90+ Best DevOps Tools [Updated for 2023]

If you want to know about the best DevOps tools in one place, then you’ll love this (updated) listicle.

As DevOps engineers, it is very important to know about the DevOps tools landscape. Each project has different requirements and the right set of tools should be used for a better DevOps implementation.

I have organized the tools under different categories. Also don’t feel overwhelmed with 90+ tools. DevOps teams use only select tools under each category and tool selection is based on the organization’s requirements.

Also, as a DevOps engineer myself, I keep updating the list based on my learnings, tools’ popularity, and community adoption.

List of Best DevOps Tools

Before diving deep into individual tools, let’s look at our top choices in different tool categories. These top choices are based on open-source/Free, popularity, community adoption, and support.

Tool Category	Best DevOps Tools
Code Build	Maven, npm & Gradle
Code Quality and Analysis	Sonarqube
Continuous Integration	Jenkins, Github Actions & Gitlab CI
Continuous Delivery & GitOps	Jenkins, FluxCD (GitOps), ArgoCD (GitOps)
Artifact Management	Sonatype Nexus, Artifactory
Infrastructure Provisioning	Terraform & Pulumi
Configuration Management	Ansible & Chef
Logging	ELK stack & Grafana Loki
Monitoring & Observability	Prometheus, Thanos and Grafana
Secret Management	Hashicorp Vault
Container Orchestration	Kubernetes
Service Mesh	Istio
Security	Aqua Security
Multi Cloud Management	Crossplane
Cloud Cost Management	Infracost, Kubecost (k8s)
Platform Engineering	Backstage
eBPF	Cilium, Falco, Calico

Now let’s have a look at the different tools in each category in detail.

Development Tools

First I want to add the best development tools to the devops tools list. Because I strongly believe a good development environment is a basic need for a developer or a devops engineer.

It is important to maintain developer environments without inconsistencies in terms of software configurations and versions. And most importantly, the environment should be reproducible in minutes in case of a laptop crash. This could be achieved using the following tools which increase developer productivity as well as maintain reproducible and consistent environments across developers.

1. Virtual Box [Open Source – VM management]
2. Qemu [Open Source – VM management]
3. Vagrant [Open Source – VM management]
4. Docker Desktop [Open Source – Container Management]
5. Minikube [Open Source- Container Management]
6. Minishift [Open Source – Container Management]
7. Podman Desktop [Open Source – Container Management]

Source Code Management

In the DevOps world, everything is treated as code (Eg, code, shell script. configurations, etc..). So it is a must to have robust source code management tools. We have the following list of tools for you.

1. Github [Free & Paid]
2. Bitbucket [Free & Paid]
3. Gitlab [Free & Paid]
4. AWS CodeCommit [Free & Paid]
5. Azure Repos [Free & Paid]
6. Google Cloud Source Repositories [Free & Paid]

Build Tools

Build tools are essential for any software development process to automate package creation or a deployable artifact. Following are the top build tools.

1. Maven (Java) [Open Source]
2. Gradle (Java, Kotlin, Groovy, Scala, Python, C++) [Free & Paid]
3. npm [Javascript]
4. Rake (Ruby) [Open Source]
5. MSBuild (.Net) [Open Source]
6. Pybuilder (Python) [Open Source]

Continuous Integration Tools

Continuous Integration is an essential part of SDLC. This capability gives continuous feedback on code integrations for the stakeholders and developers. This helps in solving the issues faster and decreases the time in software release cycles. The following are the best continuous integration tools.

1. Jenkins [Open Source]
2. Github Actions [Free & Enterprise]
3. Gitlab CI [Free & Enterprise]
4. Bamboo [Free & Enterprise]
5. Travis CI [Open Source]
6. TeamCity [Free & Enterprise]
7. Circle CI [Free & Enterprise]
8. Drone CI [Free & Enterprise]

Each CI tool has its unique features and capabilities, so it’s important to choose the one that best fits your needs and requirements.

Artifact Management Tools

Any code/binary that has to be deployed into production should be stored and versioned in a central location. For this, we can make use of dedicated repositories that are specifically made for this purpose. Here is our list of tools.

1. Nexus [Free & Enterprise]
2. Jfrog Artifactory [Enterprise]
3. npm [Free]
4. Nuget [.Net] [Free]

Code Analysis Tool

Code analysis tools should be in your devops tools list. It helps in identifying possible issues in the code prior to deployment, enabling developers to modify and enhance the software’s quality.

There are two types of code analysis.

1. Static Analysis (SAST) – scan source code for issues like bugs, security vulnerabilities, and quality problems without running the code
2. Dynamic Analysis (DAST) – run the code to detect performance issues and incorrect behavior

Following are the tools.

