DevOps platforms are integrated tool suites that implement the DevOps lifecycle and best practices in software development. They support developers, operations teams, and other stakeholders throughout the process of delivering quality software.
Using a DevOps platform makes software development faster, easier, and less error-prone. Compared with using several independent tools, consolidating multiple tasks into one platform simplifies complex pipelines and improves development efficiency.
In this article, we’ll round up more than 20 of the most popular DevOps platforms you should know about right now. We’ll discuss their key features and highlight which DevOps lifecycle stages they support, helping you find the right option for your team.
A DevOps platform is an integrated set of tools that supports the automation, collaboration, and continuous delivery of software across development and operations teams. It centralizes workflows for coding, building, testing, deploying, and monitoring applications.
Common DevOps platforms include GitLab, GitHub Actions, Spacelift, and Azure DevOps. Each provides different levels of integration and extensibility based on organizational needs.
DevOps platforms streamline DevOps practices to help teams accelerate software delivery with greater efficiency and reliability. They are most beneficial for software teams that want to manage their end-to-end software delivery process using as few tools as possible.
Bringing disparate tasks like code review, infrastructure management, and deployment monitoring together makes it easier for teams to maintain fast-moving projects. Reducing the number of tools you use means there are fewer places where errors and bottlenecks could occur.
Not all DevOps platforms are equal, though. Some solutions aim to cover every stage of the DevOps lifecycle, whereas others offer a more focused experience for specific disciplines. In each case, a DevOps platform consolidates multiple functions in one place to better meet the needs of various software development stakeholders.
Let’s take a tour of some of the top DevOps platforms you should try.
The list of the best DevOps platforms includes:
- Spacelift
- GitLab
- GitHub
- Amazon Web Services
- Codefresh
- Kubernetes
- Octopus Deploy
- Terraform Cloud
- CloudBees
- Jenkins
- Datadog
- Devtron
- Copado
- Red Hat OpenShift
- Azure DevOps
- BitBucket
- Nagios
- Qovery
- Docker Hub
- New Relic
- CircleCI
These solutions are notable because they offer a good mix of features for different use cases. However, remember that the ecosystem offers many more platforms. We don’t have the space to mention every tool or go in-depth on individual features.
Spacelift is an IaC orchestration platform that automates infrastructure management. It runs tools including Terraform, Pulumi, and Ansible whenever your IaC files change. There’s no need to build complex CI/CD pipelines manually or bring your own infrastructure state management solutions.
Spacelift is designed to unify all infrastructure provisioning, configuration, and governance tasks. Policy-as-code support lets you enforce security and compliance requirements, while flexible multi-tenancy and self-service features empower your whole team to interact with infrastructure. You can centralize all your infrastructure processes to improve reliability.
Key Spacelift features
- Automates IaC and infrastructure management processes
- Works with popular IaC tools and cloud providers
- Centralized visibility into deployed infrastructure
- Policy-as-code capabilities enforce security and compliance requirements
- Enables safe self-service infrastructure access
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
GitLab is specifically designed as an all-in-one DevOps platform. Its features include Git repository hosting, CI/CD pipelines, a package registry, integrated security scans, and automated deployments to Kubernetes clusters.
GitLab can be self-hosted or accessed as a SaaS service. Its Community Edition is fully open-source, while its paid premium plans add advanced security and compliance capabilities for enterprises. You can use GitLab to unify every part of your software delivery process, but some of its wide-ranging features remain relatively underdeveloped.
Key GitLab features
- Git repository hosting and collaboration
- Powerful project management features
- Built-in CI/CD system
- Integrates with Kubernetes
- Advanced security and compliance controls on paid plans
Price: Free tier available; paid plans for enhanced features
Website: https://about.gitlab.com/
Use case example: How to manage Terraform state with GitLab
GitHub is one of the most popular DevOps platforms. In addition to its lauded Git repository hosting and project management features, it includes a modular CI/CD system and automated security scanning capabilities.
The platform also supports cloud development environments, so you can run your whole development process without leaving your browser.
Key GitHub Features
- Git repository hosting and project management
- GitHub Actions CI/CD system
- CodeSpaces cloud development environments
- Automated project security scans
- Huge selection of community integrations
Price/License: Free for public repositories; paid plans for private repositories
Website: https://github.com
Use case example: How to manage and scale Terraform with GitHub Actions
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a comprehensive cloud platform that offers infrastructure, application, and DevOps services to support scalable, automated software delivery. As a DevOps platform, AWS provides tightly integrated tools for infrastructure provisioning, continuous integration/deployment, monitoring, and security, allowing teams to build, release, and manage applications at speed.
