The 15 Best Continuous Deployment Tools In 2024

Today’s technology companies need to release quality features quickly and put them in users’ hands even quicker. According to the State of DevOps Report, organizations with CI/CD tools deploy 208X more often and have a 106X shorter lead time than organizations without one.

You can release software with minimal downtime for your customers when you use robust continuous deployment software. Meanwhile, you’d reduce risk and improve control when shipping code changes, whether you opt for Continuous Delivery or Continuous Deployment.

What Do Continuous Deployment Tools Do?

Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment represent two of the most essential phases of the DevOps lifecycle. The CD tools help software engineers to continuously deliver tested builds to real users.

That means you get to market fast and experiment — not to break things or fail fast, but to deliver tested patches, upgrades, and updates. Afterward, your users can share feedback and contribute to further improving the product’s capabilities and ease of use.

Depending on the CD approach you choose, you can fully automate software releases or let your administrators approve them first. Continuous Delivery typically only prepares a validated software version for human review before deployment, while Continuous Deployment automatically deploys each tested build to live production.

But here’s the thing. Trying to manually release software features, functional updates, security patches, and others is not just time-consuming and detrimental to engineering velocity. In today’s highly dynamic world, it is also unsustainable.

Instead, you want a robust CD tool that can auto-scale workflows if, for example, you are an enterprise with sophisticated requirements.

DevOps automation tools help ease, accelerate, and control these processes at scale. In particular, CI/CD tools help engineers to deliver continuous software improvements at any scale, platform, environment, etc.

Here are the top Continuous Deployment tool today:

What Are The 15 Best Continuous Deployment Tools Right Now?

Some Continuous Deployment platforms also support Continuous Integration (CI) workflows, while others are dedicated CD platforms. It’s up to you whether to use an all-in-one CI/CD platform or separate tools for CI and CD.

We will also include open-source and proprietary CD tools. Yet, the 15 CD tools we’ll cover here are among the best, not an exhaustive list of the best CD tools for every DevOps team.

Take the time to review your needs and compare them with each platform’s capabilities. That way, you’ll know which option will best suits your specific needs.

1. CircleCI

Founded: September 2011

Category: All-in-one CI/CD platform

Pricing: Free up to 6,000 build minutes (a single job without parallelism), $15/month, $2,000/month enterprise-level deployments, and custom pricing for self-hosted

CircleCI boasts an enterprise-grade CI/CD tool that helps DevOps teams to build, test, and release new code more rapidly. Initially developed as a CI platform, CircleCI now supports robust build deployments at scale to businesses of any size.

Circle CI runs in the public cloud, on-premises (CircleCI Server), or in a private cloud (behind a firewall). Build on Linux, Windows, Arm, macOS, or on your own computer (self-hosted); the tool supports it.

Engineers often rate CircleCI as their top CI/CD tool because it is easy to set up, customizable, and allows them to split, share, and reuse builds across multiple containers.

It also supports unlimited builds and quick tests. In addition, it automates parallelization, branch-specific and continuous deployments, as well as merging. CircleCI supports all of the major repositories, including GitHub, BitBucket, and GitHub Enterprise.

2. Buddy

Founded: Nov 2015

Category: Fast CI/CD tool for websites and application deployments

Pricing: Tiered; free for 5 projects; $75/month for 20 team projects, $200/month for unlimited projects, and $35/month/user on-premises

Buddy Deployments is a fast CI/CD platform for teams who want to build, test, and deploy websites and applications in minutes. It is ideal if you work with BitBucket, GitHub, and GitLab code. It is also ideal for running tests with a simple interface, actionable feedback, and quick-to-customize Docker-based images.

Buddy’s highlights include smart change detection, scalable compute resources (vCPU and RAM), repository and artifacts caching, and reusable environments.

The tool also supports concurrent pipelines and steps, Docker layer caching, and 360-degree optimizations. In addition, you can track progress in real-time with unlimited history.

