Report:
Magic Quadrant for DevOps Platforms
How does Gartner define the DevOps Platforms market in 2024?
Gartner defines DevOps platforms as those that provide fully integrated capabilities to enable continuous delivery of software using Agile and DevOps practices. The capabilities span the development and delivery life cycle built around the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline and include aspects such as versioning, testing, security, documentation and compliance. DevOps platforms support team collaboration, consistency, tool simplification and measurement of software delivery metrics. DevOps platforms simplify the creation, maintenance and management of the components required for the delivery of modern software applications. Platforms create common workflows and data models, simplify user access, and provide a consistent user experience (UX) to reduce cognitive load. They lead to improved visibility, auditability and traceability into the software development value stream. This end-to-end view encourages a systems-thinking mindset and accelerates feedback loops. Organizations use DevOps platforms to minimize tool friction resulting from complex toolchains, manual handoffs and lack of consistent visibility throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC). This enables product teams to deliver faster customer value without compromising quality. The DevOps platforms market reflects the consolidation of technologies across development, security, infrastructure and operations to streamline software delivery.
Key Facts for Magic Quadrant for DevOps Platforms in 2024
- Publication Date: 3 September 2024
- Document ID: G00796821
- Coverage: Global
- Authors: Keith Mann, Thomas Murphy, and 2 more
- Core Purpose: DevOps platforms provide an integrated alternative to custom toolchains, offering organizations an optimized and cohesive set of capabilities. Software engineering leaders should evaluate DevOps platforms to reduce complexity, improve security and accelerate software delivery.
Strategic Planning Assumptions
- By 2027, 80% of organizations will incorporate a DevOps platform into their tooling to reduce complexity and streamline software delivery, up from 25% in 2023
How was the DevOps Platforms market evolved in 2024?
- DevOps platforms provide fully integrated capabilities for continuous software delivery using Agile and DevOps practices
- Platforms simplify creation, maintenance and management of components required for modern software application delivery
- Organizations use DevOps platforms to minimize tool friction from complex toolchains, manual handoffs and lack of visibility
- Market reflects consolidation of technologies across development, security, infrastructure and operations
- Platforms support multiple use cases including Agile delivery, cloud-native applications, MLOps, mobile apps, platform engineering and regulated delivery
- Growing adoption driven by platform engineering, developer productivity focus, demand for modern applications, and expansion of DevOps engineer roles
- By 2027, predicted that 80% of organizations will switch from point solutions to DevOps platforms, up from 25% in 2023
- Market has become increasingly competitive with vendors continuously innovating and expanding capabilities
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- Continuous integration — native support for continuously building code, orchestrating verification and validation functions (test automation, security and compliance scans).
- Continuous delivery and release orchestration — continuous deployment (no gates) as well as release orchestration with gated approval mechanisms (e.g., to meet regulatory requirements or organizations transitioning from ITIL).
- Delivery of web applications including, but not limited to, containerized applications.
What are the common features of top products in the DevOps Platforms space?
- Team collaboration and visualization of development workflows with a unified dashboard across multiple user personas.
- Value stream analytics (e.g., flow metrics, DORA metrics).
- Orchestration of security functions, including source, packages, configurations.
- Configuration automation — support for environment management, including infrastructure provisioning, configuration management and drift detection.
- Product planning, managing features and defects, roadmapping, backlog management, Kanban and Scrum.
- Source control repository, artifact registry and integrated development environments (IDEs).
- Software test automation — support for execution of functional and nonfunctional tests, test case management, code coverage analysis, performance testing, chaos testing, fuzz testing, penetration testing, and automated acceptance testing through tools, which can be natively included or seamlessly integrated.
- Application monitoring and observability — support for monitoring and observability to improve service-level objectives, gathering production telemetry (logs, metrics, events, traces) and support for automated incident response.
- AI-assisted and AI-powered continuous integration and deployment — support for optimizing DevOps processes like software test automation, infrastructure provisioning, security vulnerability detection and analyzing the operating data.
- Integrated developer portal — support for software catalogs and customizable dashboards offering teams detailed insights into software components, their interdependencies and underlying environments; additional functionality might include infrastructure KPIs, a forum for collaboration, and a knowledge base for enriched information.