AWS’s modular approach enables teams to build custom DevOps workflows by choosing from services like CodePipeline, CloudFormation, Lambda, CloudWatch, and EventBridge. AWS also supports popular third-party tools, making it a flexible foundation for cloud-native or hybrid DevOps environments.
Key AWS features
- Native CI/CD services: CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodePipeline, and CodeCatalyst
- Infrastructure as code with CloudFormation and CDK
- Monitoring and logging via CloudWatch, X-Ray, and CloudTrail
- Deep integration with tools like GitHub, Jenkins, Terraform, and Kubernetes
Price/License: Pay-as-you-go pricing per service; free tier available for many tools with usage limits
Website: https://aws.amazon.com/
Use case example: How to Use AWS for Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Codefresh is a managed continuous delivery and deployment platform for Kubernetes. It provides an automated abstraction layer around Argo CD that makes it easier to operate your apps at scale. You can add multiple environments, promote releases between them, and use canary or blue-green rollout strategies to improve deployment resilience.
Key Codefresh features
- Kubernetes-native tool powered by Argo CD
- GitOps-based app delivery and deployment
- Automates the release stage of your DevOps lifecycle
- Closely integrates with other popular DevOps platforms
- Progressive deployment strategies (canary/blue-green)
Pricing/License: Free plan for up to five developers; Paid plans for additional features
Website: https://codefresh.io/
Kubernetes is a leading container orchestration platform. It is purpose-built to automate the process of deploying, scaling, and managing containerized workloads. Kubernetes is often used to operate apps in production, but it can also be used for other parts of the DevOps lifecycle, such as running your CI/CD jobs.
Kubernetes is a flexible system with built-in RBAC, security, and networking controls. You can also extend the platform with custom resource types, controllers, and plugins to model your own DevOps processes.
Key Kubernetes features
- Deploy, scale, and manage containers
- Available as a fully-managed service from public cloud providers
- Versatile container operations platform with an extensible object model
- Widely supported by other DevOps tools and platforms
- Supports multi-tenant usage
Price: Free (Open-source)
Website: https://kubernetes.io/
Use case examples: Kubernetes Multi-Cloud Multi-Cluster Strategy
Octopus Deploy is a continuous delivery platform that automates deployments to various infrastructure types. It supports cloud environments, on-premises systems, and Kubernetes workloads. The platform handles the entire deployment process for you, eliminating the need to manually connect different CI services, deployment pipelines, and cloud providers.
Precise access control and encryption features allow you to secure your deployments, while real-time dashboards provide clear visibility into release activity. You can also automate processes using repeatable runbooks, ensuring maintenance and recovery operations are always ready for any team member to run.
Key Octopus Deploy features
- Unifies integration, delivery, and deployment tasks
- Works with multiple cloud environments and infrastructure types
- Repeatable process runbooks automate your DevOps workflows.
- Visual dashboards provide clear visibility into deployment activity.
- Advanced security and compliance controls
Price/license: Free tier available (1 project, 5 targets); paid subscription for more users and features
Website: https://octopus.com
HCP Terraform (previously known as Terraform Cloud) is a cloud-based infrastructure management platform based on the Terraform IaC tool. The platform automates running Terraform after you commit changes to your IaC repositories. It simplifies GitOps-powered Terraform workflows by managing your Terraform state, integrating with cloud providers, and providing security controls.
Key Terraform Cloud features
- Automates Terraform workflows using GitOps
- Integrates with cloud providers
- Stores and manages Terraform state files
- Policy-based governance controls
- Supports RBAC and audit logging for continual compliance
Price/License: Free for up to 500 resources per month; paid plans for advanced features, team management, and enterprise support.
Website: https://www.hashicorp.com/en/products/terraform
Use case example: Terraform Cloud – Overview, Key Features & Tutorial
CloudBees is a cloud-based continuous integration and delivery system built upon the popular Jenkins automation server. It provides a managed Jenkins experience designed for scalability, performance, and ease of use.
The platform also offers cloud-native deployment capabilities and hybrid cloud orchestration. Other services in the CloudBees suite cover testing and security workflows.
Key CloudBees features
- Managed Jenkins infrastructure for continuous integration and delivery
- Automates code delivery to multiple infrastructure types
- Integrated policy-based security and compliance controls
- Captures metrics data throughout the DevOps loop
- Supports data-driven test case prioritization
Price/License: Tailored for enterprise use with advanced CI/CD features and support
Website: https://www.cloudbees.com
Jenkins is an open-source automation server widely used as a DevOps platform for building, testing, and deploying software. It provides a flexible foundation for implementing CI/CD pipelines, with support for custom workflows, integration across tools, and a vast plugin ecosystem.
