20 Most Popular Current Trends and Community Supported GitOps Tools

Published in

GitOps Essentials

4 min readOct 13, 2023

The cloud-native ecosystem is constantly evolving, with GitOps steadily gaining traction as a popular and efficient method for managing and deploying applications. GitOps leverages the Git platform as the singular source of truth for both application source code and infrastructure declarations. This article delves into the top 20 GitOps tools that are popular and supported by robust communities.

1. ArgoCD

Basic Features: Declarative, git-based deployment, app synchronization, and multi-cluster management.
Scope: Kubernetes application delivery and deployment.
Similarity with Peers: Resembles Flux in workflow.
Competitive Edge: Detailed UI for better visualization of application states.

2. Flux

Basic Features: Continuous delivery, automated deployments, and integrations with Helm.
Scope: Kubernetes deployments.
Similarity with Peers: Comparable to ArgoCD.
Competitive Edge: Close ties with the CNCF and a lightweight design.

3. Jenkins X

Basic Features: Kubernetes-native CI/CD, preview environments, and automated promotion.
Scope: Kubernetes automation.
Similarity with Peers: Similar to Tekton in terms of CI/CD pipelines.
Competitive Edge: Seamless integration with Jenkins.

4. Tekton

Basic Features: Kubernetes-native CI/CD pipelines.
Scope: Building CI/CD systems.
Similarity with Peers: Jenkins X pipeline functionality.
Competitive Edge: Modularity and flexibility.

5. Spinnaker

Basic Features: Multi-cloud continuous delivery.
Scope: Cloud deployments.
Similarity with Peers: Continuous delivery aspect overlaps with Jenkins X.
Competitive Edge: Advanced deployment strategies.

6. Crossplane

Basic Features: Infrastructure as code, cloud provider integrations.
Scope: Cloud resources management.
Similarity with Peers: Terraform in terms of cloud resource provisioning.
Competitive Edge: Kubernetes-native and extensible design.

7. Terraform

Basic Features: Infrastructure as code, declarative configuration.
Scope: Infrastructure automation.
Similarity with Peers: Overlaps with Crossplane.
Competitive Edge: Wide provider support and mature ecosystem.

8. Sealed Secrets

Basic Features: Secret management and encryption.
Scope: Kubernetes secrets.
Similarity with Peers: Similar to Vault in terms of secret management.
Competitive Edge: Simple secret sealing and unsealing mechanism.

9. Vault (by HashiCorp)

Basic Features: Secret management, encryption, and dynamic secrets.
Scope: Infrastructure security.
Similarity with Peers: Sealed Secrets in the Kubernetes environment.
Competitive Edge: Extensive security features and integrations.

10. Skaffold

Basic Features: Continuous development, local debugging.
Scope: Kubernetes application development.
Similarity with Peers: Draft in terms of local Kubernetes development.
Competitive Edge: Quick iterative development cycle.

11. Helm

Basic Features: Kubernetes package manager.
Scope: Application deployment.
Similarity with Peers: Kustomize, in terms of application deployment.
Competitive Edge: Large community and chart repository.

12. Kustomize

Basic Features: Kubernetes native configuration management.
Scope: Application deployment.
Similarity with Peers: Helm, in terms of Kubernetes configurations.
Competitive Edge: Declarative approach to configuration.

13. Kapp

Basic Features: Application deployment and resource management.
Scope: Kubernetes.
Similarity with Peers: Similar to Helm and Kustomize.
Competitive Edge: Simplified deployment process.

14. Kubevela

Basic Features: Application delivery platform with OAM (Open Application Model) support.
Scope: Cloud-native platform.
Similarity with Peers: Crossplane in terms of application model.
Competitive Edge: Extensible and developer-centric.

15. Flagger

Basic Features: Progressive delivery and automated canary analysis.
Scope: Kubernetes deployments.
Similarity with Peers: Argo Rollouts in terms of progressive delivery.
Competitive Edge: Deep integration with service meshes.

16. Argo Rollouts

Basic Features: Progressive delivery, blue-green deployments.
Scope: Kubernetes application deployment.
Similarity with Peers: Flagger for canary deployments.
Competitive Edge: Flexibility in deployment strategies.

17. Shipa

Basic Features: Application deployment platform, abstracting Kubernetes complexities.
Scope: Kubernetes.
Similarity with Peers: Heroku, in terms of abstracting deployment complexities.
Competitive Edge: Developer-friendly while preserving operational controls.

18. Tilt

Basic Features: Local Kubernetes development and debugging.
Scope: Development environments.
Similarity with Peers: Skaffold in terms of local development.
Competitive Edge: Real-time feedback loop.

19. Rancher Fleet

Basic Features: GitOps at scale, multi-cluster management.
Scope: Large-scale Kubernetes deployments.
Similarity with Peers: ArgoCD in terms of multi-cluster deployments.
Competitive Edge: Designed for managing millions of clusters.

20. Pulumi

Basic Features: Infrastructure as code with familiar programming languages.
Scope: Cloud and Kubernetes resources.
Similarity with Peers: Terraform in terms of infrastructure automation.
Competitive Edge: Use of standard programming languages for infrastructure declaration.

Conclusion

The GitOps tooling landscape is vast and continually evolving. The tools listed above stand out for their robust community support, innovative features, and focus on specific aspects of the GitOps methodology. Whether you’re seeking a solution for application deployment, infrastructure management, or secret handling, the ecosystem offers a plethora of options tailored to varying requirements.

About the Author

Adam Anderson is a passionate software engineer with more than 10 years of experience in Java application development. He has a strong interest in build automation, DevOps practices, and project management. When not diving into code and configuration files, Adam enjoys hiking in the great outdoors and exploring new technology trends. You can reach out to Adam Anderson via email at xsizxenjin@gmail.com for more insights on software development and project management.

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