Top 2020 DevOps Tools: A Complete Guide to Building Your CI/CD Stack

Development & Build Tools

In 2020 the recommended stack for source‑code management (SCM), continuous integration (CI) and database schema management is:

SCM + CI: GitLab with built‑in GitLab‑CI . A .gitlab-ci.yml file placed at the repository root defines pipelines that run in isolated Docker containers, providing seamless integration, unlimited tool chaining and a free tier for small teams.

Database migration: FlywayDB . Flyway stores migration scripts as versioned SQL or Java files, tracks applied versions, and can be invoked either as a command‑line tool or as a library called from application startup to keep the schema in sync with the code.

Automation Testing Tools

For integration‑level testing the 2020 leader is Cucumber , a behavior‑driven development (BDD) framework that combines executable specifications with test code. Typical usage pairs Cucumber with Selenium WebDriver (Java) to drive web UI tests, automatically generating living documentation from the feature files.

Deployment Tools

Artifact Management – Nexus

Nexus Repository Manager stores binaries for Java, NPM, Docker, etc., acting as a proxy for remote registries and providing a single source of truth for all build artifacts. It enables fast CI resolution and global visibility of vulnerable open‑source components.

Configuration Management – Ansible

Ansible uses stateless, YAML‑based playbooks executed from a control machine. Playbooks can be unit‑tested with molecule, and the same code can be version‑controlled alongside application code, simplifying CI pipelines.

Infrastructure as Code – Terraform

Terraform defines cloud, on‑prem or hybrid infrastructure in HCL. Its provider ecosystem (AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, etc.) lets a single tool provision resources across any environment, and the declarative model ensures reproducible deployments.

Runtime DevOps Tools

X‑as‑a‑Service – Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS offers a broad portfolio (EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda, etc.) with a free tier for experimentation. Its APIs are the industry standard, making skills portable across employers.

Orchestration – OpenShift

OpenShift builds on Kubernetes and adds Source‑to‑Image builds, integrated CI/CD pipelines, default security policies and a unified web console, suitable for on‑prem, cloud or hybrid deployments.

Monitoring – New Relic

New Relic provides SaaS‑based full‑stack observability: APM, server/container metrics, database performance and real‑user monitoring, all accessible from a single dashboard.

Logging – Splunk

Splunk aggregates logs from on‑prem or SaaS sources, offering searchable indexes, alerts and dashboards with minimal configuration.

Collaboration DevOps Tools

Issue Tracking – Jira

Jira’s flexible workflow engine and built‑in agile terminology let teams manage backlogs, sprints and release plans, with extensive integrations to the other tools in the stack.

Chat‑Ops – Mattermost

Mattermost is an open‑source, self‑hosted alternative to Slack. It uses the same API contract, allowing existing Slack bots and integrations to run unchanged while keeping data on‑prem.

Documentation – Confluence

Confluence provides a self‑hosted wiki with page versioning, rich plugins and tight integration with Jira, enabling teams to keep technical documentation internal and searchable.