3. Bamboo

Founded: 2007

Category: Unified CI/CD workflow for teams that want an easier to configure tool than Jenkins

Pricing: Open-source (free) and Paid (unlimited jobs; based on the number of remote agents)

Atlassian’s Bamboo is a CI/CD framework that supports 100 remote build agents and is available as free (open-source) or as a commercial tool. With Bamboo, you can set up build plans in phases, create triggers, and assign agents to critical builds and deployments. The service also provides cold standby to ensure high availability.

Bamboo is a superb choice if you want to automate parallelization, accelerate bug caching, and get feedback quickly. It also supports per-environment permissions for locking down production while your team deploys to their environments as needed.

Bamboo CI/CD works with Docker and AWS CodeDeploy as well. You can also connect it to multiple repositories, such as BitBucket, Git, Mercurial, and Fisheye.

4. RunDeck (PagerDuty Process Automation)

Founded: 2010

Category: Continuous deployment tool for smaller teams

Pricing: Community Edition; Free, Enterprise Edition – Upon request

Rundeck is an open-source platform for managing cloud or data center operations. You can run tasks on as many nodes as you like using a web-based or command-line interface. Its logging, access control, workflow creation, scheduling, and the ability to integrate external sources make scalability easier.

RunDeck is a Java-based CD tool that supports both Docker-based and package installations, plus 120+ plugins and shell commands/scripts. In terms of scalability, you can assign nodes as job executors or register deployment targets.

It is also useful for establishing standard operating procedures and synchronizing actions between tools, scripts, and APIs. Build reruns, orchestration, and pipelines are also supported.

5. GoCD

Founded: 2015

Category: Open-source, on-demand CD, and code release automation platform that supports Value Stream Maps and numerous plugins

Pricing: Free and open-source

ThoughtWorks’ GoCD enables your team to create Value Stream Maps quickly so you can track every change from commit to code deployment. If something isn’t working, it’s then easy to identify both its upstream and downstream causes. Using self-service environments and manual triggers, the QA team can push builds into production after testing them.

Moreover, GoCD runs tests written in various languages, supports cross-platform and parallel executions, and reports the exact changeset and platform from which an error originated. You can also generate a straightforward bill of materials using the Compare Builds feature.

As an added benefit, GoCD’s templates system allows you to reuse pipeline configurations to keep things tidy.

6. GitHub Actions

Founded: November 2019

Category: Build, test, and publish fast with any OS, language, and cloud right on GitHub

Pricing: Free for open-source projects; pay-as-you-go pricing for private repositories

Most people know GitHub for its code hosting, version control, and collaboration features. But with GitHub Actions, it’s now easy to build, test, and deploy software directly from GitHub.

Automated workflows help push new capabilities to users more quickly. You also get to launch workflows with GitHub events like issue creation, push, or a new release.

In addition, you can configure actions for the services you use, which are built and maintained by the community.

Something else. There are actions for everything, from building a container to deploying web services to adding a new user to your open-source project. You can also use GitHub Packages with Actions for easier package management, like version updates, faster distribution with GitHub’s global CDN, as well as dependency resolution (use your existing GITHUB_TOKEN).

7. DeployBot

Founded: 2013

Category: SaaS-based platform for Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployments

Pricing: Free for 10 deployments; $25/month Plus Plan; $50/month Premium

DeployBot streamlines the building, testing, and publishing processes, enabling you to manually or automatically ship code changes. It also provides deployment tools for multiple environments so you can deploy code from multiple branches to one or more servers at the same time.

You can look forward to its real-time deployment progress tracking, permissions management, and quick rollbacks in case anything goes wrong.

DeployBot provides an easy and consistent way to deploy any code anywhere there is an open interface protocol or integration. Also, using custom or pre-defined Docker containers during the deployment helps you compile or execute any code you like.

You are also welcome to run shell scripts on a server before, during, or after deployment. Also, DeployBot is ideal for startups and scaleups based on pricing, fewer server configurations, as well as automatic file uploads and change tracking.