1. Sonarqube [Free & Enterprise]
2. Checkmarx [Enterprise]
3. PMD (Open Source)

Continuous Delivery & GitOps Tools

There are lots of tools in the market labeled as “Continuous Delivery tools”. As a matter of fact, there is no tool for continuous delivery because it is just an approach. But you can make use of a few process-oriented tools to achieve continuous delivery for your projects.

1. Jenkins [Open Source]
2. Argo CD [Open Source]
3. Flux CD [Open Source]
4. Go CD [Open Source]
5. Gitlab CD [Enterprise]
6. Weave GitOps [Enterprise]
7. Jenkins X [Open Source]
8. Tekton [Open Soruce]

Infrastructure Provisioning Tools

Infrastructure provisioning tools are used to automate the provisioning of computing infrastructure, including virtual machines, networks, storage, and other cloud resources. This ensures there are no repetitive tasks in terms of infrastructure provisioning. Here are some of the most popular infrastructure provisioning tools most Devops teams use.

1. Terraform [Open Source & Enterprise]
2. Pulumi [Open Source & Enterprise]
3. CloudFormation (AWS Service)
4. Azure Resource Manager (Azure Service)

Configuration Management Tools

Configuration management tools play an important role in every application and infrastructure deployment. It helps you manage the state of servers and applications and automated every configuration in an idempotent way. The following are the popular configuration management tools used by the operations team in most organizations.

1. Ansible [Open Source & Enterprise]
2. Chef [Open Source & Enterprise]
3. Puppet [Open Source & Enterprise]
4. Saltstack [Open Source & Enterprise]

Secret Management Tools

Be it on-premise or cloud environments, efficient secret management is a must-have for any DevOps team. DevOps automation tools can integrate with secret management tools to handle secrets in runtime.

Secret management within a DevSecOps framework should adopt Least Privilege Access, Regular secret Rotation, Encryption, secure storage, Audit, and Monitoring, Immutable Secrets, etc. You can implement this framework using the following tools.

1. Hashicorp Vault [Open Source & Enterprise]
2. External Secrets Operator (k8s) (Open source)
3. AWS Secrets Manager [AWS Cloud Service]
4. Google Cloud Secrets Manager [GCP Service]
5. Azure Key Vault [Azure Cloud Service]
6. CyberArk Conjur [Open source]
7. Sealed Secrets (k8s) [Open Source]
8. Kamus [Open Source]

Note: While choosing a secret management tool, discuss with the organization’s security team regarding security compliance.

Config/ Service Discovery Tools

1. Consul [Open Source & Enterprise]
2. Etcd [Open Source]

Containerization Tools

1. Docker [Open Source & Enterprise]
2. Podman [Open Soruce]
3. Buildah [Open Source]

Container Orchestration Tools

With the vast adoption of  Docker, clustering, and orchestration tools like Kubernetes have become the pillar of many microservices-based deployments. The following are the best tools that are being used by many organizations.

1. Kubernetes [Open Source]
2. Openshift [Open Source & Enterprise]
3. Nomad [Open Source & Enterprise]

Container Security Tools

1. Docker bench [Open Source]
2. Clair [Open Source]
3. Anchore Engine [Open Source]
4. Aquasec [Enterprise]
5. Notary – [Open Source]
6. Falco [Open Source]
7. Trivy [Open Source]

Policy Management Tools

1. Open Policy Agent [Open Source]
2. Kyverno [Open Source]
3. Cloud Custodian [Open Source]

Service Mesh Tools:

1. Istio [Open Source]
2. Linkerd [Open Source & Enterprise]
3. Cilium Service Mesh

Logging Tools

For any production environment, logging and monitoring for infrastructure & application components are a must-have to avoid system failures and application downtime. When it comes to monitoring, we have app-based and infra-based monitoring solutions. Here is the list of tools you could use for your projects.

1. ELK Stack [Open Source & Enterprise]
2. Grafna Loki [Open Source and Enterprise]
3. Fluentd [Open Source]
4. Graylog [Open Source & Enterprise]
5. logz.io [Enterprise]
6. Splunk [Enterprise]
7. Syslog-ng [Enterprise]

Monitoring & Observability Tools

Monitoring & observability are the key pillars of any organization. Enterprise-level Observability tools use AI and machine learning for Anomaly Detection, Predictive Maintenance, Root Cause Analysis, Enhanced Visualization and Insights, Security Monitoring, etc.

Follow are the key tools in the monitoring and Observability space.

