Top DevOps Tools Every Engineering Team Should Use

What are DevOps tools? Well, DevOps tools help to bring DevOps practices to life, covering all the aspects of SDLC, including code reviews, version control, deployment, and monitoring. It consists of all the platforms. Applications and tools you use in the new SDLC. Thus, having the right DevOps tool helps with: 

• Automating redundant processes
• Increasing and enhancing communication
• Eliminating context switching
• Harnessing software monitoring to deliver software quickly.

The toolkit of a DevOps engineer is a carefully chosen set of tools aimed at simplifying the various aspects of developing software. Below, we have categorised the different DevOps tools list according to their main functions:

1. Source Code Management (SCM) Tools

Source code management tools (SCM) are the building blocks for today’s software development process. As the single source of truth for all of your code, they provide you with full access to the version history and everyone’s contributions, along with the ability to roll back any changes made by any user in the past and know exactly who did what.

GitHub

*medium.com

Git remains important in software development and DevOps tools due to its major role in version control, efficient project management, and collaborative coding. So, as the technology has revolutionised its operations, the need for a streamlined code manager has never been greater. GitHub is one of the most popular SCM platforms with an intuitive interface, Git-based workflow, integrations, pull requests, issue tracking, and actions for automation.

Features:

• Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD)
• Automated tests
• Code review
• Containerization
• Monitoring and logging

GitLab

*devops.dev

GitLab is an essential DevOps tool that helps automate the complete software delivery pipeline. This ensures reliable delivery of software updates and enables continuous integration by automatically building and testing code changes. 

Features:

• Portfolio management
• Value Stream Management
• Source code management
• Continuous integration and delivery

Bitbucket

*terrificminds.com

Bitbucket by Atlassian blends version control with deep Jira integration, making planning and development flow effortlessly. It supports Git repositories, branch permissions, pipelines for CI/CD, and private repo management. Ideal for enterprise teams already using the Atlassian ecosystem for tracking work, documentation, and software lifecycle automation.

Features:

• Bitbucket Pipelines: Simple CI/CD built into the platform.
• Deep Jira Integration: Link commits to issues.
• Branch Permissions: Control who can push where.
• Snippets & Wikis: Share small bits of code or documentation.

2. CI/CD Tools (Continuous Integration & Delivery)

CI/CD forms the beating heart of DevOps; it catches bugs early, automates repetitive tasks, and accelerates deployment cycles.

Jenkins

*devopsschool.com

Jenkins is the powerhouse of CI/CD, an open-source automation server that adapts to almost any workflow. With over 1,800 plugins, these DevOps Tools connect to nearly every tool developers use. It lets teams create customisable pipelines, automate builds, test suites, deployments, and scale across distributed environments. Flexible, self-hosted, and enterprise-tested – Jenkins remains a DevOps favourite.

Features:

• 1,800+ plugins for limitless customisation
• Fully open-source and highly extensible
• Supports declarative and scripted pipelines
• Integrates with all major DevOps tools
• Ideal for complex, large-scale CI/CD workflows

Travis CI

*ideracorp.com

Travis CI offers clean, cloud-based CI/CD automation built especially for GitHub repositories. It takes minutes to set up, with easy YAML-based configuration and automatic testing for every commit and pull request. Developers love these DevOps Tools for their simplicity, real-time build insights, and ability to handle deployment pipelines without complex infrastructure management.

Features:

• Seamless GitHub integration
• Simple YAML-based pipeline setup
• Automatic testing for every push/PR
• Fully cloud-hosted, no infrastructure needed
• Fast build feedback and detailed logs

CircleCI

*circleci.com

CircleCI provides an exceptionally reliable and fast cloud-native CI/CD automation platform. Their cloud-native CI/CD platform uses a unique series of technologies, which include intelligent caching, parallelism and on-demand scaling to ensure the fastest possible deployment of applications. 

Features:

• Ultra-fast pipelines with smart caching
• Built for containerised development
• Highly configurable workflows
• Scales instantly in the cloud
• Deep GitHub and Bitbucket

3. Containerization Tools

Containers changed DevOps forever. They enable apps to run consistently across environments, such as your laptop, staging, or production.

Docker

*guvi.in

Docker is an easy way to package, ship and run applications quickly and efficiently. It allows developers to run applications on any platform by creating a lightweight container for each application, providing complete isolation from other applications or files. 

Features:

• Containers, 
• Images, 
• Registry Support and CLI-based Workflows.