8. Travis CI

Founded: 2011

Category: Hosted CI/CD solution for GitHub and BitBucket projects

Pricing: Free for open-source and private projects; three paid tiers based on concurrent job plan

If you are using BitBucket or GitHub for version control, TravisCI provides a hosted CI/CD platform that helps you test your builds and deploy them either on-premises or in the cloud in minutes. In the past, it was a Ruby-only platform dedicated to CI.

Now, Travis CI lets you automatically detect when your team pushes new commits to your GitHub repository, run tests after every new code commit, and use a range of configurations and languages, from Python and PHP to Node, Pearl, and Java.

Also, expect clean VMs for each build, pre-installed database services, and live build views. And if you are wondering, Travis CI is compatible with Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, and macOS. Travis CI Enterprise is also available for on-prem use cases. It includes on-demand scaling, enterprise-grade security (access control), and parallel testing.

9. UrbanCode Deploy

Founded: 1996

Category: Continuous delivery tool for automating application deployments in any environment

Pricing: Paid with a 60-day free trial

IBM’s UrbanCode Deploy, formerly Udeploy, automates application deployments on any platform and across environments. With audit trails, versioning, and approvals for production, it facilitates continuous development and fast feedback.

Your team can use its self-service style of continuous delivery. Or, you use production deployments for more complex configurations and applications.

It comes with a drag-and-drop process designer that makes it easy to design processes. You can then deploy and monitor multi-tiered application components together.

After that, you can deploy to a public, private, or hybrid cloud of your choice. Aside from scalable distribution automation, UrbanCode also offers inventory tracking and Quality Gates for approvals.

10. Codefresh

Founded: 2014

Category: CI/CD platform for containers and microservice-based applications in K8s

Pricing: 14-day free trial; Free Community Edition; $49/month/developer Team Plan; Custom Enterprise pricing

Argo’s Codefresh was the first Kubernetes-native CI/CD solution when it launched. That means Codefresh employs container-based principles for CI/CD actions in Kubernetes (but also in Docker, Helm, and Terraform).

In terms of scalability, Codefresh empowers you to manage multiple Argo runtimes and deployments in one interface. This enterprise-grade management at scale helps you see everything in your code-to-cloud deployment.

The build-to-deploy pipeline also provides deep historical trend analysis so you can spot trends and use the insights to streamline your deliveries.

Codefresh also integrates with many of the tools you already use — from your source control manager, security scanner, and testing suite to your package manager, cloud platform, or a tool built in-house.

11. TeamCity

Founded: October 2006

Category: Build management and CI server with Continuous Delivery workflows

Pricing: Freemium (Up to 100 build configurations and three free Build); Agent licenses

From a dedicated Continuous Integration tool to an improved CI/CD framework, JetBrain’s TeamCity supports seamless build management, CI server, and Continuous Delivery in one place. It enables you to develop, test, and deploy apps, containers, and various packages; multi-cloud, multi-platform, and multi-language.

You can use TeamCity to automate complex CI/CD pipelines and analyze failures in real-time. It is Java-based and offers both free and paid plans.

The free license includes up to 100 configurations and three build agents. But it offers hundreds of free plugins, supports multiple version control platforms, and integrates with IDEs like IntelliJ, Visual Studio, and Eclipse.

12. Jenkins

Founded: 2004

Category: Time-tested, open-source CI/CD tool for Kubernetes and Docker application deployments

Pricing: Free and open-source

With Jenkins, you build code and continuously integrate it on the open-source automation server. It uses servlet containers such as the Apache Tomcat web server. Its simple web interface makes it popular with developers despite not being cloud-native.

But Jenkins is also wildly popular for its easy installation as a WAR file, Java coding, and seamless compatibility with Windows, Linux, and macOS. The CI/CD platform also helps test and evaluate isolated changes to a larger code base in real-time.

With Jenkins, you can distribute building, testing, and deploying works to various DevOps teams for collaboration. It also supports hundreds of ready-to-use plugins you can use to extend or scale its capabilities as you need. Its large open-source community is another advantage.

