[Free & Paid] 8 Release Management Tools

Release Management is the act of managing, organizing, budgeting, and controlling the entire process of producing a software program via different settings and phases of development, including testing and releasing the program. In this article, we will discuss various release management tools that are vital to the success of your release with increased productivity. These tools will be highlighted throughout the article. For a release manager to successfully develop automated procedures that result in high-quality releases, they must be acquainted with at least some of these technologies.

These tools assist in accelerating the delivery of software while simultaneously lowering associated risks and faults. The article lists our top recommendations for tools that can assist you in deploying software more quickly and effectively. Let’s have a look!

What Are Release Management Tools?

Release management tools are designed to facilitate software releases’ creation, testing, deployment, and maintenance. In the last ten years, agile methodologies have become increasingly popular. As a result, software releases are becoming much more frequent, and the cycle is very compressed. This has increased the complexity of the software release cycle, which encompasses the entire process from development to deployment and support.

A comprehensive understanding of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) and the practices outlined in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is required for release management. This is because release management combines the broad business focus of traditional project management with an in-depth understanding of the latter. Continuous delivery, DevOps, and agile software development practices are increasingly utilized within the release management industry. These software development practices are known to rely on release management tools to assist in the release of applications becoming more frequent and quick.

Top 4 Release Management Tools Free

In this part, we cover the top 4 release management tools free of use.

1. Ansible

Ansible is free software that helps with managing and deploying applications and configurations. Organizations may benefit from the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. This cloud-based IT automation solution helps with system setup, software deployment, cloud provisioning, zero-downtime rolling updates, and more.

The solution’s automation services catalog provides access to hardware, software, and cloud/container infrastructures. Requests for new automation projects from IT departments might include specifics like CPU or memory limits, and the progress of these requests can be monitored. The dashboard allows managers to track and analyze data, get alerts when clusters are about to expire, create reports on the progress of deployments, and keep tabs on any tasks that are still in the queue or that have failed.

Ansible Pros

• Create “plays” that give hosts responsibilities or roles.
• Divide your production machines into groups using Ansible.
• Automate machine-level setup operations.
• Great for updating several servers.

Ansible Cons

• Not easy to use for starters

2. Jenkins

Jenkins is one of the most widely used tools for continuous integration, but it can also function as release management software. It’s the go-to open-source automation server since it has hundreds of plugins to help with project construction, automation, and deployment.

Jenkins Pipeline is a set of plugins built into the program that facilitate the establishment of CD pipelines for software version management, code review, localization, and other similar tasks. Pipelines may be established for projects, Jenkinsfiles can be written in a graphical editor, pipelines can be securely connected to the source control repository, and changes made in Blue Ocean UI’s Pipeline editor will be reflected in projects automatically.

Jenkins Pros

• Organizations may remotely access and collect data in Python, XML, and JSON using Jenkins’s API.
• This prevents problems from developing further.
• Facilitates release management and deployment consistency.
• It may be used for continuous integration and delivery since it is expandable.

Jenkins Cons

• The interface is not user friendly

3. Spinnaker

Spinnaker is a platform for continuous delivery that is open source and works across several cloud environments. It is a strong technology that can assist in speed application deployment in an automated and repeatable manner, with the opportunity to embed best practices into the pipeline.

The Spinnaker application illustrates the notion of managing a group of services by modeling their operation. It does this by providing two primary sets of functionality: application administration and deployment. These sets of features are designed to reduce the manual labor development teams require.

Spinnaker Pros

• Enhances safety by allowing users to assign certain roles to specific projects or accounts.
• The ability to schedule stages to run just at certain times of the day.
• The UI makes setting up pipelines simple, and CFNs are unnecessary for code releases.
• For Linux-based ec2/AMIs, Spinnaker shines in its capacity for AMI building (with ROSCO) and code deployments.