Jenkins can be extended to manage infrastructure automation, policy enforcement, and multi-stage delivery pipelines.
Although it requires manual setup and maintenance, Jenkins offers deep control over pipeline logic and is highly customizable, making it a core DevOps solution for teams operating across hybrid or multicloud environments, including AWS.
Key Jenkins features
- Scripted and declarative pipelines for full CI/CD automation
- Over 1,800 plugins for SCM, testing, deployment, and IaC tools
- Integration with Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS, and more
- Self-hosted with support for distributed builds and custom agents
Price/license: Free (open-source)
Website: https://www.jenkins.io/
Use case example: How to Manage Terraform with Jenkins
Datadog is a cloud-native observability platform that acts as a core component in many DevOps toolchains. It unifies infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM), logging, and security insights in a single platform, enabling teams to track system health, detect issues, and correlate events across their stack in real time.
Datadog helps bridge development and operations by providing visibility across environments and services. It integrates seamlessly with CI/CD tools, cloud providers like AWS and Azure, and container platforms such as Kubernetes and ECS.
Key Datadog features
- Unified dashboards for metrics, logs, traces, and security signals
- 600+ integrations, including AWS, Jenkins, Docker, GitHub, and Kubernetes
- Real-time alerting, anomaly detection, and SLO monitoring
- Native support for CI visibility and deployment tracking
Price/License: Free tier available with limited features and data retention; paid plans with usage-based pricing
Website: https://www.datadoghq.com
Use case example: How to manage Datadog with Terraform
Devtron is a platform that automates Kubernetes operations. It’s designed to simplify DevOps processes by unifying cluster management and app deployment tasks in one interface.
Developers can use Devtron to deliver workloads directly to Kubernetes, without needing direct cluster access or any complex Kubectl commands.
Devtron supports multi-cluster architectures, GitOps-powered deployment workflows, and automated troubleshooting and debugging prompts that help DevOps teams efficiently diagnose problems.
Key Devtron features
- Simplifies Kubernetes management and operations
- Integrated support for GitOps-based deployments
- Provides visibility into active cluster resources
- Assisted troubleshooting and debugging features guide developers towards fixes
- Promotes collaboration between developers, operators, and infrastructure teams
Price/License: Free and open source; paid enterprise plans available for advanced support and features
Website: https://devtron.ai
Copado is a DevOps platform that’s purpose-built for Salesforce environments. It simplifies Salesforce development and release processes by combining project management, CI/CD, testing, and security tasks in one integrated solution.
With Copado, you can use both low-code and pro-code development, ensuring flexibility in your work. Copado also integrates with other popular DevOps tools and platforms, so you can easily scale your Salesforce projects.
Key Copado features
- Integrated DevOps platform for Salesforce development
- Built-in CI/CD pipelines and testing tools
- Compatible with low-code and pro-code development models
- Provides detailed visibility into Salesforce release activity
- Designed for enterprise use
Price/License: Paid plans with custom pricing tailored for Salesforce DevOps and enterprise needs
Website: https://www.copado.com
Red Hat OpenShift is a Kubernetes-based application deployment platform for operating cloud workloads at scale. It builds upon Kubernetes’ capabilities by adding a suite of fully integrated continuous delivery tools and services.
OpenShift natively supports GitOps-based deployments, includes a built-in CI/CD solution, and can run serverless functions via Knative. It provides a user-friendly experience, including a powerful web UI and CLI.
Available in both cloud-hosted and self-managed flavors, OpenShift makes Kubernetes more accessible to developers while layering additional security, compliance, and governance capabilities designed to meet enterprise requirements.
Key Red Hat OpenShift features
- Managed, developer-friendly Kubernetes distribution
- Designed to offer enterprise-grade scalability and security
- Integrated CI/CD system powered by Jenkins
- Fully-featured user interface simplifies visibility and control
- Supports automated GitOps-powered deployments
Price/License: Paid plans with subscription-based pricing
Website: https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/cloud-computing/openshift
Read more: OpenShift vs. Kubernetes: Product & Project Comparison
Azure DevOps is Microsoft’s platform for operating end-to-end DevOps processes. It includes features for Git repository hosting, project management, and CI/CD so you can manage your entire software delivery workflow using one solution.
Although positioned as part of Azure, the platform also integrates with other major cloud providers and popular deployment targets such as Kubernetes.
Over 1,000 community extensions provide additional features for specific use cases, but you can also write your own to implement custom platform functionality.