13. GitLab CI/CD

Founded: 2018

Category: Fully functional GitLab CI/CD tool (GitLab Auto DevOps)

Pricing: CI/CD minutes

If GitLab is your preferred code hosting and version control platform, you can automatically build, test, and publish software releases within GitLab with Auto DevOps. Auto DevOps is a set of pre-configured components and integrations that support seamless software delivery.

With Auto DevOps, you can also detect, measure, and monitor your code’s language, quality, and real-time actions.

Once enabled, it uses CI/CD templates to set up and automatically run default pipelines. Whether you have a predefined deployment configuration in place or not, Auto DevOps will still build and test your apps. It then creates the ‌jobs required to deploy your applications to production and/or staging.

In addition, it provides Review Apps that let you preview branch-specific changes.

14. Semaphore

Founded: 2012

Category: Run CI/CD in Docker images and K8s, with support for monorepo projects

Pricing: Pay-as-you-go (Startup); custom pricing

The Semaphore CI/CD platform is faster than GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and Travis CI. It also helps that Semaphore integrates seamlessly with GitHub. It also enables easy building, testing, and deployment actions on Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Semaphore is ideal for integrating IOS and Android applications as well — in part because it supports multiple programming languages (14).

The platform will let you run CI/CD workflows in Kubernetes and Docker images in the cloud. Its Command Line Interface (CLI) improves visibility into running jobs (inspects logs) and detects failures within seconds. With its programmable pipelines, it also facilitates parallel and sequential builds.

You can also use self-hosted agents and leverage its monorepo support to speed up development.

15. CodeMagic CI/CD

Founded: 2019

Category: CI/CD platform for mobile apps

Pricing: Freemium (Up to 500 build minutes, etc); Pay-as-you-go, $299/Month (Pro); $599/Month (Pro Plus)

Nevercode’s CodeMagic helps build, test, and deploy cross-platform and native mobile applications rapidly. Whether you work with Native Android, IOS, React, Ionic, Cordova, or Flutter apps, CodeMagic supports it. This means you can automatically set up, configure, test, and publish to Google Play, iTunes Connect, TestFairy, Crashlytics, and HoneyApp.

Tests include UI and unit tests, test parallelization, code analysis, and real device testing.

The mobile CI/CD platform integrates seamlessly with cloud-based and self-hosted Git repositories, including GitHub, BitBucket, and Azure DevOps. You can also build your mobile apps with premium or standard Linux, Windows, or macOS instances.

Automatic testing also provides actionable notifications and feedback.

Honorable mentions

What Next: Use CloudZero To Build, Test, And Deploy Features With Cost Confidence

With the CD tools we’ve shared here, releasing verified builds to users is remarkably efficient. What most do not do is provide granular details about the costs of building, testing, and deploying those upgrades, updates, and patches. If you’re not monitoring how much you spend throughout your CI/CD pipeline, it’s easy to overshoot your cloud budget.

Yet, it only takes one release to cause a dramatic shift in spending. Minor mistakes, like choosing the wrong instance size, can accumulate into large amounts of tech debt. Yet, each cost affects your cost of goods sold (COGS), which can‌ affect your pricing model and valuation at the next funding round.

So, is there a way to see immediate cost data after making an architectural choice, running a test project, or releasing new features?

CloudZero gives you a powerful interface that helps you see how costs connect to engineering events, products, features, and business units. You can immediately analyze the causes of every cost anywhere in your CI/CD pipeline.

You can also zoom in and out for granular answers, such as:

The black vertical bars show when costs spike after each deployment.

This real-time visibility into the cost consequences of every engineering decision means you can tell who, what, and why your costs are changing. This can further help you tell whether you are building and releasing cost-effective features or accumulating tech debt.

Using Cost Anomaly Detection, you can also get real-time alerts about trending costs through Slack or email. Your team can then take immediate action to avoid overspending.

Want to see how it works? !