Microsoft Azure DevOps Reviews

There are two versions of Azure DevOps: the cloud version and the on-premises version. We use the cloud version in very few situations, but most of our software is based on Azure DevOps on-premises.

We are a software house, and we develop software. We use it to store our source code; that is, it is the repository for our source code.

We have different teams working on different products, and each one uses a different methodology and a different process. Azure DevOps helps with that. For instance, one group may be using Scrum as a methodology to develop their software. The other group could also be using Scrum but with CDCI (continuous development, continuous integration), which helps a lot when you have to develop, test, and deploy the solution.

I think the most usable thing is that you can follow the whole progress of the development process. This makes it very useful for us.

As for improvement, the first one is pricing. For us, luckily because we are partners, it's free. Microsoft gold partners do not have to pay, but if you're not a partner, the product is very expensive.

The second would be that the tool should integrate with some of the competitors. It doesn't matter if it's a big market; it's difficult when you have to integrate with other competitor's tools, like JIRA, for instance.

If you look at the competitor's tools, they integrate easily with Microsoft, but on Microsoft's side, it's not as easy. They have been changing, but still, there are a number of gaps there.

I've got teams that want to use Microsoft Project, not only to control the whole process of the development but also to control the whole project and software. I think Project should be integrated with DevOps.

We have been using this solution for 10 years.

It is very stable. I think the system is down only a couple of hours per year, so it's very stable.

It's very scalable. We started using this solution 10 years ago, and it has evolved, We also have grown our software production, and so far, we have scope with all these situations.

We haven't had any problems with the product, but every time we had some questions, technical support staff answered pretty fast, in less than 24 hours.

The initial setup is pretty easy.

For the deployment, I think we had two people: one person from infrastructure and one who was a specialist in Azure DevOps. For maintenance, because we have about 80 people using this software, we only have one and a half people taking care of the software. That is, the infrastructure person does this part-time. He doesn't spend the whole day taking care of DevOps.

The ROI is very positive for us, but it's difficult to say how it would be if we had to pay for the solution. It's a very worthwhile product, but again, we don't have any comparisons because we don't pay anything for it.

Microsoft Azure DevOps is an expensive solution.

Get to know the product because it is complex and has many different possibilities.

It is worth having it, but you have to have an in-depth understanding and know what it is capable of doing. Otherwise, you're going to install it, and then it will be like having a very nice car in your garage that you don't know how to drive.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Microsoft Azure DevOps at eight.

Microsoft Azure DevOps is used for source code versioning, issue tracking, documentation storage, and sharing.

My team likes the integration that Microsoft Azure DevOps has with GitHub and Microsoft Teams. The solution is well integrated with other Microsoft tools in one place, it is very good.

Microsoft Azure DevOps could improve by having better integration with other email servers.

I have been using Microsoft Azure DevOps for a few years.

Microsoft Azure DevOps is quite stable. When we were configuring some continuous integration pipelines, we had some issues, but it was not a large issue.

The solution is scalable enough for what we use it for, we have small teams of approximately 25 people. It's more than enough right now.

We didn't have many incidents to contact the support about. However, they were decent.

I was previously using Jira.

The initial setup is straightforward. The configuration of Microsoft Azure DevOps could be better. The documentation needs to be improved.

The implementation and maintenance of the solution are done by our DevOps department.

We do not pay licenses for this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft Azure DevOps an eight out of ten.

We are an application development company, so DevOps helps us manage the work our developers and software engineers do on-site. It's convenient for customers because everybody works from home due to COVID.

DevOps is used within our organization and we also encourage some of our clients who are interested in a development platform to use Azure DevOps, but we have other clients that actually prefer Red Hat or other platforms. We like Azure DevOps, but our cloud environment is AWS. We've done three implementations on AWS without any problem.

Our technical sales staff and business development people need to know how far the developers are on any product that we're developing. DevOps makes it easier for you to see how far along they are with the work because they have a repository where they store everything. There is a portal where you can see what has been done, what has been tested, what is working, and what isn't. I have a huge dashboard with an overview of what the development team is doing from an executive point of view.

I know exactly what they're working on. If the team is falling behind on a project, there's a project management module where I can see exactly what was supposed to be delivered and what hasn't been. 

I can't think of any specific things at the moment, but I've run into things that I didn't like. I came across something that I wanted to be changed in DevOps, but I can't remember what it was. It was a particular feature I was looking for that I couldn't find.

I'm happy with DevOps' stability. I've had problems with the Red Hat environment, but I think it also boils down still to implementation skills. We're a big Microsoft implementer, so we find Azure DevOps to be highly stable.

