuring automation performance. Apache JMeter is used to test both static and dynamic resources within web applications by simulating heavy loads on multiple servers and networks to analyze overall performance.
12. Cucumber
Cucumber is a behavior-driven development (BDD) automation testing tool that supports many programming languages. Cucumber includes multiple tools like CucumberStudio, which allows a software development team to co-design the acceptance tests; Cucumber School to help employees effectively learn the system; and Cucumber Open to execute automation testing.
13. HeadSpin
HeadSpin is a data science-driven platform that provides mobile testing, monitoring, and analytic solutions. It provides insight into the performance, user experience, and behavior of mobile applications across devices, networks, and locations. HeadSpin identifies problems and fixes them to improve application performance so your business can be ahead of its competition. HeadSpin’s DevOps not only completes automated testing but also enhances collaboration between teams and offers CI/CD integration.
14. Robot Framework
Robot Framework is an open-source automation framework used for both automation testing and robotic process automation (RPA). It allows testing with hybrid and mobile applications throughout business software with both iOS and Android. Robot Framework’s capabilities can include infrastructures implemented with Python, Java, or other programming languages. Robot Framework can be integrated with most automation solutions and has libraries and tools that have been developed as separate projects.
15. DbVisualizer
DbVisualizer is a database tool that manages, develops, and designs to simplify database object management, administration, exploration, and SQL query development. When working in a DevOps environment, it supports simple coding, flexible integration, customization for planning tools, and meets high-security standards to mitigate project vulnerabilities. DbVisualizer can be leveraged for both planning and database DevOps functions.
16. Liquibase
Liquibase is an open-source database management tool that lets users manage database changes as a code, facilitate automated deployments, and ensure consistency across environments. It fits into the software development lifecycle by providing tools like Changeset and Changelog to help track databases. The tool integrates easily with other tools and providers such as Atlassian, Discourse, and YourKit.
17. Toad by Quest
Toad is a database management tool created by Quest that streamlines database development, administration, and performance-tuning tasks. Toad is often used to simplify workflows, coding, and automate repetitive tasks and promotes collaboration across teams. It can be used for cloud projects to give companies the flexibility they need to create the best software development lifecycle.
18. AWS Database Migration Service
AWS Database Migration Service is Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s database migration tool. It works in DevOps by migrating databases to simplify the process of database schema conversion and data migration while maintaining company infrastructure with integrity. The tool is known to maintain minimal downtime and integrate with tools such as Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB, and other databases.
19. Docker
Docker is a database tool focusing mainly on containers. In DevOps it can be used to package apps and dependencies on any Linux server, from virtual systems to cloud-based instances. Docker for DevOps allows an isolated application to be deployed to many servers across the internet.
20. GitHub
GitHub is a top software development tool that uses AI to accelerate project development. GitHub uses many tools, including GitHub Codespaces, to help build a DevOps environment quickly to help code, build, and test from anywhere. Another tool, GitHub Copilot, is an AI programmer to help give coding suggestions to users. GitHub Actions helps automate workflows to improve how processes are completed, and collaboration features include a mobile tool to connect employees and teams on the go and at the office.
Bottom Line: DevOps Tools
Many tools offer a wide range of features and advantages for businesses looking to add collaboration, planning, configuration management, automated testing, and database processes into their DevOps software development lifecycles. Some of these tools are purpose-built for DevOps, others are used in a wide range of industries and environments but can help make teams more efficient. Identify the types of tools you might benefit from most, and consider how they fit with your budget and existing tool stack.
