Azure Pipelines vs Octopus Deploy: What are the differences?

1. Integration: Azure Pipelines is a part of the Azure DevOps service, providing a comprehensive DevOps solution that includes code repositories, build and release pipelines, and testing tools. On the other hand, Octopus Deploy focuses solely on deployment automation, offering advanced features for complex deployment scenarios.

2. Environment Management: Azure Pipelines primarily focuses on managing the build and release processes, while Octopus Deploy specializes in managing and automating the deployment of applications to various environments. Octopus Deploy allows for more granular control over deployments in different environments.

3. Deployment Targets: Azure Pipelines can deploy to a wide range of targets, including Azure services, Kubernetes clusters, virtual machines, and on-premises servers. Octopus Deploy, on the other hand, is designed to work with a variety of servers and cloud platforms, providing flexibility in deployment targets.

4. Deployment Orchestration: Azure Pipelines offers sequential deployment processes, allowing users to define the order of deployment tasks. Octopus Deploy excels in deployment orchestration by providing features like deployment steps, run conditions, and built-in support for rolling deployments.

5. Plugins and Extensions: Azure Pipelines supports a wide range of integrations and extensions, allowing users to customize their pipelines with third-party tools and services. Octopus Deploy also offers a library of community-contributed step templates and integrations, enhancing its extensibility and versatility.

6. License and Cost: Azure Pipelines provides a certain number of free build minutes per month and offers paid plans for additional usage. Octopus Deploy follows a licensing model based on the number of deployment targets, making it a cost-effective option for organizations with a specific deployment infrastructure.

In Summary, Azure Pipelines and Octopus Deploy differ in their integration scope, environment management capabilities, deployment targets, orchestration features, plugin extensibility, and licensing model.