Podman

Podman is a modern, daemonless container engine built for security and flexibility. Unlike Docker, it runs containers without a background service and supports full rootless mode, making it a safer choice for teams prioritising compliance. Plus, its Docker-compatible commands make switching effortless.

*medium.com

Features:

• Rootless containers for enhanced security
• Daemonless architecture
• Docker-compatible CLI
• Supports pods (grouped containers)
• OCI-compliant runtime
  

Buildah

Buildah is a lightweight tool focused entirely on building OCI-compliant container images without requiring a daemon. It gives developers finer control over every layer of an image, integrates seamlessly with Podman, and is ideal for secure, scriptable, container-native workflows.

*redhat.com

Features:

• Builds OCI-compliant images
• No daemon required
• Works seamlessly with Podman
• Allows granular image layer customisation
• Script-friendly CLI for automation

4. Container Orchestration Tools

Once your container count grows beyond a handful, orchestration becomes essential.

Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm allows developers to package, ship, and run an app in a standardised way across cloud environments with minimal effort. Through the use of lightweight containers with isolated apps, you can build once and run anywhere, while providing portability, consistency, and faster deployments between environments.

Kubernetes (K8S)

Kubernetes (K8S) is the most widely used and accepted tool for orchestrating Docker containers through an automated deployment, scaling, load-balancing, rollout, and recovery process. K8S provides a solution for scaling modern cloud-native applications reliably and massively.

Features:

• Autoscaling
• Load Balancing
• Rolling Updates
• Self-healing

Amazon EKS / Google GKE / Azure AKS

AWS ECS and EKS are fully managed container orchestration services that help teams run, scale, and secure their containers seamlessly across multiple cloud environments. They eliminate the need to maintain Kubernetes clusters or manage infrastructure overhead, reducing operational headaches significantly.

Features:

• Managed clusters
• Autoscaling
• High availability
• Cloud integration

5. Configuration Management Tools

Ansible

Ansible is one of the easiest automation solutions available for provisioning servers and configuring systems; hence, it allows even novice users the ability to create a working system, while allowing for rapid automation of complex tasks.

Features: 

• No Agents Needed
• Playbooks in YAML Language
• Rapid Automation
• Compatible With Multiple Platforms

Puppet

Puppet provides structure for managing large-scale automation of IT infrastructures by providing consistent configuration for all aspects of IT through a code framework, so you can effectively manage multiple IT environments.

Features:

• Configuration Management Models
• Enforced State
• Reporting Features
• Scalable System

Terraform

Terraform enables organisations to create and maintain cloud-based systems by coding. It provides the ability to reuse templates across multiple clouds and enables the provisioning process to become transparent & controlled, and predictable.

Features:

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
• Compatible Across Multiple Clouds
• Declarative Syntax
• Reusable Modules

6. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools

Infrastructure as Code IaC is a DevOps practice that treats infrastructure provisioning and management as code, enabling teams to version, test, and collaborate on infrastructure configurations. Some popular IaC tools include:

Prometheus

Prometheus is a high-performance, open-source monitoring service that collects metrics in real time and generates alerts when certain thresholds are reached. Its reliability, efficient storage of time-series data, and seamless integration with Kubernetes make it a popular choice for companies leveraging cloud-native infrastructure.

Features: 

• Metrics aggregation 
• Alert generation 
• Time-series database 
•  Integration with Kubernetes

Grafana

Grafana enables teams to easily visualise their metric data through customisable dashboards and provides them with many different options for integrating with hundreds of different types of data sources. By using Grafana, teams can monitor their systems’ health, spot trends, and resolve problems much more quickly than they could without it.

Features: 

• Custom dashboards 
• Data source plugins 
• Alerts 
• Visual analytics

ELK Stack

The ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) has been the world’s most popular log analytics platform for many years. Its ability to collect, parse, store, and visualise all log data from every application on an organisation’s infrastructure allows engineers to detect anomalies, understand how systems behave, and diagnose their problems in an accurate manner.

Features: 

• Log collection 
• Search capabilities 
• Dashboards 
•  Real-time analytics

7. Monitoring & Logging Tools

Here are some of the most common monitoring tools in DevOps:​

Datadog

Datadog is a leader in the field of Observability. Datadog provides teams with real-time visibility into applications, infrastructure and logs, APMs, and Security. With AI-driven alerts and intuitive dashboards, Datadog has become a go-to tool for teams that want a single pane of glass for everything.