DevOps is highly scalable. Before one of our clients decided to move to the cloud version of DevOps, they decided to try it in a small environment to see if they liked it. Previously, they had Team Foundation Server running on-premises, and we encouraged them to switch to DevOps. We set up a minimal environment and used it as a typical development environment. It wasn't for testing or anything. It was just a mini development environment that replicated their internal chassis.

Before we started using DevOps, we were using Microsoft Team Foundation Server, which allowed the whole team to share work and collaborate. DevOps does that and a little more.

Most of the time we just leave it on the cloud instead of deploying it on-prem, unless a client requests on-prem. In that case, we just replicate the cloud environment in the on-prem environment. There's no real difference, and we've had some clients who change and say they now prefer to have it on the cloud. 

After the subscription, which took about a day, we had our B environment up and running, and everything was transferred from on-prem to the cloud. In the older days, it would take you about a month. But now, to move, it actually took us, I think, almost a week, because the biggest challenge was moving the data more than the environment. Moving the environment, it took about, I think, a day or two. But the data was a bit of a problem.

The cost of Azure DevOps is manageable. You have the option to purchase a license that is per user. You can choose based on the size of your team. For example, you can opt for a volume enterprise license or go for user-based licensing if you don't have a huge number of users. 

You can start with a smaller package and then scale up as needed. Let's say, for instance, you are a smaller company with about only 10 users of the environment. Then, two months later, you win the Powerball, and you get a billion dollars and bring in a thousand developers.

You have the flexibility to move from a small-team subscription to a big subscription easily. So you don't necessarily have to take the volume. The licensing model covers all three tiers, whereby you can have a volume license, individual users, or groups. 

We are using groups, and we've found it affordable because you cancel their license if someone leaves. When we get a new person, we repurchase the license. We pay a monthly subscription, but the annual licenses are cheaper because of the commitment. 

I rate Azure DevOps seven out of 10. I would give it a higher rating, but there are a couple of things that tick me off.

I have been working with it for different projects and purposes. I'm basically the main architect for such solutions.

It is stable. I like Azure a lot. All our guys are Microsoft certified. 

It is fairly new, so there are a lot of changes, and because it keeps on changing, you need to adapt to those changes.

Its setup is quite complex.

It is stable.

We never used Microsoft's technical support. We always get it right.

Its initial setup is quite complex. There are a lot of caveats. Even if I can call a setup out of the box, it is not really out of the box.

We managed everything on our own. It involved fitting other products with the existing product. If you don't encounter problems, you're not going to learn.

We are 100% satisfied with it. I would rate it a nine out of 10.

We use Azure DevOps for the entire lifecycle of software development, starting with requirements analysis. After that, we use it to continue the process of development and deployment.

Azure DevOps is user-friendly. The UI and the UX are perfect. Their software covers the whole development cycle, from requirements analysis to deployment. In particular, it's helpful in the requirements analysis phase. You can apply your methodology or Agile framework from the beginning. After choosing the framework, like Agile or Scrum, Azure DevOps provides many features, like user stories, tasks, managing boards, and those kinds of things.

Azure DevOps is complete and meets all of your expectations. You can develop your own plugins to customize it however you want, so it's highly flexible. We develop personalized plugins or use ones that other programmers create for the Azure Marketplace. 

This makes up for any possible deficiency in Azure DevOps features. If you want some capability that Azure DevOps doesn't provide, you can develop your plugin or customize any part of it. The options for customization make it worthwhile for any software development.

Microsoft could focus on refining the reporting and dashboard elements of Azure DevOps to improve it.

I've been working with DevOps for about five years.

DevOps is totally stable. And if there are any problems, Microsoft patches them as soon as possible.

When you enter into Microsoft ecosystem, you can scale any part of the product in this ecosystem. For example, you can connect Azure DevOps to Microsoft SharePoint for knowledge or document management. You can connect Azure DevOps to OneDrive for storage. You can connect it with Skype for chatting or Outlook. 

We don't use support from Microsoft. We mostly solve problems by searching for solutions on sites like GitHub and that kind of thing. 

I've used Atlassian products like Jira, Confluence, and HipChat, but I prefer Azure DevOps and the Microsoft ecosystem.

It is effortless to set up DevOps. All Microsoft products are user-friendly and easy to install. If you run into any obstacles, you can use Microsoft library or MSDN for any further help that you need. Microsoft provides a lot of wizards that you can use to solve your problem.

We use Microsoft Azure DevOps for applications that analyze data and the data scientist creates the test data for the manual and automatic application tests. Here in Europe, we need anonymous synchronization of all data for testing.

