Top 10 Must-Have DevOps Tools in 2021

DevOps tools are defined as technologies that improve software development processes in line with DevOps principles (i.e., combining software development and IT operations to shorten the development lifecycle) with the aim of reducing errors, accelerating innovation, and decreasing effort requirements. This article discusses the need for DevOps tools in detail and recommends the best solutions for 2021-2022.

Key Must-Have Features of DevOps Tools

DevOps tools are technologies that improve software development processes in line with DevOps principles (i.e., combining software development and IT operations to shorten the development lifecycle) with the aim of reducing errors, accelerating innovation, and decreasing effort requirements.

DevOps tools can come in all shapes and sizes, i.e., open-source, commercial, cloud-based, on-premise, standalone, or a suite. However, they must have a select set of features to aid developers and IT professionals. Here are the five key features that characterize DevOps tools:

Key Features of DevOps Tools

1. Developer-centricity

While some software development aids are meant for business users (e.g., low code platforms and codeless automation platforms), users of DevOps tools will bring extensive technical expertise. The functionalities of your selected DevOps tool must be tailored accordingly, including tutorials, code repositories, collaborative workflows, and automation if necessary. Keep in mind that the specific feature set may vary depending on the exact role and designation of the developer in relation to the software development lifecycle. It is also helpful to have a developer community surrounding the tool to aid in versatile usage.

2. Cloud readiness

The tool must be able to support application development for a wide range of environments, including hybrid, private, public, and multi-cloud. This is because the cloud is rapidly becoming the default hosting environment for both enterprises and independent software vendors (ISVs). The cloud also requires faster app development with shorter iteration cycles, which the DevOps tool must be able to support. However, rather than choosing cloud-only tools, enterprises may want to go for hybrid-ready DevOps solutions so that they are interoperable across both on-premise and hybrid, public, private, or multi-cloud environments.

3. CI/CD compatibility

Continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) is a top priority for DevOps teams as it bridges the gap between build and deployment to speed up software development. According to the CI/CD framework, automation is leveraged at key stages of app development, and new code is integrated even as previously written code is tested and deployed into production. Importantly, CI/CD principles form a central pillar for agile development teams and require close collaboration between team members. Your DevOps tool must be equipped to address CI/CD use cases and support automatic release to code repositories as well as automatic deployment into production.

4. Ease of integration

DevOps tools are rarely used in isolation. Typically, they are part of a larger software development technology ecosystem with other components like a code repository (e.g., GitHub), scripting user interface, testing tools, automation scripts, and more. The DevOps tool you choose must be ready for integration with its surrounding technology systems – there are three ways to achieve this:

• A native integration marketplace: The DevOps tool provider has a downloadable marketplace featuring connectors for all of the industry tools that it can integrate with. Developers can select the connectors they need as per their tech stack.
• Application programming interfaces (APIs): The DevOps tool provider offers an API library as part of the solution or for an additional fee. These APIs can be tailored to connect with a wide variety of applications, even homegrown ones.
• An open-source architecture: The DevOps tool is available as an open-source solution. Any independent developer or organization can access the underlying codebase to create their own APIs and connectors.

5. Collaboration support between dev and ops

While developer collaboration is an essential feature, as discussed earlier, the DevOps tool must also be able to support close communication and collaboration between development and operation teams. As the development team builds code, the operations team must be able to put it into production and quickly come back with feedback and iterations, if any. This synergy is at the heart of DevOps success. Therefore, the tool must provide collaboration capabilities either natively (preferable) or at least through integration with a third-party collaboration service.

See More: What Is DevOps? Definition, Goals, Methodology, and Best Practices

10 DevOps Tools You Need to Explore in 2021

DevOps is now the default approach for software development and IT service management across startups and agile organizations, owing to its efficiency. According to research by Global Market Insights, DevOps technologies will be worth $17 billion by 2026, growing at 20% every year between 2020 and the end of the forecast period. In this rapidly evolving market environment, there are ten technologies you need to explore to elevate your DevOps capabilities in 2021.

Disclaimer: This list is based on publicly available information and includes vendor websites that sell to mid-to-large enterprises. Readers are advised to conduct their own final research to ensure the best fit for their unique organizational needs.

1. Azure DevOps

Overview: Azure DevOps is the software as a service (SaaS) version of Microsoft’s development software, Visual Studio. Launched in 2013, Azure DevOps equips you with a wide range of capabilities from agile planning to CI/CD deployment, testing, and collaboration.

Meant for: Azure DevOps is excellent for mid-sized to large software development teams.