Key Azure DevOps features
- Versatile Git hosting and project management capabilities
- Integrated CI/CD system
- Automates security scans for key vulnerability types
- Includes package registries to store your software artifacts
- Supports community and custom extensions
Price/License: Free for up to five users with basic features; paid plans for additional users, advanced services, and enterprise capabilities
Website: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/devops
Use case example: Terraform with Azure DevOps CI/CD Pipelines – Tutorial
Bitbucket is an Atlassian platform that consolidates code development and CI/CD tasks. It’s designed to support collaboration between DevOps team members by creating a unified code development toolchain.
The platform directly integrates with other Atlassian services, including Jira and Confluence, enabling seamless information-sharing as changes move between DevOps stages. It also offers automated security vulnerability scans and policy-based compliance controls to enforce your internal operational requirements.
Key Bitbucket features
- Unified Git repository hosting and CI/CD
- Tight integration with other Atlassian services
- Granular security and compliance controls
- Designed for the needs of developers and other stakeholders
- Clear visibility into workflow activity
Pricing/License: Free for up to 5 users with unlimited private/public repos; paid plans for larger teams and extra features.
Website: https://bitbucket.org
Here are some other notable options:
- Nagios – Nagios is an open-source monitoring system that provides alerting and visibility for servers, services, and network infrastructure. It’s often used in DevOps pipelines to track uptime, system health, and critical failures across hybrid environments. It is more manual than modern cloud-native tools, but it remains a core option for on-prem and legacy system monitoring.
- Qovery – Qovery is a platform that automates the deployment of applications to AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure using a developer-friendly interface. It abstracts away infrastructure complexity and integrates with CI/CD systems, making it easy to provision environments and scale services with minimal configuration. It’s commonly used by teams who want DevOps automation without managing infrastructure directly.
- Docker Hub – Docker Hub is a hosted registry for container images, enabling teams to share, store, and distribute application artifacts. It integrates directly with CI/CD pipelines and supports automated builds from Git repositories. As part of a DevOps workflow, it serves as a central image source for development, testing, and production environments.
- New Relic – New Relic offers a full-stack observability platform that supports application monitoring, infrastructure telemetry, and distributed tracing. Its integrations with cloud providers and CI/CD tools help DevOps teams track system performance, deployment impact, and user experience in real time. This platform is especially useful for correlating application-level insights with underlying infrastructure behavior.
- CircleCI – CircleCI is a CI/CD platform that automates the build, test, and deployment process across cloud and containerized environments. It supports native Docker workflows, parallelism, and reusable configuration, making it well-suited for teams scaling rapid delivery pipelines. With integrations for AWS, Kubernetes, and IaC tools, it fits naturally into modern DevOps stacks.
Need a recap of what to look for in a DevOps platform? Here’s a quick list of the key capabilities you’ll find in different solutions.
- Source control management: These features store your Git repositories and enable collaboration using pull requests and project management systems.
- CI/CD pipeline automation: Continuous integration and delivery features let you automatically build, test, and deploy your code when you make new commits.
- Compatibility with GitOps workflows: Most DevOps platforms support GitOps-based workflows, which allow you to manage deployments and configuration declaratively using files in a Git repository.
- IaC and infrastructure management: DevOps tools with IaC management features let you provision and govern your infrastructure using processes similar to those used for code development.
- Observability and analytics capabilities: Effective DevOps platforms should provide clear visibility into deployments, infrastructure, and DevOps productivity.
- Robust security and governance controls: Look for integrated security, governance, and compliance controls such as RBAC, audit logs, and policy as code to keep your workflows secure. Many DevOps platforms also automate key security tasks, such as running container vulnerability scans.
- Multicloud, hybrid cloud, and container orchestration: Platforms that natively support multicloud operations or integrate with container orchestration systems like Kubernetes, can improve your software delivery flexibility.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of DevOps platform features. Some solutions like GitLab and GitHub are packed with capabilities designed to accommodate the entire software delivery lifecycle, but this means they can sometimes lack depth in the areas you’re most interested in.
Conversely, platforms such as Spacelift and Devtron provide more granular controls for specific DevOps tasks and stages.
DevOps platforms simplify the entire software development lifecycle by unifying processes that used to be spread across different tools. They automate key software delivery workflows, from code integration to infrastructure management and observability. This tightens feedback loops and drives ongoing process improvements.
You should evaluate different DevOps platforms to find the right combination for your projects.
Some teams find success with an all-in-one solution, but this isn’t always the best option. It can be more effective to stack a few complementary platforms, such as GitLab for source control and CI/CD, Kubernetes for deployments, and Spacelift for your infrastructure operations. This lets you optimally balance flexibility and convenience for each DevOps stage.
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.
