The pressure to deliver high-quality software quickly has never been greater. This is where a strong DevOps culture, powered by the right DevOps tools, becomes a critical advantage. DevOps methodologies are all about breaking down silos between development and operations teams, fostering collaboration, and automating workflows to increase efficiency. But navigating the vast landscape of DevOps automation tools, from DevOps security tools to specific database DevOps tools, can be overwhelming.
That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive guide. We’ll walk you through an essential DevOps tools list, breaking down popular DevOps tools and how they fit into your software development lifecycle. Our goal is to help you understand the ecosystem, from top DevOps tools for CI/CD to monitoring tools in DevOps, and empower you to build a powerful, integrated toolchain that drives productivity and innovation for your team.
Best DevOps tools shortlist
Before we dive deep, here is a quick look at the top DevOps tools that are making waves in 2025. Each one excels in a specific area of the software development lifecycle, from planning and coding to deployment and monitoring.
1. Lark: Unify team collaboration and project tracking across your workflow.
2. Jenkins: An open-source server for automating your CI/CD pipeline.
3. Docker: The leading platform for building, sharing, and running applications.
4. Kubernetes: Automate containerized application deployment, scaling, and management.
5. Git: A distributed version control system for tracking code changes.
6. Ansible: An open-source automation tool for configuration management and deployment.
7. Terraform: Build, change, and version infrastructure safely and efficiently.
8. Prometheus: A powerful open-source system for events monitoring and alerting.
9. Jira: A top project management tool for agile development teams.
10. Selenium: A portable framework for automating web application testing.
What are DevOps tools?
DevOps tools:
DevOps tools are software applications designed to automate and integrate the processes between development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) teams. They form a "toolchain" to improve and shorten the software development lifecycle, enabling faster, more reliable delivery of high-quality software through enhanced collaboration and automation.
Examples include:
Collaboration & Planning: Lark, Jira
CI/CD Automation: Jenkins, Ansible
Containerization: Docker, Kubernetes
Monitoring: Prometheus
To answer the question, “what are DevOps tools?”, they are applications that help automate and integrate the processes between software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) teams. They are the machinery that powers the DevOps engine, enabling organizations to build, test, and release software faster and more reliably. These DevOps tools form what is known as a "toolchain," where each tool handles a specific stage of the development lifecycle.
This software development lifecycle includes everything from planning and code development to building, testing, deploying, and monitoring. For example, version control systems manage code, CI/CD tools automate the build and release process, and DevOps monitoring tools track application performance. The goal is to create a seamless and automated workflow that removes manual bottlenecks and improves collaboration between development and operations teams.
Ultimately, these DevOps tools aim to create a single, unified workflow. Platforms like Lark are designed with this principle at their core, integrating project management, communication, and shared documents to connect every stage of the DevOps lifecycle seamlessly.
Benefits of DevOps tools
Adopting the right DevOps tools isn't just about modernizing your tech stack; it's about transforming how your team works together to deliver value. The benefits are significant and impact everything from culture to your bottom line. By creating a cohesive toolchain, you can unlock a new level of productivity and innovation.
Here are some of the core advantages:
Increased speed and efficiency: Automation is at the heart of DevOps. By automating the build, test, and deployment processes with DevOps pipeline tools, you can release software updates much faster. This reduces manual effort, freeing up your developers to focus on writing code and creating new features rather than getting bogged down by repetitive tasks. Effective continuous integration enables developers to merge changes frequently, improving the development speed.
Improved collaboration and communication: DevOps thrives on breaking down silos. Tools that facilitate seamless communication are essential for this cultural shift. When your team can discuss code, track project progress, and manage incidents in a centralized place, alignment becomes effortless. For example, a platform like Lark integrates chat, task management, and shared documents, ensuring everyone from developers to project managers is on the same page.
Enhanced quality and reliability: With automation tools for DevOps handling testing and deployment, you significantly reduce the risk of human error. Automated tests and continuous testing ensures that bugs are caught early in the development cycle, long before they reach production. This leads to more stable releases and better software quality for your end-users, boosting customer satisfaction and trust.
Better security integration: Modern DevOps methodologies include security at every stage of the lifecycle, a practice known as DevSecOps. Specialized DevOps security tools help automate security scans, monitor for vulnerabilities, and manage compliance, ensuring that your application is secure from the ground up without slowing down the development process. This approach empowers both development and security teams to collaborate on securing the software supply chain.