Key features: Key features of Azure DevOps include:

• Developer-centricity: It includes all necessary developer tools for application building, testing, and deployment; unlimited free repositories for code hosting.
• Cloud readiness: It is compatible with all coding languages, platforms, and clouds, including hybrid cloud through Azure DevOps Server.
• CI/CD compatibility: Azure DevOps supports CI/CD via the Azure Pipelines capability, purpose-built for automating application builds and deployments on the cloud.
• Ease of integration: It offers a marketplace of 1000+ applications and services to create an expansive DevOps landscape.
• Collaboration support: It includes Azure Boards for Kanban-based project planning, team dashboards, scrum planning, and ChatOps.

USP: Microsoft Azure DevOps owns GitHub, making the integration extremely seamless. Also, Azure DevOps offers a holistic solution, supported by Microsoft’s DevOps culture.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $52 per user per month for the entire suite.

Editorial comments: Large companies looking to modernize software development and pursue rapid growth should consider Azure DevOps as their tooling partner of choice.

2. Bitbucket

Overview: Bitbucket, owned by Atlassian, is among the most popular DevOps tools in the world. It is built on Git software, which is commonly used for building code blocks and tracking changes. BitBucket boasts of powerful native integrations with Jira and Trello.

Meant for: Small, mid-sized, and large software development teams using Git for code management.

Key features: Key features of Bitbucket include:

• Developer-centricity: Bitbucket is designed keeping in mind developer needs, with tutorials for advanced git processes and a free Git graphical user interface (GUI).
• Cloud readiness: It offers a cloud-first approach with two-step verification for secure access and cloud-based hosting. It provides high-availability active clusters with Bitbucket Data Center for hybrid environments.
• CI/CD compatibility: It has built-in CI/CD capabilities with configuration as code, rapid feedback loops, and pull requests for efficient code review.
• Ease of integration: Bitbucket offers native integrations with the Atlassian ecosystem, a robust marketplace for cloud and server add-ons.
• Collaboration support: It supports collaborative coding via inline comments, designated approvers, timely feedback, branch permissions, and other features.

USP: Bitbucket owes its popularity to its collaboration-friendly design architecture. For DevOps teams familiar with Git-based code management, it allows multiple stakeholders to work on and push through an agile project.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $3 per user per month (free forever version available for up to five users).

Editorial comments: Bitbucket is the industry standard for GUI-based Git code management, thanks to its integration with the rest of Atlassian’s project planning tools and affordable pricing.

3. Chef

Overview: Founded in 2008, Chef specializes in DevOps tools and software and helps 1000+ companies around the world in their agile development projects. Chef’s tools range from infrastructure management to application delivery, using DevOps pipelines.

Meant for: Large enterprises using DevOps for infrastructure management and application delivery.

Key features: Key features of Chef include:

• Developer-centricity: Chef is built for enterprise IT teams with a set of common tools and processes for all developer roles; advanced automation to simplify development.
• Cloud readiness: Chef is ready for cloud-based deployment in any environment, be it Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Docker, or anything else.
• CI/CD compatibility: It enables continuous delivery at scale through infrastructure as code, automated delivery pipeline, and performance management dashboards.
• Ease of integration: Chef offers native integration with all major DevOps tools, including Docker, Kubernetes, Azure, and VMware.
• Collaboration support: It includes an enterprise dashboard and analytics tools to provide different stakeholders with actionable insights, cross-team collaboration, and a shared audit trail.

USP: Chef’s biggest USP is its automation capability, which streamlines application building, runtime management, testing, and security controls. You can also automate infrastructure as code to simplify IT maintenance and updates.

Pricing: Chef follows a custom pricing model based on your environment and licensing stack.

Editorial comments: Enterprises looking to transform their digital infrastructure and application landscape can consider Chef to enable a DevOps-led IT function.

4. Docker

Overview: Founded in 2013, Docker is a containerization company that helps to transform app development and CI/CD workflows. It also includes a ready community of container images for development use.

Meant for: Individuals, teams, and enterprises engaging in container-based app development.

Key features: Key features of Docker include:

• Developer-centricity: Docker offers open-source developer tools, a thriving community, and pre-built images for developer use.
• Cloud readiness: Docker supports application development for all kinds of computing environments, including public, hybrid, and multi-cloud. It also includes access to free public repositories.
• CI/CD compatibility: It includes Docker Hub to rapidly push container images, build while integrating with GitHub, and deploy using a centralized platform.
• Ease of integration: It supports any app in any language. It also natively integrates with a wide range of third-party platforms like Azure, GitHub, etc.
• Collaboration support: Docker provides easy shareability of codebases without requiring specialized knowledge in Kubernetes; includes developer productivity tools and team collaboration services.

