DevOps vs Agile: Key Differences You Need To Know

Agile and DevOps are two widely used practices in software development. Both aim to deliver quality software promptly. While there are many similarities between DevOps and Agile, there also exist some differences. Companies that employ these development methodologies need to understand the difference between DevOps and Agile and the role these practices play. This article explains the difference between DevOps vs Agile in detail.

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What is DevOps?

DevOps is a software development approach that fosters collaboration between Software Development (Dev) and Operations (Ops) teams. It focuses on communication, integration, and collaboration among IT professionals so that they can build, test, and release software rapidly and with greater efficiency.

This software development methodology is divided into planning, development, build, test, delivery, monitoring, and operations. It brings people, processes, and technology together to deliver continuous value. Using this approach, different teams can work together to efficiently perform all tasks involved in launching a new product, release, or update.

The principles listed below are the foundation of DevOps:

• Continuous Integration
• Continuous Delivery
• Version Control
• Continuous Deployment
• Continuous Testing
• Collaboration
• Continuous Operations

Features of DevOps

Here is the list of top features that DevOps offers:

• Broader scope: DevOps manages all stages of software development and delivery to ensure that the end product is reliable, and is released quickly.
• Automation: One of the objectives of DevOps is to automate workflows and create programmable processes to boost efficiency.
• Collaboration: DevOps facilitates cross-functional teamwork and inter-department collaboration. This results in an improved work environment for teams to work effectively.

To know more about DevOps, read our post – What is DevOps?

What is Agile?

Agile is a software development methodology that focuses on the continuous iteration of development and testing in the SDLC process. The emphasis is on aligning development with customer needs and trends. It was introduced as an alternative to the traditional waterfall methodology that was unable to meet the expectations and challenges of the fast-paced continuous technological innovations. Agile focuses on iterative, incremental, and evolutionary development.

In simple terms, Agile focuses on continuously delivering small manageable increments of a project through iterative development and testing. It enables effective management of complex projects, improving communication and collaboration among team members and customers. There are many ways to implement Agile such as Scrum and Kanban.

The Agile software development has four core values:

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
• Individuals and team interactions over the process and tools.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation.
• Responding to changes in a plan.

Features of Agile

Below are some of the key features of the Agile methodology of software development:

• Incremental Progress: With the sprints production approach help create a consistent development environment. It follows an iterative development cycle, where the complex projects are broken down into more manageable chunks.
• Productivity Tools: Agile offers several tools such as Kanban, JIRA, Trello, and Scrum to track wor, organize requirements and tasks, and monitor progress.
• Greater transparency key stakeholders: Agile emphasizes setting the right expectations and providing stakeholders full visibility into a project. The enables end-users to participate actively in the direction of the project by providing feedback throughout. Those who are involved in a project stay informed through Scrum meetings, sprint reviews, and progress charts.

Also Read: Agile Vs Scrum – Fundamental Understanding and Differences

DevOps vs Agile: Similarities

Below are the notable similarities in Agile and DevOps:

Both Agile and DevOps aim to enhance business productivity

While the approach of DevOps and Agile is different, they work towards achieving a common goal that is to boost the productivity of the business. Both practices follow a reliable approach and operate in a connected way.

Lean philosophy

Both Agile and DevOps have adopted and implemented the lean philosophy widely. This makes it easier for individuals to work as a team.

Collaboration

The emphasis of both is on successive collaboration in teams. The team members collaborate with each other in whichever method they opt for. It makes the process of sharing data and tools easy.

Must Read: Top Courses for Building a Strong DevOps Foundation

DevOps vs Agile: Key Differences

The following are the main differences between DevOps and Agile:

DevOps	Agile
DevOps is the intersection of development and operations.	It is a continuous iterative approach with a focus on collaboration, customer feedback, and quick releases.
DevOps focuses on maximizing efficiency and increasing automation.	Agile strives to keep pace with customer needs and expectations. Thus, its focus is on the individual user.
It can be used in any department to manage a complex project.	Focused on the end-to-end engineering process.
Emphasis is on operational and business readiness.	Emphasizes functional and non-function readiness.
Requires large teams.	Needs smaller teams.
It focuses on constant testing and delivery.	This approach focuses on constant changes.
Feedback is provided by the internal team.	Feedback is provided by customers.
Importance is given to process documentation as the software will be sent to the operational team for deployment.	Importance is given to the working system over complete documentation.
It bridges the gap between development or testing and operations.	It bridges the gap between customer need and development & testing teams.
Documentation is essential to boost flexibility in the development process.	It focuses on communication over official documentation. It has sufficient documentation to ensure the teams collaborate well.
The primary goal is automation to maximize efficiency when deploying software.	There is no emphasis on automation
Popular tools include Puppet, Ansible, and Chef.	Popular tools include JIRA, Slack, Trello, and Bugzilla.

Conclusion

In this blog on Agile vs DevOps, we learned that these methodologies are not mutually exclusive. Both software development methodologies have similar aims of getting the most efficient end-product quickly. But they are different in their approach. Both practices have many differences but when used together, these practices can lead to more reliable and efficient results.