We create special applications for creating data for direct tests.

Microsoft Azure DevOps has been very good for creating pipelines, and all the solutions for creating task management for developers and for the business. 

All of the tests of the applications are done on the mobile or web interface and it could be improved.

The connection to Power BI could improve. Power BI is a very good platform for reporting and presenting processes, but a good engine does not exist to present the process development in time in Power BI. It's a typical business reporting tool.

I have been using Microsoft Azure DevOps for approximately one year.

Microsoft Azure DevOps is highly stable.

There are two options to build. The first option is to build in the cloud, which is very stable but not quickly. The second is to build the systems in the local networks. 

We have 5 to 10 people using this solution in my organization. We have three DevOps and the others are the QA cluster.

We do not use support from Microsoft, we have not had any problems.

The initial setup of this solution was complex. Every part of the implementation was difficult.

For us to implement our production it took approximately 10 to 20 sprints. One sprint is two weeks.

We require a three-person team for the maintenance and support of the solution.

The price of the solution is expensive.

All people who work on projects must have good staff in development in .net, and need to have certificates. The minimal certificate is the AZ-204 Azure developer, it is obligatory.

I rate Microsoft Azure DevOps a nine out of ten.

We use it for planning, pipeline management and testing, as well as using it as a CI/CD tool.

I like the agile management of projects, running stand-ups and the like. The pipeline management feature is great.  

We'd like to see an improvement in reporting across multiple projects. The same applies to improving program visibility so that project managers can get that pane of glass to assist with their work. It would be a big win for a lot of users as well as a good addition to the tool. 

We've been using this solution for close to four years. 

The solution is stable. There are still the occasional issues but on average it's very stable. 

The solution is easily scalable because it runs on the cloud and everything is managed by Microsoft. We don't do anything in terms of increasing capacity so when more users are added the increased capacity is automatically managed. 

We haven't made a lot of calls to technical support but when we have their response has been good and quick. 

We have a DevOps engineer who carried out the implementation for us and I believe it was relatively easy. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10.

We have a number of use cases. One of them is development, which includes several development teams that use source code control and testing support, as well as the entire software development toolset. I only use the front end, which is the project task management part.

I don't have any metrics on that. I can only give you anecdotal evidence. 

One of the benefits of using a Kanban board is that it keeps track of how long tasks take. People would hold onto tasks for three or four weeks before we started using the Kanban board. However, once we began using the Kanban board, it became more visible. 

We also realized that we needed to divide the tasks into smaller sections, and the tasks lasted an average of a week. As a result, the throughput and velocity increased simply because the Kanban board made them more visible.

I found the Kanban board to be the most useful for my needs.

I'm a project manager. I've been working with non-technical teams and training them on agile methodologies. Using a Kanban board is usually the most straightforward way to get a non-technical team started with an online task tracking tool.

In comparison to JIRA, I believe DevOps has very poor reporting and metrics support. They've done very little work, and they could benefit greatly from improved reporting and metrics.

Essentially, I would like to see more reporting support.

This solution was already in place when I started. I'm not sure when it was first put in place.

I started with the company in May of 2018, and have been using Microsoft Azure DevOps ever since.

We are using the most recent version.

Microsoft Azure DevOps is a stable solution.

It is difficult to customize DevOps. It's similar to a product that has had features added to it rather than being completely redesigned. As a result, it has limitations in terms of scalability and customization.

The most successful users are software developers and technical software managers.

I believe it is quite minimal. Microsoft, in my opinion, does not provide adequate support. My solutions are mostly found online. 

With JIRA, you could call someone, and they had a large community of users who could answer your questions. They also had a support department that provided assistance. Microsoft has a lot of information online, but you have to find it, look around its various websites. It is not well supported.

I used to work as an engineering manager, a scrum master, and as part of a technical team. JIRA is my preferred tool for this. 

JIRA is a more robust and mature tool. However, as you are aware, JIRA is more modular and requires integration with other parts. DevOps, on the other hand, has everything in one, it combines source code control, release management, and task tracking.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. It's one of its advantages over JIRA. It is easier to set up because it is a simple product, whereas JIRA is more complex, more mature and complete, and more difficult to set up.

We have two or three technicians who deploy and maintain this solution.

You would really have to do a comparison, and you would need some training. 

It really depends on your project management and reporting requirements. DevOps is simple to use, but it is severely limited in terms of project management. JIRA is complete, but it's a lot more complicated.

I only use it for project management and the tools associated with project management. I know it's popular among those who use it for source code control and release management. It appears to be more satisfactory for that purpose.

I would rate Microsoft Azure DevOps a five out of ten.