1. Architecture and Focus: HashiCorp Waypoint is a cloud-agnostic build and deployment tool that focuses on simplicity and developer-centric workflows. It provides a unified interface for building, deploying, and releasing applications across different infrastructures. On the other hand, Spinnaker is a multi-cloud continuous delivery platform that focuses on orchestrating complex deployments and provides advanced features like canary deployments, automated rollbacks, and multi-region deployment strategies.
2. Integration with CI/CD: Waypoint integrates seamlessly with popular CI/CD platforms like CircleCI, Jenkins, and GitHub Actions, allowing developers to automate the build and deployment process as part of their existing workflows. In contrast, Spinnaker is a standalone platform that can be used alongside CI/CD tools but requires additional configuration to integrate with them.
3. Deployment Strategies: Waypoint supports a wide range of deployment strategies, including rolling updates, blue-green deployments, and canary releases. It allows developers to define deployment policies using a simple configuration file. Spinnaker, on the other hand, provides a more extensive set of deployment strategies, including red/black deployments, traffic shaping, and customizable deployment pipelines.
4. Cloud Provider Support: Waypoint is designed to work with any cloud provider and can be easily extended to support new providers through plugins. It abstracts away the underlying infrastructure, allowing developers to focus on building and deploying applications. Spinnaker, on the other hand, has built-in support for major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. It provides native integration with provider-specific features and services.
5. Community and Ecosystem: Waypoint is a relatively new project from HashiCorp and is rapidly gaining popularity. It has an active community and an expanding ecosystem of plugins and integrations. Spinnaker, on the other hand, has been around for several years and has a mature community and a wide-ranging ecosystem of plugins, extensions, and integrations.
6. Use Cases and Scale: Waypoint is best suited for small to medium-sized applications and organizations that value simplicity and ease of use. It works well for developers who want to streamline their workflows and simplify their deployment process across different infrastructure environments. Spinnaker, on the other hand, is designed for large-scale, enterprise-level deployments with complex requirements and multi-cloud environments. It provides advanced features for managing deployments at scale and supports high availability and fault tolerance.

In Summary, HashiCorp Waypoint focuses on simplicity, supports various deployment strategies, integrates with popular CI/CD tools, and works with any cloud provider, while Spinnaker specializes in orchestrating complex deployments, provides advanced deployment strategies and scalability features, and has a mature community and ecosystem.