USP: Docker is the premier platform for container-based DevOps projects. It has a localized desktop version for independent use as well as a centralized hub for enterprises.

Pricing: Docker for Teams starts at $7 per user per month.

Editorial comments: Companies looking for a containerization tool that can fit into their existing DevOps pipelines should definitely consider Docker, especially for its open-source offerings.

See More: DevOps vs. Agile Methodology: Key Differences and Similarities

5. HashiCorp

Overview: HashiCorp is a Forbes Cloud 100 company founded in 2012, which provides DevOps tools to infrastructure management and application development teams. You could choose from its product portfolio, or you could implement HashiCorp Cloud – which includes Vault for security, Consul for cloud-based networking, and Terraform for infrastructure.

Meant for: Mid-sized to large enterprises.

Key features: Key features of HashiCorp include:

• Developer-centricity: HashiCorp helps developers provision new apps, configure security, automate networking, and deploy multiple app types.
• Cloud readiness: HashiCorp is purpose-built for cloud-based operating models, with native solutions for AWS.
• CI/CD compatibility: It includes HashiCorp Waypoint, which modernizes your workflows for build, deploy, and release management across platforms.
• Ease of integration: It offers a ready marketplace of third-party integrations covering provisioning, security, service networking, and app deployment tools.
• Collaboration support: HashiCorp offers version control of files, a centralized dashboard for collaborative reviews and decision-making, and reusable code modules.

USP: HashiCorp automates technology deployments on the cloud, with push-button deployments, fully managed infrastructure, and centralized workflows. This addresses fragmentation and reduces technical debt.

Pricing: Capabilities are billed separately on an hourly basis.

Editorial comments: Mid-sized to large companies that want a fully managed, cloud-based DevOps platform for infrastructure management should explore HashiCorp as a potential solution.

6. Incredibuild

Overview: 2012-founded development solutions provider, Incredibuild recently raised $140 million to power its rapid growth in 2020-2021. The company’s flagship product is the Incredibuild platform, which transforms application compilation, tests, and other compute-intensive development workloads.

Meant for: Companies of every size with a digital-based business model.

Key features: Key features of Incredibuild include:

• Developer-centricity: It is geared to modernize core development processes that utilize large amounts of compute power through Virtualized Distributed Processing™ technology.
• Cloud readiness: It is a cloud-based, zero maintenance tool that supports diverse environments, including hybrid cloud.
• CI/CD compatibility: Incredibuild works alongside CI/CD tools (compilers, build systems, and integrated development environments or IDEs), enabling up to eight times faster builds.
• Ease of integration: It comes with a vast library of pre-built integrations spanning IDEs, build systems, compilers, CI/CD, game engines, and test frameworks.
• Collaboration support: It connects with Microsoft Visual Studio to enable collaborative coding and multi-stakeholder software development life cycles.

USP: The most important differentiator for Incredibuild is its proprietary Virtualized Distributed Processing technology, ensuring that your compute needs are automatically and dynamically distributed across idle CPUs to speed up workloads.

Pricing: Incredibuild follows a custom pricing model.

Editorial comments: For companies with extremely resource-intensive app development needs, Incredibuild can reduce development costs and timelines.

7. Mattermost

Overview: Mattermost is an incident collaboration platform for enterprise DevOps teams, founded in 2011. In 2019, it raised $50 million in a Series B funding round and is now used by leading technology companies like SAP and Samsung.

Meant for: DevOps teams of every size requiring secure collaboration capabilities.

Key features: Key features of Mattermost include:

• Developer-centricity: Mattermost is designed for developers, with Chatops features, social coding, notifications hubs, and incident war rooms.
• Cloud readiness: Mattermost comes in both self-managed on-premise deployment as well as cloud-based SaaS options.
• CI/CD compatibility: It integrates with popular CI and bug tracking tools, with capabilities across planning, coding, build, test, release, deploy, and monitor stages.
• Ease of integration: It offers native integrations via the Mattermost integration marketplace, with a starter template for building your own app integrations.
• Collaboration support: It offers file sharing, video calls, one-on-one messaging, and other collaboration capabilities with stringent security.

USP: Mattermost’s key differentiator is that it drives collaboration among DevOps teams to create a DevOps Command Center. This is aided by playbooks and templates with customizable workflows.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $10 per user per month on the cloud.

Editorial comments: Companies with a large, distributed team of DevOps and IT professionals can leverage Mattermost to speed up infrastructure management.

