Continuous delivery (CD) is the process of automating software releases into production environments. Instead of waiting for an engineer to manually make deployments, CD implements systems that release changes as they’re integrated into your product.
Utilizing CD makes your DevOps loop more efficient and responsive. Automating the software delivery process allows developers to focus on creating meaningful new changes instead of tedious chores like preparing environments and launching releases.
Plenty of great tools can help you start implementing CD. In this guide, we’ll explore 16 of the top available options in 2024.
What is Continuous Delivery (CD)?
Continuous delivery describes the process of automatically deploying new code changes after they’ve been integrated into your system. It’s a logical extension of continuous integration (CI); they are usually combined as a single CI/CD pipeline.
Whereas CI focuses on the build and test stages of the software development lifecycle, CD considers how code that’s ready to ship actually reaches production. It utilizes tools and processes including GitOps, IaC, and containers to deploy changes as soon as they’re ready, without requiring any developer intervention. The solution will continually detect new changes, and apply any actions required to release them to your users.
Continuous delivery tools come in many different flavors. It’s important to find the best option for your projects so you can be confident your changes will roll out reliably. Here are some of the most important characteristics:
- Automation: CD solutions need to be capable of automating your entire deployment workflow. Tools that only cover part of the process or demand developer input to complete key stages will offer limited effectiveness.
- GitOps compatibility: CD and GitOps are closely linked. GitOps tools use versioned files in a Git repository to define the state of your deployments, then continually reconcile the declared configuration to your live resources. Choosing a CD solution that’s based around GitOps can reduce setup complexity and help prevent configuration drift.
- Customization options: Customizable tools are easier to integrate with your existing workflows. They also reduce the risk of becoming locked into a particular solution, making it easier to scale your delivery systems and adopt new technologies.
- Integrations: CD implementations should be compatible with the rest of your toolchain, including the VCS solutions, IaC providers, and cloud services you use. Leading tools will support native integrations with popular choices in these categories.
- Ease of use: CD should support DevOps teams as they manage the software deployment process. Tools that are simple to configure, maintain, and monitor will be more accessible than those with steep learning curves or specialist concepts.
- Scalability: Choosing scalable tools is crucial to ensure your CD workflows continue to perform predictably as deployment frequency increases and you launch additional environments. Tools designed for cloud-native operation are generally more scalable than those that must be operated locally.
- Security and compliance: CD solutions come into direct contact with your source code and live infrastructure. It’s vital they include adequate security protections and are compatible with your project’s compliance standards. Look for proven options that have passed security audits.
- Strong official or community support: Comprehensive support options ensure you can effectively configure and maintain your tools. Look for actively monitored bug trackers, community forums, and developer contact methods that let you get help quickly if you experience a problem with your implementation.
Keep these criteria in mind as you evaluate different continuous delivery tools. Although you might have to compromise, the most effective solutions should score highly across several factors.
Let’s begin exploring the top continuous delivery tools to use in your DevOps processes today.
The best continuous delivery tools include:
- Spacelift
- Argo CD
- Flux CD
- GitHub Actions
- GitLab CI/CD
- Jenkins
- GoCD
- Codefresh
- TeamCity
- Buddy
- Semaphore
- Spinnaker
- Harness
- AWS CodePipeline
- Azure Pipelines
- Octopus Deploy
We’re not listing these tools in order of preference — they all offer compelling features for different use cases. Note also that this is a snapshot of some of the most popular options, but it’s not an exhaustive directory.
Spacelift is not exactly a DevOps continuous delivery tool, but it allows you to connect to and orchestrate all of your infrastructure tooling, including infrastructure as code, version control systems, observability tools, control and governance solutions, and cloud providers.
With Spacelift, you can provision, configure, and govern with one or more automated workflows that orchestrate Terraform, OpenTofu, Terragrunt, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Ansible, and Kubernetes.
Spacelift was built with DevOps/platform engineers in mind, but it evolved into the go-to platform for software engineers because they can increase their velocity with self-service infrastructure that implements all their organization’s guardrails. It greatly enhances collaboration among engineers, offering them a central location to make infrastructure-related decisions.