Ultimately, the right DevOps tools foster a culture of shared responsibility and continuous improvement. By providing a transparent and integrated environment, platforms like Lark help unify every aspect of your workflow, ensuring your team can collaborate effectively and deliver their best work.
Top 10 DevOps tools in 2025 breakdown
Choosing from the many available DevOps tools can be a challenge. To help, we've broken down our top 10 list, detailing the key features of each and who they’re best suited for. This breakdown covers the entire DevOps workflow, helping you build a cohesive DevOps toolchain from planning and collaboration to infrastructure management and testing.
1. Lark: Unify team collaboration and project tracking across your workflow
Overview:
Lark is a collaborative DevOps platform designed for modern DevOps teams. It's not just a single-purpose tool but an integrated suite that brings together communication, project management, documentation, and automation. By connecting every phase of the software development lifecycle, Lark ensures that planning, execution, and feedback happen in one seamless and transparent workspace, streamlining how DevOps teams approach DevOps methodologies, tools and workflows.
Key features:
Centralized project and task management: You can build custom project management systems using the flexible databases in Lark Base to track everything from epics and user stories to bugs and sprints. With views like Gantt charts and Kanban boards, alongside real-time dashboards, you can visualize progress and monitor KPIs. Kickstart your projects with pre-built templates for bug tracking or sprint planning, with every update sending notifications directly to your team's chat.
👉Try this template – Multi-Project Tracker
Powerful workflow automation: Automate routine tasks and create complex, multi-step workflows without writing a single line of code. You can set up automations in Lark Base to create a task when an issue is tagged, send reminders for deadlines, or notify a channel when an automated deployment is complete.
AI-powered assistance for greater efficiency: Leverage AI to enhance productivity across the board. Get instant, searchable meeting transcripts from Lark Minutes for your daily stand-ups, use AI to automatically categorize user feedback in your database, or generate formula suggestions in spreadsheets for data analysis. These features make it one of the most practical AI tools for DevOps.
Real-time communication hub: In Lark Messenger, you can create dedicated chat groups for specific projects, code reviews, or incident response teams. Features like threads keep conversations organized, while auto-translation removes language barriers for global teams, ensuring communication is always clear and efficient.
A single source of truth for documentation: Utilize Lark Docs and Wiki to build a collaborative knowledge base where you can create, share, and manage technical documentation, architectural diagrams, runbooks, and post-mortems. With version history and permission controls, you can ensure all information is accurate and accessible.
Seamless integration with your DevOps toolchain: Lark connects with the DevOps tools you already use. Pipe notifications from Git, Jenkins, and monitoring services directly into designated chat channels to create a central command center. With an open platform, you can build custom integrations to ensure Lark fits perfectly within your existing DevOps toolchain.
Integrated approval processes: Formalize critical steps in your pipeline, such as automated deployment approvals or access requests, with customizable Lark Approval workflows. This adds a layer of governance and traceability directly within your collaborative environment.
Pricing:
Starter: Free for teams of up to 20, including 100 GB of storage and core productivity tools.
Pro: $12 per user/month, offering unlimited message history, advanced automation capabilities, and video conferences with up to 500 attendees.
Enterprise: Custom pricing for larger organizations, providing advanced security, SSO, and dedicated support.
👉Try Lark’s Savings Calculator: Switching to Lark’s Pro plan can lead to significant cost savings— for example, a 100-employee company using Slack, Google Workspace, and Airtable could save approximately $25,200 annually by consolidating their tools with Lark.
Best for:
DevOps teams of all sizes seeking a unified DevOps platform to consolidate communication, project management, and documentation, creating a single source of truth across the entire DevOps lifecycle.
2. Jenkins: An open-source server for automating your CI/CD pipeline
Image source: jenkins.io
Overview:
Jenkins is a veteran and one of the most popular DevOps tools for a reason. It is an open-source automation server that provides hundreds of plugins to support building, testing, and deploying virtually any project. It is a cornerstone for DevOps teams looking to implement continuous integration and continuous delivery.
Key features:
Extensive plugin ecosystem for ultimate customization.
Platform-independent and easy to install on Windows, macOS, and different operating systems.
Supports distributed builds to share the workload across multiple machines, improving the development speed.
Pricing:
Free and open-source.
Best for:
Teams that require a highly flexible, customizable, and cost-effective solution for their CI/CD automation needs.
3. Docker: The leading platform for building, sharing, and running applications
Image source: docker.com
Overview:
Docker revolutionized software development with containerization. It allows you to package an application with all of its dependencies into a standardized unit, ensuring that it runs consistently across different environments. This is a foundational tool for teams building cloud native applications.