Features:

• Full-stack monitoring (APM, Infra, Logs)
• AI-driven Anomaly detection
• Over 600 integrations
• Serverless application support
• Real-time Dashboards

New Relic

New Relic provides you with end-to-end visibility (from end-user to back-end services and infrastructure). Using New Relic’s unified observability platform, you can monitor performance, identify and analyse bottlenecks, and enhance the user experience through detailed distributed tracing and real-time insights.

Features:

• Unified observability (logs, metrics and traces)
• Front-end to back-end monitoring
• Distributed tracing
• Instant Anomaly Alerts
• Cloud-native integrations

8. Security & DevSecOps Tools

Security now sits inside the DevOps pipeline, not outside it.

Snyk

Snyk allows developers to identify and repair vulnerabilities within their code, dependencies, containers, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC). This service is integrated directly into your developmental workflow so that your applications can be securely built rather than being secured after they are completely developed.

Features 

• supporting developers through scanning for potential issues,
•  scanning container images, and 
• conducting IaC checks to verify that no issues exist in those areas.

SonarQube:

SonarQube enhances the quality and security of code by employing static analysis to discover bugs, code smells, vulnerabilities, and other issues related to coding standards and practices. This analysis allows software development teams to deliver clean, searchable, reliable, and production-ready code.

Features:

• Performing extensive static analysis 
• Auditing against many security rules
• Enforce Quality Gates into the continuous integration/
• Continuous deployment workflow is a major benefit of using SonarQube.

Aqua Security

Aqua Security offers protection to cloud-native applications by providing container scanning, Runtime Protection, Compliance Controls, and Vulnerability Analysis. Companies using Aqua Security most frequently are typically enterprises that use large-scale container-based infrastructures.

Features:

• Scanning of images
• Controls and reports for regulatory compliance
• Runtime protection

HashiCorp Vault:

Vault is the benchmark for managing secrets. Vault protects sensitive information, such as passwords, tokens, API keys, and certificates, by enforcing strict access controls, encryption, and dynamic credentials.

Features:

•  Safely storing secrets, 
• Encryption, auditing, and controlling access to critical information.

Trivy:

Trivy is an extremely fast and lightweight Vulnerability Scanner that is extremely popular with developers. Trivy allows developers to scan all their containers, dependencies, and IACs for vulnerabilities using just one command. It is completely open-source.

Features: 

• Ability to quickly perform scans,
• Scan multiple targets with only one command.

If you’re looking for the right DevOps Tools, here are a few factors you need to consider:

1. Match tools to your workflow: Pick the right tools for your team’s processes and existing infrastructure rather than picking based only on popularity.
2. Start with a simple stack: A simple stack (i.e. GitHub, GitHub Actions, Docker) offers you all you need to build, test and deploy everything you want without overwhelming complexity.
3. Plan for future scalability: A growing team’s future growth should include considering scalable tools like Terraform (infrastructure automation) and Kubernetes (large-scale container orchestration).
4. Check tool compatibility and integrations: Your chosen DevOps tools must work together seamlessly; therefore, your CI tool should trigger your deployment tool(s); monitoring tools should quickly provide you with alerts when problems occur; and your version control tool should easily connect with your automation pipeline.
5. Always prioritise security from day one: Your DevOps tools should include built-in features to scan for vulnerabilities, manage secrets, and support DevSecOps practices to enable you to maintain secure pipelines.
6. Test your tools before adopting: Before adopting any tools, conduct small pilot projects to assess how usable your tools are, their performance, and their compatibility in real-world scenarios. Just because a tool looks great on paper doesn’t mean it will be compatible with your team’s workflows.
7. Consider your team’s skill set and learning curve: Be careful to select tools that your team can easily adopt; selecting tools with a steep learning curve will slow down your team’s ability to deliver.

DevOps tools form the backbone of today’s engineering teams. With the right combination, Docker for containerization, Kubernetes for orchestration, Terraform for IaC, Grafana for monitoring, and Snyk for security, you can build a smooth, automated, and highly scalable pipeline.

But tools aren’t enough. You need skills, expertise, and the right training. That’s where Jaro Education steps in. With industry-recognised programs, hands-on learning, and real-world mastery modules, Jaro helps you grow your DevOps career, boost your organisational efficiency, and stay ahead of industry trends.

Invest in yourself. Grow with DevOps. Transform your engineering journey with Jaro.