Key features
- Flexibility: Bring your own image, control what happens before and after every runner phase, and integrate with any third-party tool you want.
- VCS integration: Integrates with popular VCS providers such as GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, and Azure DevOps.
- Policies at multiple decision levels: You can control how many approvals you need for a run, what resources can be created, what parameters those resources can have, what happens when a pull request is open, and where to send your notifications data.
- Cloud integrations: Dynamic temporary credentials for AWS, Azure, and GCP.
- Drift detection and remediation: Ensures reliability of your infrastructure by detecting and remediating drift.
- Contexts: Reusable Environment variables and Mounted files.
- Self-service infrastructure with Blueprints: You can define infrastructure templates that can be easily deployed. These templates can have policies/integrations/contexts/drift detection embedded inside them for reliable deployment.
- Stack dependencies: Create dependencies between stacks and pass outputs from one to another. This can help to build an environment promotion pipeline easily.
- Visibility: Easily see all the deployed resources and details about them.
- Self-hosted capability: Spacelift can be self-hosted in AWS and AWS Gov Cloud.
Price/license: Free tier available; Paid subscription for additional features
Website: https://spacelift.io
Use case example: How to improve your infrastructure orchestration with Spacelift
Argo CD is one of the best-known and most popular CD solutions. It’s a purpose-built tool that enables declarative continuous delivery to Kubernetes clusters using GitOps principles. It supports pull-based deployment workflows and can automatically resync your apps periodically to prevent drift compared to your repositories.
Ease of use is one of Argo CD’s main strengths. It provides a set of Kubernetes CRDs that allow you to conveniently configure your apps through IaC. Argo also offers its own CLI and powerful web UI to facilitate streamlined deployment management. The project is well-supported and has over 17.5k GitHub stars.
Key features
- GitOps-centric: Manages app state via Git, ensuring version control and easy rollbacks
- Continuous sync: Automatically syncs or flags changes between Git and the Kubernetes cluster
- Multi-cluster support: Centrally manages deployments across multiple clusters with granular access control
- Health monitoring: Tracks app health, detects drift, and provides real-time status via dashboards
- Extensibility: Supports Helm, Kustomize, and custom hooks/plugins for flexible configurations
Price/license: Free (Open-source)
Website: https://argoproj.github.io/cd
Use case example: Argo CD tutorial
Flux CD is a Kubernetes-centric CD tool that focuses on implementing GitOps in clusters. It provides a set of Kubernetes controllers that handle automatic reconciliation between cluster state and the resources defined in your Git repositories, plus a variety of other sources.
Flux is a powerful tool with good customization options and extension opportunities. It integrates with Kubernetes RBAC controls, supports multi-tenant deployment architectures, and can be combined with policy systems such as OPA to continually maintain security and compliance requirements. The tool is configured by creating Kubernetes Custom Resources that enable programmatic management.
Key features
- GitOps automation: Syncs Kubernetes with the desired state stored in Git
- Kubernetes-native: Seamlessly integrates with Kubernetes resources and CRDs
- Declarative state: Ensures version-controlled, immutable configurations
- Multi-cluster support: Manages multiple environments and clusters efficiently
- Monitoring & alerts: Offers integrations for tracking changes and alerts
Price/License: Free (Open-source)
Website: https://fluxcd.io
Use case example: FluxCD Tutorial With Examples
GitHub Actions is the CI/CD solution integrated with GitHub repositories. You can use it to implement automated workflows that run in response to repository events, such as pushing new code or merging a pull request.
Because Actions isn’t a dedicated CD tool, it can require more configuration to connect your cloud platforms and write your deployment scripts. However, the flip side is that Actions is highly flexible and can be used to implement any kind of process you require. As it comes bundled with GitHub repos, it’s also accessible and removes the need to learn a completely different tool.
The service is supported by a vast catalog of publicly available actions that you can use to compose your pipelines.
