Best DevOps Tools for Each Stage of Development

Ever feel like managing your software development projects is a never-ending juggling act? You aren't alone. The right tools can simplify your processes and keep everything running smoothly.

DevOps is revolutionising software development — and it’s no wonder why. By blending development and operations, this evolved agile methodology builds collaboration, simplifies workflows and transforms how we build and deliver software. With these cultural shifts, DevOps has introduced a new wave of tools to support its principles.

But with so many options available, how do you choose the right one for your organisation? DevOps focuses on collaboration, automation and efficiency, improving every phase of the software lifecycle — from planning and coding to deployment and monitoring.

The best DevOps tools support these goals and each stage of the process. Let’s dive into top-rated DevOps tools, exploring their features and benefits to help you to automate your workflows and maximise productivity.

DevOps focuses on collaboration, automation and efficiency, improving every phase of the software lifecycle — from planning and coding to deployment and monitoring. The best DevOps tools support these goals and each stage of the process.

Effective planning is the foundation of any successful DevOps project. It involves breaking tasks into manageable pieces and establishing communication channels early on.

By setting clear objectives and creating a roadmap, teams can navigate the complexities of development with confidence. Here are some of the best tools for planning:

• Jira: This tool helps teams plan, track and manage software and enterprise app development projects. Its customisable workflows and agile boards make sure that every task is visible and progress is tracked without a hitch. Teams can easily monitor the status of their work and adapt to changes swiftly.
• Confluence: Acting as a collaborative workspace, Confluence allows teams to create, share and manage project documentation. Its integration with Jira provides seamless project management so that teams have a central hub for all project-related information.
• Slack: With live communication, Slack offers channels for different projects and integrates with various DevOps tools. This keeps team members connected and informed for quick decision-making and problem-solving.

These tools simplify setting goals, defining tasks and fostering ongoing communication throughout the development process. They enable teams to adapt as projects evolve, ensuring a strong start for the DevOps lifecycle.

After planning, the next phase is coding. This stage involves writing, managing and reviewing code efficiently while maintaining high-quality. The right tools can simplify collaboration and ensure code stays reliable. Here are some standout coding tools:

• Bitbucket: A version control tool supporting Git and Mercurial. It offers features like code reviews and repository management, with Jira integration for linking code to project tasks.
• GitHub: A leading platform for hosting and reviewing code. GitHub's pull requests, issue tracking and collaborative environment enhance teamwork and maintain code quality.
• GitLab: A comprehensive DevOps platform that includes source code management, CI/CD and monitoring. It automates builds and deployments, improving code quality and delivery speed.

These tools simplify version control and collaborative coding, promoting best practices and efficiency across teams.

Building tools turn code into functional applications by automating tasks like compiling code, managing dependencies and creating build artefacts. Consider these top tools for building:

• Jenkins: An open-source automation server that handles building, deploying and automating projects. Jenkins integrates with various DevOps tools through plugins, automating repetitive tasks to ensure consistent builds.
• Docker: Simplifies application building through containerisation. Docker packages applications and their dependencies, ensuring consistency across development, testing and production environments.
• Kubernetes: A container orchestration platform that manages large-scale deployments, automating processes like scaling and updates.

By incorporating these tools, teams can create reliable builds with reduced errors, setting the stage for deployment.

Testing ensures your code meets quality standards before deployment. Automated testing tools catch issues early, improving reliability. Check out these testing DevOps tools:

• Selenium: An open-source tool for automating browser testing. Selenium supports multiple programming languages and handles functional and regression testing with ease.
• JUnit: A widely-used testing framework for Java applications. It provides annotations and assertions to help write and run repeatable tests. JUnit's integration with IDEs and build tools like Maven and Gradle makes it an essential tool for Java developers to ensure their code works as expected.
• Jenkins: Known primarily as a CI/CD tool, Jenkins also excels in automating testing processes. By integrating with various testing frameworks and tools, Jenkins facilitates continuous testing, making sure that code changes are automatically tested before merging. This integration helps maintain code quality and catch issues early.

These tools help you to automate testing, maintain code integrity and avoid costly bugs down the line.

The release phase prepares applications for production, ensuring code is ready for users. Here are some reliable release tools:

• Jenkins: That’s right — Jenkins , widely known for its DevOps automation capabilities, also excels in continuous integration and delivery. It can automate the entire release process, from packaging to deployment, making sure that code is consistently built and tested. Jenkins' extensive plugin ecosystem allows integration with numerous tools, making it all the more flexible.
• CircleCI: Automates the continuous integration and delivery pipeline, allowing teams to build, test and deploy applications with confidence. Its fast performance and integrations make it a favourite among development teams. CircleCI provides detailed insights into build processes to identify and resolve issues quickly.
• AWS CodePipeline: A fully managed continuous delivery service that helps automate release of DevOps pipelines for fast and reliable application and infrastructure updates. It integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, too, which is great for preparing for deployment.

By automating the release process, these tools minimise risks and ensure a smooth transition to production.

