Agile methodology and DevOps are two complementary practices that bring efficiency and predictability to all aspects of software development. The agile methodology is an iterative software development approach that focuses on collaboration, rapid software releases, and customer feedback. It’s a cultural and management philosophy that aims to get every team member to focus on continuous improvement and value delivery to customers. DevOps is a software delivery approach that removes silos between existing development and operations teams. DevOps teams use tools and practices to automate processes that historically have been manual and slow—such as deploying code or provisioning infrastructure. These tools and practices increase an organization’s ability to quickly deliver applications and services.","sortDate":"2023-07-20","headlineUrl":"https://aws.amazon.com/compare/the-difference-between-agile-devops/?trk=faq_card","id":"faq-hub#what-is-the-difference-between-agile-devops","category":"Management & Governance","primaryCTA":"https://portal.aws.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/registration/index.html?pg=compare_header","headline":"What’s the Difference Between Agile and DevOps?"},"metadata":{"tags":[{"id":"GLOBAL#tech-category#mgmt-govern","name":"Management & Governance","namespaceId":"GLOBAL#tech-category","description":"Management & Governance","metadata":{}},{"id":"faq-hub#faq-type#compare","name":"compare","namespaceId":"faq-hub#faq-type","description":"

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What’s the Difference Between Agile and DevOps?


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Agile methodology and DevOps are two complementary practices that bring efficiency and predictability to all aspects of software development. The agile methodology is an iterative software development approach that focuses on collaboration, rapid software releases, and customer feedback. It’s a cultural and management philosophy that aims to get every team member to focus on continuous improvement and value delivery to customers. DevOps is a software delivery approach that removes silos between existing development and operations teams. DevOps teams use tools and practices to automate processes that historically have been manual and slow—such as deploying code or provisioning infrastructure. These tools and practices increase an organization’s ability to quickly deliver applications and services. \n

Read about DevOps »","id":"seo-faq-pairs#whats-the-difference-between-agile-and-devops","customSort":"1"},"metadata":{"tags":[{"id":"seo-faq-pairs#faq-collections#devops-vs-agile","name":"devops-vs-agile","namespaceId":"seo-faq-pairs#faq-collections","description":"

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The agile methodology emerged in 2000 as a response to the limitations of traditional, more rigid software development methodologies. The “Manifesto for Agile Software Development,” published in 2001, outlined its core values, principles, and practices. Agile practices focus on customer collaboration, rapid change, continuous delivery, and iterative development. \n

DevOps originated from agile practices and developed because of a need for more synergy between operations and development teams. Patrick Debois coined DevOps in 2009. Debois built upon the principles of agile practices but expanded them to include operations and automation. DevOps supports agile practices by providing additional areas of focus.  \n

Next, we give some more similarities between DevOps and agile practices. \n

Objectives \n

Both DevOps and agile methodologies focus on improving the software development and delivery process. They also promote collaboration, efficiency, and continuous improvement. They both use cross-functional collaboration to provide feedback loops and continuously improve work. Both use lean principles to streamline and maximize efficiency. \n

DevOps and agile practices encourage teams to implement improvements, collaborate, and reduce bottlenecks. This allows both methodologies to speed up software development while maintaining quality. \n

Quality assurance \n

Agile and DevOps methodologies both place emphasis on testing to ensure the reliability of software. Both focus on testing code changes to detect issues as early as possible. Unit tests, functional tests, performance tests, acceptance testing, and integration testing are all common. \n

By focusing on frequent code testing throughout the development process, agile and DevOps teams can deliver reliable, high-quality software.  \n

Continuous improvement \n

Agile practices and DevOps promote a culture of learning, growth, enhanced processes, and improvement. Teams make incremental changes iteratively to improve a product.  \n

The agile methodology uses Scrum practices like retrospectives to help foster a culture of improvement. For instance, after each iteration, a team reflects on what they did well and what they could improve. They identify future action items to improve productivity, customer satisfaction, and collaboration. \n

Similarly, DevOps teams use post-incident reviews and monitor data to find areas of improvement. \n

Read about Scrum »","id":"seo-faq-pairs#similarities-between-agile-and-devops","customSort":"2"},"metadata":{"tags":[{"id":"seo-faq-pairs#faq-collections#devops-vs-agile","name":"devops-vs-agile","namespaceId":"seo-faq-pairs#faq-collections","description":"

devops-vs-agile","metadata":{}}]}},{"fields":{"faqQuestion":"Key differences: agile practices vs. DevOps","faqAnswer":"

DevOps and agile practices are complementary approaches in the software delivery lifecycle. They meet customer needs differently by focusing on distinct principles and practices. \n

Purpose \n

The agile methodology focuses on incremental software development. It encourages teams to collaborate with customers, deliver value, and respond quickly to change. Teams use agile practices to efficiently respond to evolving customer needs and market demands in software development. \n

DevOps includes operations teams in the agile software development culture. The role of operations is to deploy and deliver the software to end users. If software changes frequently, the operations team also has to keep up. They have to manage software environment configuration changes, which becomes increasingly challenging as the application scales. \n

DevOps breaks down silos and focuses on collaboration between the development and operations team. Various tools and technologies increase flexibility and efficiency in deploying software. \n

Principles \n

These are the four main principles, or priorities, of agile methodology: \n