Key features
- Workflow automation: Automates build, test, and deployment pipelines via YAML configurations
- GitHub integration: Seamlessly interacts with repos, pull requests, branches, and secrets
- Reusable actions: Access pre-built deployment tools in the GitHub Marketplace
- Environment management: Supports environment-specific secrets, approvals, and rules for deployments
- Scalability: Runs on GitHub-hosted or self-hosted runners for flexible deployment options
Price/License: Free for public repositories; Paid plans for private repositories
Website: https://github.com/features/actions
Use case example: How to Manage and Scale Terraform with GitHub Actions
GitLab CI/CD is GitLab’s eponymous continuous integration and delivery solution. Similar to GitHub Actions, it’s included by default with GitLab projects and provides a general-purpose solution for building any workflow required to deploy your apps.
GitLab also features robust Kubernetes integration through its GitLab Agent component. This allows developers to securely manage Kubernetes deployments without requiring direct cluster access or any separate tools.
Moreover, GitLab’s Auto DevOps feature automatically builds, tests, and deploys many project types without any configuration. This makes it a good option for teams already using GitLab and wanting to implement continuous delivery as quickly as possible.
Key features
- Integrated Pipelines: Seamlessly trigger and manage pipelines within GitLab
- Auto DevOps: Preconfigured pipelines for quick deployment with minimal setup
- Environment Management: Manage staging, production, and other environments with ease
- Pipeline as Code: Use .gitlab-ci.yml to define, version, and customize pipelines
- Container & Kubernetes Support: Built-in registry and Kubernetes integration for automated deployments
Price/License: Free tier available; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/
Use case example: How to Implement GitLab CI/CD Pipeline with Terraform
Jenkins is a highly popular standalone automation server that can host any kind of pipeline. Although primarily known as a CI tool, it can also build delivery workflows. One of the system’s key strengths is its vast plugin ecosystem, which lets you easily connect cloud services, IaC tools, and container platforms.
Jenkins requires some upfront work to configure your instance and set up your pipelines. However, its strong support for distributed workloads gives it good scalability, and its established community provides support. If you want one system to manage CI, CD, and business workflow automation, Jenkins could be a good fit.
Key features
- Pipeline as Code: Define CI/CD pipelines in Jenkinsfile for version-controlled, automated workflows.
- Extensive plugins: Integrates with tools like Git, Docker, and Kubernetes to customize and enhance pipelines
- Automated build and deploy: Triggers builds on changes, integrates with tools (e.g., Maven), and supports multi-environment deployments
- Scalability: Distributed builds via master-agent architecture and cloud-native integrations for scaling
- Real-time feedback: Provides dashboards, logs, and reports for pipeline health and test coverage
Price/License: Free (Open-source)
Website: https://www.jenkins.io/
Use case example: Key Concepts & Jenkins Tutorial
GoCD is a popular open-source CI/CD server. It emphasizes its visualization capabilities, which help you understand how jobs execute from end-to-end, including the effects of their dependency relationships. Parallel execution and advanced job modeling features make GoCD suitable for complex workflows, while integrations with cloud environments and Kubernetes make it easy to get started delivering code.
Although GoCD is supported by a forum of active users, the project is currently in maintenance mode. A “very small” team of contributors provides only limited fixes and enhancements, so this should be factored into your decision when evaluating whether to use it for new deployments.
Key features
- Pipeline as code: Defines pipelines in YAML/JSON for version control and easy sharing
- Value stream mapping: Visualize workflows to identify bottlenecks and track progress
- Artifact management: Share and reuse build artifacts across pipelines natively
- Environment management: Handles environment-specific variables and configurations securely
- Extensible plugins: Seamlessly integrates with tools like Git, Docker, and Kubernetes
Price/License: Free (Open-source)
Website: https://www.gocd.org
Codefresh is a SaaS continuous delivery solution designed to make it easier to implement GitOps for cloud-native apps. It accommodates enterprise-scale workflows with a rich developer experience and integrated activity metrics.
Codefresh is powered by Argo but provides a convenient management layer, so you can efficiently create delivery pipelines from reusable templates and inheritable components. It lets you connect your repositories, deploy your apps using advanced canary and blue/green strategies, and then gain visibility into what’s running.