Deployment tools manage the process of releasing applications into live environments. They reduce downtime and streamline the transition from development to production. Some top deployment tools include:

• Kubernetes: Another multi-functional tool that automates the deployment, scaling and management of containerised applications. It ensures that applications run consistently across different environments, providing high availability and growth capacity. Kubernetes is ideal for managing complex deployments and orchestrating large-scale applications.
• Docker: Great for building and deployment. It simplifies the deployment process by allowing developers to package applications and their dependencies into containers. These containers run consistently on any environment, from a developer’s laptop to a production server. Docker 's portability and efficiency make it a cornerstone of modern deployment strategies.
• Ansible: An open-source automation tool that provides simple, agentless deployment. It uses playbooks to define automation tasks, making it easy to manage configurations and deployments. Ansible 's straightforward approach reduces complexity so that deployments are repeatable and reliable.

Using these tools ensures that applications are deployed reliably and perform well in production.

Operating tools are essential for managing and maintaining applications in a production environment. These tools help ensure that your application runs smoothly, remains secure and delivers a high-quality user experience. Some of the best operating tools for this DevOps phase include:

• Jira Service Management: Helps manage service requests, incidents and changes. It helps your team track and resolve issues quickly and keeps everyone operating at the highest standards.
• Opsgenie: An incident management tool that provides alerts and on-call scheduling. It helps teams respond to incidents quickly, reducing downtime and ensuring continuous operation.
• PagerDuty: A popular incident response platform that helps manage on-call schedules and alerts. It integrates with various monitoring tools to provide current incident notifications and resolution workflows, so issues are addressed promptly.

These DevOps tools are crucial for maintaining the health and performance of your applications. By incorporating these operating tools into your workflow, you can proactively manage your infrastructure and respond to issues before they affect users.

Monitoring tools track application performance and health, providing insights to prevent issues and improve reliability. Consider these DevOps tools for monitoring systems:

• Nagios: A powerful DevOps monitoring tool that helps you to keep an eye on your network, systems and applications. It provides comprehensive monitoring capabilities, including alerting, reporting and visualisation. Nagios helps detect complications before they affect end-users, so your software is always running with high availability and performance.
• Prometheus: An open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit designed for reliability and growth. It collects and shops DevOps metrics, allowing you to monitor your applications and infrastructure instantaneously. Prometheus ' powerful querying language and integration with Grafana for visualisation make it a popular choice for operating environments.
• Datadog: Offers monitoring and analytics for cloud-scale applications, providing insights into application performance, infrastructure and logs. It integrates with various services and DevOps platforms, giving you a thorough view of your entire stack. Datadog ’s detailed dashboards and alerting capabilities help you to identify and resolve issues quickly.

These tools provide visibility into application health, ensuring smooth operation and user satisfaction.

Gathering feedback is essential for continuous improvement and ensuring that your application meets user needs. Feedback tools help collect, analyse and act on user input, making it easier to refine and enhance your software. To create strong feedback systems, you can use tools like these:

• GetFeedback: Allows teams to create engaging surveys and collect user feedback seamlessly. Its integration with Salesforce makes it easy to capture and analyse responses directly within your CRM. You can customise surveys to match your brand, distribute them through multiple channels and use the feedback to improve customer experiences and satisfaction.
• Pendo: Provides deep insights into user behaviour and collects feedback directly within your application. This tool helps you to understand how users interact with your software, identify which features they value most and uncover areas needing improvement. Pendo also offers in-app messaging and guides, helping you to ask for feedback within context and provide support where needed.
• SurveyMonkey: Offers a versatile platform for creating and distributing surveys. It provides robust analytics and reporting features, making it easy to analyse feedback and identify trends. SurveyMonkey ’s integrations with various tools help make the feedback process instantly accessible, which helps you to act on insights quickly. With customisable templates and question types, you can design surveys that meet specific needs and gather actionable data.

With tools like these, you can make sure that your application evolves in line with user needs, improving overall user satisfaction.

Explore a suite of DevOps tools designed to make development as simple and useful as possible — especially when it comes to collaboration and high-quality releases. These tools offer numerous DevOps benefits, making them indispensable for modern development teams. Consider these alternatives:

• With Salesforce DX (Developer experience), you can develop and manage customised apps on Salesforce across their entire life cycle. Explore developer tools, set up your development environment and achieve new levels of agility. Salesforce DX also provides version control, making it easier to manage and track changes across teams.
• Heroku is a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that simplifies application deployment and scaling. Integrated with Salesforce, it supports multiple programming languages and provides a seamless deployment pipeline. With Heroku, developers can deploy, manage and scale applications quickly, reducing operational overhead.
• The Salesforce Command Line Interface (CLI) provides a unified way to interact with Salesforce orgs. It simplifies tasks like metadata management, data loading and automation of development workflows. The CLI enhances efficiency and consistency in managing Salesforce environments.

Salesforce’s DevOps Centre offers the simplest way to jumpstart your DevOps journey. It seamlessly integrates with these tools and more, helping you to optimise your development process for greater compliance, enhanced product quality and faster delivery.

Check out the comprehensive DevOps guide to get the most out of your DevOps tools. Discover process templates you can easily duplicate and incorporate into your workflow, making your development process even more efficient.