The traditional separation between software development teams and information technology operations teams once caused many problems throughout the production process. Then came the idea of DevOps, which has its roots in the Agile methodology and integrates the two teams to improve collaboration and productivity. There are actually many different definitions of the term “DevOps,” and the concepts behind it are multilayered. But most will agree at least that continuity and automation are big parts of DevOps, and certain DevOps tools help team members ensure that those two elements will be implemented as efficiently as possible. Of course, your organization’s specific needs will determine which tools are best for you, but here are what many consider to be the top DevOps tools.
Here is the List of Best DevOps Tools
- DockerIn the top order of DevOps tools,Docker is the most popular and most commonly used DevOps tool by the DevOps Engineers. Docker is a Linux-based open-source platform that focuses on containers, meaning you package up the software with its dependencies and ship everything together as a unit—no need to worry about managing dependencies separately. It’s portable and highly secure, you can use any language with it, and it integrates well with a number of other tools, such as Jenkins, Ansible, and Bamboo. Research firm Forrester cited Docker as a leader in the enterprise container platform category for Q4 2018.
- AnsibleThe second most popular DevOps tool is Ansible. CIO says “Ansible has become the DevOps darling for software automation.” This open-source DevOps tool is used for automating software provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment is easy to use—you don’t even need to have a dedicated systems administrator—yet can handle highly complex deployments. Plus, it’s agentless and uses a simple syntax written in the YAML language. NASA uses Ansible.
- GitThe third popular DevOps tool is Git. Git is a highly popular open-source DevOps tool used by industry giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. It allows you to track the progress of your development work and coordinate work among team members. Git is great for experimenting, because you can revert to previously saved versions of your work, and you can also create branches separately and then add in the new features when they’re ready. You’ll need to host a repository for the work as well, such as GitHub.
- PuppetThe fourth popular DevOps tool is Puppet. Puppet lets you manage and automate software inspection, delivery, and operation. This open-source DevOps tool has a solid track record and thousands of modules and is easily integrated with many other platforms. While the free version is great for smaller projects, consider Puppet Enterprise if your projects tend to be larger. Puppet Enterprise lets you manage multiple teams and thousands of resources.
- ChefThe fifth most used DevOps tool is Chef. Chef is the powerful open-source configuration management tool that lets you turn infrastructure into a code to manage data, attributes, roles, environments, and more. As a Puppet competitor, it supports multiple platforms and easily integrates with cloud-based platforms. Regardless of the size of your infrastructure, Chef can automate your infrastructure configuration and application deployment, as well as manage configurations across your network.
- JenkinsThe sixth best DevOps tool is Jenkins. Jenkins is known for quickly finding issues in code. It’s a free, open-source DevOps tool used for automating the delivery pipeline, and lets you test and report changes almost in real-time. Jenkins has a huge plugin ecosystem (more than a thousand plugins), so it integrates with pretty much every other DevOps tool out there. Plus, it runs out of the box on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
- NagiosThe seventh top DevOps tool is Nagios. Nagios is Used to find and correct problems in networks and infrastructure, Nagios is one of the most popular free and open-source monitoring tools. There are two Nagios editions: Nagios Core and Nagios XI; the latter offers many more features for even greater functionality. You can use Nagios to monitor applications, services, network protocols, and more, and it lets you keep records of things like outages and failures. Forum support is available for both editions.
- SplunkThe eighth most used DevOps tool is Splunk. Splunk makes machine data and logs accessible to and usable by everyone on the team. While machine data contains a lot of info that can improve productivity and efficiency, it’s hard to analyze and visualize without a tool like Splunk. Developers can build custom Splunk applications and integrate Splunk data into other applications. The company itself has won several awards and is on the Forbes Digital 100 list.
- BambooBamboo stands at ninth position in the popularity of DevOps Tools. Bamboo is similar to Jenkins but isn’t free. For the cost, you’ll get prebuilt functionalities—which means there are far fewer plugins (because you won’t need them). Bamboo also has a highly intuitive user interface with features such as auto-completion. All in all, it can save you a lot of time when compared to open-source tools, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