8. Maven

Overview: Maven is a DevOps tool primarily used for Java projects, but it is also compatible with C#, Ruby, Scala, and other languages. It is an open-source solution hosted by the Apache Software Foundation, originally launched in 2004.

Meant for: Individuals and small DevOps teams.

Key features: Key features of Maven include:

• Developer-centricity: Maven streamlines new developer ramp-up. It also supports multiple coding languages, with a large developer community available for support.
• Cloud readiness: It is compatible with software development projects in all environments, including major public clouds, thanks to its open-source architecture.
• CI/CD compatibility: It includes a mechanism for technology reusability between projects to address backward compatibility issues for CI/CD.
• Ease of integration: It can be integrated with virtually any platform, computing environment, or DevOps tool through open-source code.
• Collaboration support: Maven supports multiple concurrent projects and helps create centralized repositories and code across distributed teams.

USP: The biggest USP of Apache Maven is its open-source nature and its ease of use. With Apache infrastructure looking after the build, you can get started with Maven in as little as ten minutes.

Pricing: Maven is free for use.

Editorial comments: Maven is an excellent starting point for startups and software development teams looking to embrace DevOps principles.

See More: DevOps Roadmap: 7-Step Complete Guide

9. Puppet

Overview: Established in 2005, Puppet provides DevOps tools to automate software delivery and operations. Puppet has standalone solutions for self-service automation, code-based compliance, workflow automation, and infrastructure security, as well as a holistic Puppet Enterprise platform.

Meant for: Companies managing complex infrastructure and app environments.

Key features: Key features of Puppet include:

• Developer-centricity: Puppet is purpose-built with developers in mind, with workflow standardization, code reusability, and a catalog of pre-built modules called Puppet Forge.
• Cloud readiness: It aids in DevOps processes across environments, including public, private, and hybrid clouds.
• CI/CD compatibility: Puppet offers CI/CD support during and beyond software development with continuous configuration automation and continuous compliance.
• Ease of integration: It provides a sizable integration marketplace including Splunk, VMware, Cisco, ServiceNow, Azure, HashiCorp, etc.
• Collaboration support: Puppet ensures that collaborative software development lifecycles are enabled by task orchestration across teams, vulnerability prioritization, and assigning to team members, and role-based dashboards.

USP: Puppet’s USP is its ability to generate data-driven insights into DevOps efficacy through its Impact Analysis module and value reports.

Pricing: Puppet follows a custom pricing model.

Editorial comments: Puppet offers a good mix of enterprise and open-source tools to address various enterprise DevOps use cases, particularly infrastructure as code deployments.

10. SonarQube

Overview: SonarQube is an open-source platform by SonarSource that helps you ensure code quality through continuous inspection. It was originally launched in 2006 for Java-based applications and now supports 20+ programming languages.

Meant for: Independent developers and startup teams.

Key features: Key features of SonarQube include:

• Developer-centricity: SonarQube aims to improve developer performance through continuous analysis of code quality, security analysis, and continuous recommendations.
• Cloud readiness: It can connect with cloud ecosystems and cloud-based platforms with optional cloud-first capability through the SonarCloud product.
• CI/CD compatibility: It offers non-disruptive code quality checks across the CI/CD pipeline, with workflow acceleration, code branch analysis, and merging.
• Ease of integration: It natively integrates with Github, Azure, Bitbucket, Gitlab, and Docker. It also offers extensive integration opportunities thanks to its open-source architecture.
• Collaboration support: It facilitates collaboration through the Connect Mode capability, which is part of the optional SonarLint extension.

USP: SonarQube enables a whole breadth of features and capabilities in an open-source format. It allows DevOps teams to maintain a very high standard of code quality without adding to costs or timelines.

Pricing: It is free for use.

Editorial comments: SonarQube is used by 200+ developer teams around the world – it can be a game-changing tool for individuals or teams looking to boost their DevOps productivity.

Here are the key highlights of these tools for your reference.

 See More: DevOps vs. Agile Methodology: Key Differences and Similarities

Key takeaways

DevOps is now a crucial part of digital transformation and enterprise performance, beyond only core software development. According to the 2020 DevOps Trends Survey by Atlassian, DevOps success directly impacts business metrics in 90% of cases. However, 85% of respondents also said that they face barriers in DevOps implementation.

The above tools can help break down the barriers to entry and allow companies to make full use of their DevOps potential. With error-free code, faster release cycles, and stringent security, it is possible to accelerate digital transformation and gain a competitive advantage against your market peers.

Which DevOps tool would you recommend to our readers in 2021-2022? Tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!

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