1. Prometheus [Open Source]
2. Thanos [Highly Available Prometheus Open Source Tool]
3. Cilium -eBPF-based Networking, Security, and Observability [Open Source & Enterprise]
4. Falco – Cloud Native Runtime Security [Open Source & Enterprise]
5. Calico – Pluggable eBPF-based networking and security for containers and Kubernetes [Open Source & Enterprise]
6. Sensu [Open Source & Enterprise]
7. Riemann [Open Source]
8. Nagios [Free & Enterprise]
9. Zabbix [Open Source & Enterprise]
10. Data Dog [Enterprise]
11. New Relic [Enterprise]
12. App Dynamics [Enterprise]
13. Sumologic [Enterprise]
14. Dynatrace [Enterprise]

Visualization Tools

1. Grafana [Open Source & Enterprise]
2. Kibana [Open Source & Enterprise]
3. Tableau [Enterprise]

Internal Developer Platform Tools

Platform engineering is becoming a core part of every organization that wants to adopt DevOps. Internal developer platforms or IDP tools play a key part in platform engineering. The following are the key tools that can be used for IDP.

1. Backstage.io by Spotify [Open Source]
2. Port.io [Free & Enterprise]
3. Configure8 [Free & Paid]
4. Cortex [Enterprise]
5. Opslevel [Enterprise]

Collaboration Tools

The following are the collaboration tools that you could use in your DevOps toolchain. These tools support both messaging and video calling.

1. Slack [Free & Paid]
2. Cisco Webex teams [Free & Paid]
3. Flock [Free & Paid]
4. Google Hangouts [Free & Paid]
5. Flow Dock [Paid]

Planning & Project Management Tools

Following are the planning tools that you could use in your DevOps toolchain.

1. Jira (Free/Paid)
2. Trello (Free/Paid)
3. Asana (Free/Paid)
4. Backlog.com (Free/Paid)
5. Monday.com (Paid)

API Tools

1. Postman [Free & Enterprise]
2. hopscotch [Open Source]
3. SoapUI [Open Source & Enterprise]
4. Swagger [Open Source & Enterprise]

IDE Tools

1. Visual Studio Code [Free]
2. Sublime Editor [Free]
3. Notepad++ [Free]

Bug/Issue Tracking Tools

Bug and issue-tracking tools are a must for any team dealing with code. Here is the list of tools you might want to have a look at.

1. Backlog [Free & Paid]
2. Bugzilla [Open Source]
3. Jira [Free & Paid]
4. Lean testing [Free]
5. Mantis [Free]

Test Automation/Performance Testing Tools

Another important pillar in CI/CD pipeline is test automation tools. The following are the automation/performance testing tools that top our list.

1. Selenium
2. UFT
3. Appium
4. Jmeter
5. Blazemeter

How to Choose a DevOps Tool

Choosing a DevOps tool is not an easy task, as there are many tools available in the market with different capabilities and features. Here are some key factors we think you should consider when choosing a DevOps tool

1. Project Requirements: Understand what specific tasks you need the tool to perform. For example, if you need continuous integration and delivery, you may want to look for a tool that supports those features out of the box.
2. Scalability: It should be able to scale as per your project requirements
3. Integration: Ensure that the tool integrates well with your existing tools and public/private cloud infrastructure.
4. Usability: Choose a tool that is easy to use and requires minimal training for the team. It should have a user-friendly interface, good documentation, and community support.
5. Security: Security is paramount in DevOps, so look for a tool that has strong security features like access control, encryption, and authentication.
6. Budget: Consider the cost of the tool and the infrastructure cost to run the tool. Evaluate the tool’s value against its price, and determine if it fits within your budget.

Conclusion

In this article, I have covered the best DevOps tools that could be used for your DevOps toolchain to achieve faster results and automate the whole infrastructure.

With massive DevOps adoption in the IT industry, the DevOps tools list has also increased. Most tools fall under the open-source category. Also, with many applications joining the cloud native foundation, the devops tools adoption is increasing day by day.

There is no single magical tool that fits all the needs of DevOps. It’s about using the right tools that match your environment, team, and application.

To achieve a continuous process right from development to deployment you need to use choose between various tools available in the market.

You should be careful in choosing a tool for your DevOps pipeline by analyzing the team members and the amount of time it requires for the team members to learn and master it.

For example, If your application is made of Python and you have a huge infrastructure for your application, it is always better to choose Chef over other configuration management tools because developers will be more flexible in using a Python-based tool.

So it is not mandatory then you should use a particular DevOps tool just because it is being used by many organizations.

If you think that we missed an awesome tool, please share it in the comments section. We will update the article as soon as possible.