Key features
- GitOps support: Declarative deployments managed through Git for consistency and traceability
- Deployment strategies: Supports canary releases, blue/green deployments, and more
- Pipeline automation: Easy-to-use interface for building and managing CI/CD pipelines
- Monitoring and analytics: Detailed dashboards for pipeline performance and deployment tracking
- Tool integrations: Works seamlessly with Kubernetes, Docker, and popular version control systems
Pricing: Free plan for up to five developers; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://codefresh.io/
TeamCity is a CI/CD system by JetBrains, the developers of popular IDEs including IntelliJ, PHPStorm, and PyCharm. It integrates deeply with these tools, making it an ideal candidate for developers already invested in the JetBrains ecosystem.
Although TeamCity is predominantly a CI tool, its extensive range of plugins means it can be easily connected to different cloud providers and deployment platforms. You can deploy to your existing Kubernetes clusters while benefiting from TeamCity’s managed experience. The service is also highly scalable with support for orchestrating hundreds of build agents.
Key features
- Pipeline as code: Uses Kotlin DSL for version-controlled and reusable pipeline configurations
- Build automation: Integrates with version control systems, build tools, and frameworks for seamless automation
- Parallel builds: Execute builds in parallel across distributed agents to save time.
- Deployment tools: Supports Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms for streamlined deployment
- Real-time feedback: Provides detailed logs, test reports, and notifications for quick issue resolution
Pricing/License: Free tier available; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity
Buddy is billed as the “easiest CI/CD ever.” It’s designed to be simple, fast, and efficient, while also promoting improved collaboration between developers, operators, and QA teams. Delivery pipelines are assembled using a visual interface that lets you drag and drop actions to integrate with different services.
Buddy is a commercial SaaS solution that receives regular updates. It claims to be used by over 10,000 developers, including major organizations. A free tier provides access to most core features, including unlimited projects, users, and concurrent jobs.
Key features
- Pipeline automation: Easily set up automated build, test, and deployment workflows
- Integrations: Works with GitHub, GitLab, AWS, Google Cloud, and more
- Predefined actions: Over 100 ready-to-use actions for various tasks
- Visual editor: Intuitive interface for creating and managing pipelines
- Notifications: Alerts via email, SMS, Slack, and other tools
Price/license: Free tier available; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://buddy.works
Semaphore is a managed CI/CD service for optimizing developer workflows. Among its comprehensive features is a suite of deployment automation capabilities that lets you configure advanced pipelines using a variety of rollout strategies and infrastructure provisioning options.
Semaphore also provides a strong set of governance facilities that make it a good fit for teams looking to improve deployment monitoring, security, and compliance. You can configure policy-based rules, conditions, and audit requirements to control when deployments are allowed, and then monitor all activity on a single real-time dashboard.
Key features
- Fast pipelines: Parallel execution and auto-scaling for quick builds and tests
- Custom workflows: Visual pipeline editor and YAML-based configuration for flexibility
- Integrated deployment: Built-in support for Kubernetes, AWS, and other platforms
- Efficient testing: Test suite splitting, caching, and artifact management for speed.
- Extensive integrations: Works seamlessly with GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and more
Price/license: Free tier available; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://semaphoreci.com
Spinnaker is a purpose-built continuous delivery platform that focuses on multicloud deployments. It includes integrations with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, CloudFoundry, and your own Kubernetes clusters, allowing you to work flexibly across providers.
Supported deployment strategies include blue-green and highlander rollouts, quick rollbacks in the event of failure, and drift avoidance through the use of immutable architecture. Support for RBAC, manual deployment approvals, and popular observability suites also help ensure your operations stay compliant. Spinnaker is an open-source tool maintained by the Linux Foundation.
Key features
- Multicloud support: Deploy across AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, and more.
- Pipeline automation: Define, automate, and visualize pipelines with ease.
- Deployment strategies: Supports blue/green, canary, and rolling updates
- Monitoring and rollback: Integrates with monitoring tools for auto-rollbacks and anomaly detection
- Scalability and extensibility: Customizable, integrates with CI/CD tools, and scales easily
Pricing/license: Free (Open-source)
Website: https://spinnaker.io
Harness is a cloud-hosted software delivery platform oriented around GitOps. It provides a focal point for DevOps operations, including support for hosting private Git repositories, automated delivery to any cloud, and insights into development and deployment activity. Harness also offers self-service developer portal features built upon Backstage.