Scope Exclusions
- Primary use case is delivery of low-code applications, packaged business applications or SaaS-based applications (e.g., Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle, SAP or ServiceNow)
- Platform is only sold as part of custom software development or professional services engagements
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- Provide a dedicated, generally available DevOps platform as of 1 January 2024
- Sell the solution directly to paying customers without requiring professional services engagement
- Demonstrate an active product roadmap, go-to-market and selling strategy
- Have phone, email and web customer support with English language support
- Have at least 10% of paying customers in each of two of three geographic regions (U.S./Canada, Europe, Asia/Pacific)
- Native support for continuous integration (CI)
- Native support for continuous delivery (CD) and release orchestration
- Integrated solution for secure development, team collaboration and visualization
- Provide value stream metrics (flow metrics, DORA metrics)
- Support for orchestrating security functions as integral part of SDLC
- Generated at least $60 million in annual GAAP revenue OR $15 million with 35 net new customers
- At least 200 paying customers with 75+ seats per customer utilizing CI/CD
- Rank among top 20 organizations in Customer Interest Indicator (CII)
Ability to Execute — Relative Weighting
- Product or Service - High
- Overall Viability - Medium
- Sales Execution/Pricing - High
- Market Responsiveness/Record - High
- Marketing Execution - Low
- Customer Experience - High
- Operations - Low
Completeness of Vision — Relative Weighting
- Market Understanding - High
- Marketing Strategy - Low
- Sales Strategy - Medium
- Offering (Product) Strategy - High
- Business Model - Low
- Vertical/Industry Strategy - Medium
- Innovation - High
- Geographic Strategy - Medium
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the DevOps platforms market, evaluating 13 vendors across multiple criteria including product capabilities, market execution, vision and strategy. It covers mandatory and common features for DevOps platforms, vendor strengths and cautions, inclusion/exclusion criteria, market trends, and evaluation criteria for Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. The report positions vendors in four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: Software engineering leaders should use this research to: (1) Make informed buying decisions when selecting DevOps platforms; (2) Build business cases for modernizing current DevOps toolchains; (3) Understand vendor capabilities, strengths and limitations across the market; (4) Evaluate how different platforms align with specific organizational needs including security, developer experience, cloud-native architectures, and regulatory compliance; (5) Navigate the increasingly competitive DevOps platform market with clear vendor comparisons and market context.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: The mandatory features for vendors included in this market are: (1) Continuous integration — native support for continuously building code, orchestrating verification and validation functions including test automation, security and compliance scans; (2) Continuous delivery and release orchestration — continuous deployment without gates as well as release orchestration with gated approval mechanisms to meet regulatory requirements or support organizations transitioning from ITIL; and (3) Delivery of web applications including, but not limited to, containerized applications.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- Platform primarily focuses on low-code applications, packaged business applications, or SaaS-based application delivery
- Platform is only sold as part of custom software development or professional services engagements
- Failed to meet minimum revenue requirements ($60M annual GAAP revenue OR $15M with 35 net new customers)
- Failed to meet minimum customer requirements (200 paying customers with 75+ seats per customer)
- Did not rank among top 20 organizations in Customer Interest Indicator (CII)
- Did not meet geographic distribution requirements (10% of customers in at least two of three regions)
- Lack of native support for mandatory capabilities (CI, CD/release orchestration, web application delivery)
- No generally available dedicated DevOps platform as of January 1, 2024
- Insufficient product roadmap, go-to-market, or selling strategy
- Lack of required customer support infrastructure (phone, email, web support in English)
Q: What differentiates Ability to Execute vs. Completeness of Vision?
A: Ability to Execute measures a vendor's current market performance, including product capabilities, financial viability, sales effectiveness, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence. It focuses on what vendors are doing now and how well they execute in the market. Completeness of Vision evaluates a vendor's understanding of market direction and their strategy for the future, including market understanding, product strategy, innovation, business model, and geographic expansion plans. It focuses on where vendors are headed and their strategic vision for market evolution.
Reference
- Gartner, Magic Quadrant for DevOps Platforms, 3 September 2024, ID G00796821
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