Key features:
Lightweight, portable, and efficient containers.
Docker Hub provides a vast repository of pre-built container images.
Isolates applications for improved security and stability, reducing potential security weaknesses.
Pricing:
Personal: $0 for individual developers
Pro: Starts from $9/user/month
Team: Starts from $15/user/month
Business: Starts from $24/user/month
Best for:
Developers and development teams looking to build, test, and deploy applications faster and more reliably in any environment.
4. Kubernetes: Automate containerized application deployment, scaling, and management
Image source: kubernetes.io
Overview:
Often used with Docker, Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source platform for automating the management of containerized applications. It handles scaling, failover, and deployment patterns, making it one of the top orchestration tools in DevOps. As a core component of the modern DevOps toolchain, K8s is critical for managing complex applications at scale.
Key features:
Automated rollouts and rollbacks for seamless updates.
Self-healing capabilities to restart or replace failed containers.
Horizontal scaling to adjust resources based on demand, improving server performance.
Pricing:
Free and open-source. Most cloud providers (like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) offer managed Kubernetes services.
Best for:
Organizations running large-scale, containerized applications in production that require high availability and scalability.
5. Git: A distributed version control system for tracking code changes
Image source: git-scm.com
Overview:
Git is the industry standard for version control. It’s a free, open-source system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. It is fundamental to modern software development and collaboration, acting as the central repository for source code.
Key features:
Distributed model allows developers to have a full local history of the project.
Powerful branching and merging capabilities to support parallel development and effective code reviews.
Integrates with nearly every other DevOps tool on the market.
Pricing:
Free and open-source.
Best for:
Every software development team, regardless of size or industry. It is an essential part of nearly every DevOps toolchain.
6. Ansible: An open-source automation tool for configuration management and deployment
Image source: redhat.com
Overview:
Ansible is a simple yet powerful automation engine that handles configuration management, application deployment, and task automation. Its agentless architecture and human-readable YAML syntax make it easy to learn and implement. It is one of the most accessible DevOps automation tools for IT teams.
Key features:
Agentless design simplifies setup and management.
Uses YAML for playbooks, making automation scripts easy to read and write. These playbooks define configuration files and deployment stages.
Strong community support and a large collection of pre-built modules.
Pricing:
Open-source and free. Red Hat offers a paid enterprise version, Ansible Automation Platform, with additional features and support.
Best for:
Operations teams looking for a straightforward and powerful tool for infrastructure automation and application deployment processes.
7. Terraform: Build, change, and version infrastructure safely and efficiently
Image source: hashicorp.com
Overview:
Developed by HashiCorp, Terraform is a leading Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool. It allows you to define and provision data center infrastructure using a declarative configuration language, transforming infrastructure management into a core part of the development process.
Key features:
Supports multiple cloud providers, including AWS DevOps tools, Azure DevOps, and Google Cloud.
Execution plans let you preview changes before applying them.
Manages the state of your infrastructure to track changes over time.
Pricing:
Open-source and free, with paid plans (Terraform Cloud) offering collaboration and governance features for teams.
Best for:
Teams that need to manage infrastructure across multiple cloud platforms in a repeatable and predictable way.
8. Prometheus: A powerful open-source system for events monitoring and alerting
Image source: prometheus.io
Overview:
Prometheus has become a standard for monitoring and alerting in cloud-native environments. It collects and stores metrics as time-series data, providing a powerful query language and real-time alerting capabilities. It is one of the top monitoring tools in DevOps for understanding application health.
Key features:
A multi-dimensional data model with time-series data identified by metric name and key/value pairs.
PromQL, a flexible query language to leverage this dimensionality.
No reliance on distributed storage; single server nodes are autonomous, simplifying infrastructure management.
Pricing:
Free and open-source.
Best for:
DevOps teams that need a robust and scalable monitoring solution, especially for microservices and containerized environments.
9. Jira: A top project management tool for agile development teams
Image source: atlassian.com
Overview:
Developed by Atlassian, Jira is a market-leading tool for issue tracking and agile project management. It helps teams plan, track, and release software by providing customizable workflows, Scrum boards, and Kanban boards. Its ability to provide visibility to both development and operations teams makes it a central part of many DevOps toolchains.
Key features:
Customizable workflows to match your team's processes.
Agile boards for Scrum and Kanban methodologies.