A free plan includes access to most capabilities, but you’re limited to a maximum of 100 deployments per month. Paid plans are priced per user and can be customized.
Harness is a compelling option when you’re operating at scale and want to manage your entire DevOps process in one place.
Key features
- ML-powered automation: Automates deployments and rollback with anomaly detection
- Flexible pipelines: Supports visual pipelines and Pipeline as Code
- Advanced deployment strategies: Includes Canary and Blue-Green deployments
- Continuous verification: Monitors deployment health with real-time feedback
- Multicloud integrations: Works across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and more
Price/license: Free tier available; Paid plans with custom pricing
Website: https://www.harness.io
CodePipeline is a continuous delivery service built into AWS. It allows you to model your complete release process, from building source code through to deploying to AWS or other clouds. A large plugin directory provides integrations with popular developer tools and services.
CodePipeline natively connects to your other AWS resources such as CodeBuild, ECR, ECS, Fargate, and S3. This makes it particularly ideal for teams talready operating services in AWS as it helps maximize efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Pricing is per-pipeline or per-execution minute, depending on the CodePipeline version used, with a very limited free tier available.
Key features
- Workflow automation: Define and automate release stages like source, build, test, and deploy
- Integration: Works with AWS services (e.g., CodeBuild, CodeDeploy) and third-party tools (e.g., GitHub, Jenkins)
- Parallel execution: Runs actions concurrently to reduce deployment time
- Template-based pipelines: Define pipelines with JSON or YAML templates for consistency and reuse
- Access control and notifications: Manage permissions with IAM and receive updates via SNS
Price/license: Pay-as-you-go; Pricing based on usage
Website: https://aws.amazon.com/codepipeline
Microsoft’s continuous delivery solution Azure Pipelines is available as part of the Azure cloud. However, it’s not restricted to Azure — your pipelines can deploy to any cloud or container environment, supported by hundreds of extensions that connect to third-party tools.
Pipelines has advanced workflow options including chained builds and multi-phase builds that can model complex deployment workflows precisely. It also integrates deeply with GitHub so you can run pipelines and access results straight from your pull requests.
Key features
- Automated deployment: Consistently deploy to various environments
- Cross-platform support: Deploy on Windows, Linux, and macOS
- Version control integration: Works with GitHub, Azure Repos, and more
- Approval gates: Define checks before moving to the next stage
- Scalable parallelism: Handle multiple concurrent deployments efficiently
Price/license: Free tier available; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/products/devops/pipelines
Use case example: Azure Pipelines Tutorial
Octopus Deploy is a commercial continuous delivery platform available in managed or self-hosted form. It centralizes all the delivery tasks required by your team, including app deployments and customizable runbooks that let devs trigger on-demand day-two actions like making a backup or retrieving a log file.
Octopus Deploy is a powerful platform with extensive customization options.
It also offers various interaction methods that help keep your workflows accessible. You can set up pipelines using templates and the fully featured UI or gain more control using custom scripts and the CLI or API.
Key features
- Deployment automation: Streamlines deployments across environments
- Multi-environment support: Manages transitions from development to production
- Release management: Tracks and rolls back releases when needed
- Integrations: Works with CI/CD tools and platforms seamlessly
- Configuration management: Maintains environment-specific settings
Price/license: Free tier available; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://octopus.com
We’ve explored 16 of the leading CD tools for automating software deployment. Implementing CD increases your DevOps workflow efficiency and speeds up the entire software delivery process by automatically deploying changes after they’re integrated into your repositories. This lets development and operations teams stay focused on meaningful work instead of repetitive release management tasks.
CD lets you ship your apps to your users, but you should also implement automated infrastructure management to simplify cloud resource provisioning. Spacelift is your integrated platform for orchestrating Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, and more. It lets you build fast infrastructure workflows that can be driven by your Git pull requests. Use Spacelift to enable self-service developer access, prevent drift, and centrally govern your resources.
Solve your infrastructure challenges
Spacelift is a flexible orchestration solution for IaC development. It delivers enhanced collaboration, automation, and controls to simplify and accelerate the provisioning of cloud-based infrastructures.