Powerful reporting features to track team performance and progress.
Pricing:
Free: Up to 10 users.
Standard: Starts from $8/user/month.
Premium: Starts from $14/user/month.
Enterprise: Custom pricing
Best for:
Agile teams that need a structured and powerful tool for managing complex software development projects.
10. Selenium: A portable framework for automating web application testing
Image source: selenium.dev
Overview:
Selenium is one of the most popular open-source automation tools for DevOps focused on testing. It provides a suite of tools to automate web browsers across different platforms, making it an essential part of any test automation strategy aimed at improving software quality.
Key features:
Supports all major web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
Allows you to write test scripts in various programming languages like Java, Python, and C#.
Highly extensible with a large community providing support and plugins, ensuring high code quality through rigorous automated tests.
Pricing:
Free and open-source.
Best for:
QA engineers and developers who need to automate the testing of web and mobile applications to ensure functionality and software quality.
How to choose the right DevOps tools for your team’s unique needs
Selecting the right combination of DevOps tools is crucial for success. A tool that works wonders for one team might be a poor fit for another. The key is to think strategically about your specific needs, processes, and goals. Rushing this decision can lead to a fragmented and inefficient DevOps toolchain.
Here are a few steps to guide your selection process:
Assess your current workflow and identify pain points: Before you look at any DevOps tools, map out your existing software development lifecycle. Where are the bottlenecks? Are releases slow? Is communication fragmented? Understanding your challenges will help you prioritize which tools will have the most impact.
Consider your team’s skills and existing tech stack: Choose tools that align with your team's expertise. If your team is proficient in Python, an automation tool that supports Python scripts makes sense. Also, ensure new tools integrate well with your current systems, whether you're using AWS services or are committed to Azure DevOps. Strong integration avoids creating more information silos.
Prioritize collaboration and visibility: A successful DevOps culture depends on transparency. Select tools that provide a shared view of progress and performance. For instance, a DevOps platform like Lark can act as a central hub by integrating notifications from your CI/CD, monitoring, and project management tools, giving everyone a unified view of the entire pipeline.
Evaluate scalability, security, and support: Think about your future needs. Will the tool be able to support your team as it grows? Does it meet your organization's security and compliance requirements? Also, consider the level of community or commercial support available in case you run into issues.
By focusing on integration and collaboration, you can build a DevOps toolchain that is greater than the sum of its parts. A platform like Lark simplifies this process by consolidating multiple functions, reducing complexity and creating a truly connected DevOps environment.
Conclusion
The landscape of DevOps tools is constantly evolving, but the core principles of collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement remain the same. The goal isn't to adopt every popular tool on the market but to strategically build an integrated DevOps toolchain that empowers your development and operations teams, breaks down silos, and streamlines your entire workflow from code to deployment.
By focusing on DevOps tools that not only automate tasks but also enhance communication and provide a single source of truth, you create an environment where innovation can flourish. A well-chosen set of DevOps tools will reduce friction, increase release velocity, and ultimately lead to delivering software of higher quality. Remember to start by assessing your team's unique needs and prioritize solutions that grow with you.
If you're looking to build a strong, collaborative foundation for your DevOps practice, consider a platform that brings all the pieces together. Lark unifies your team’s communication, project management, and documentation, creating a seamless hub for your entire DevOps workflow.
FAQs
What is a DevOps tool?
A DevOps tool is any software application that helps automate and integrate the processes across the software development lifecycle. These DevOps tools address key areas like planning, version control, CI/CD, configuration management, monitoring, and collaboration, working together to create a more efficient and reliable workflow.
Is Jira a DevOps tool?
Yes, Jira is widely considered a key DevOps tool, specifically for the planning and project management phases. It excels at tracking tasks, managing agile sprints, and providing visibility into project progress. It is a critical piece of a larger DevOps toolchain that includes tools for automation, deployment, and monitoring.
Which DevOps tool is best?
There is no single "best" DevOps tool, as the ideal choice depends entirely on your team's specific needs, budget, and existing tech stack. However, a DevOps platform that unifies communication and workflow management, like Lark, provides a powerful foundation for any DevOps toolchain by connecting all the moving parts effectively.
What are the 7 C's of DevOps?
The 7 C's of DevOps represent a set of core principles and practices for a successful implementation. They are: Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, Continuous Testing, Continuous Monitoring, Continuous Feedback, Continuous Planning, and most importantly, Collaboration. These concepts guide the selection and use of DevOps methodologies tools and workflows.