Spinnaker Cons

• Requires constant upgrades and maintenance

4. Octopus Deploy

Octopus Deploy is a configuration management software that can be hosted in the cloud or on-premises. It enables enterprises to oversee, audit, plan, and manage deployments from a common platform. Administrators can establish deployment procedures and employ a variety of deployment patterns, such as blue-green, multi-tenancy, rolling, and canary deployments.

Octopus Deploy has a self-service capability that allows end users, development teams, and support personnel to carry out activities independently. This functionality also enables team members to automate repeating operations. Because of the variables module, staff members can use the same deployment techniques in various contexts. It also allows staff to save passwords and other sensitive information on a centralized platform, protecting user and user data.

Octopus Deploy Pros

• The most complex deployment patterns are supported.
• Consistent marketing of releases across all settings, with manual approvals and detailed release notes.
• The software provides an API; businesses may connect it to other tools.
• This dashboard allows managers to keep tabs on the software versions used in production.

Octopus Deploy Cons

• The paid plans are expensive

Top 4 Release Management Tools Paid

In this part, you should introduce the top 4 release management tools from the following aspects.

1. GitLab

GitLab is a platform that is implemented as a single application. It has the potential to radically alter how software development, security, and operations teams cooperate on projects. GitLab users can simplify their collaborative processes and visualize, prioritize, coordinate, and measure their progress utilizing various project management tools.

Whether a company utilizes Agile, Waterfall, or conversational development approaches, GitLab helps speed collaborative processes. Users can develop code, manage project data in a safe environment, and combine source code into a single DVCS that can be handled without causing disruptions to the workflow. Users can monitor application performance and examine shipping velocity thanks to GitLab’s integration of Prometheus, which gathers and shows performance information for applications that have been deployed.

What Gitlab Is Best For

• GitLab’s continuous delivery reduces complexity while releasing code.
• Prometheus tracks project progress, activity, and app performance.
• GitLab’s centralized repository hosting, integrated branching capabilities, and access restrictions.
• You can quickly find issues and get feedback using Gitlab’s built-in code testing and review tools.

User Rating

• G2: 4.5/5 (654 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (789 reviews)

Cost For Gitlab: Free to $19 per month

2. nTask

nTask is a solution to all your project management problems! It combines team tools into an innovative platform. nTask offers technologies for collaboration, checking, tracking & trailing, and giving comments or feedback, in addition to Gantt charts, task remarks, meeting organization, time tracking, problem diagnosis, and more. This is done to make task management easier.

Since nTask is intuitive and easy to use, it will also be simple to implement across various departments. In addition, you provide various fantastic price options, which we will go over in more detail below. Additionally, by utilizing this program, you may keep track of product problems and issue tracking in one location.

What nTask Is Best For

• One solution to handle files, tasks, boards, checklists, risk and problem monitoring, and reporting.
• Users may easily create, manage, assign, and share tasks.
• Users of meeting management software may do things like schedule and monitor meetings.
• Easy timesheet tracking, review, and approval.

User Rating

• G2: 4.4/5 (17 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.2/5 (97 reviews)

Cost For nTask: Free to $2.99 per month

3. Project.co

Project.co is an online tool for managing projects and facilitating teamwork and communication. Users may create and manage various projects, send and receive invoices, collaborate on documents, set up task lists and timeframes, delegate authority, and use Kanban boards, among other features.

Tasks in Project.co may be seen in various formats, including a Kanban board, a calendar, a list, or a scheduler, allowing users to keep tabs on their projects at any step and quickly identify those that have been finished and those that still need attention. The platform’s project overview feature facilitates communication and collaboration between project management and client teams to ensure that everyone is engaged in the project planning and execution process.

What Project.co Is Best For

• All members can easily interact, exchange files, and collaborate on projects in one central location.
• Keep an eye on what has been done and what remains to be done to keep your project on track.
• Plan out your work and establish milestones for your project.
• Put everything in order from most important to least.

User Rating

• G2: 4.8/5 (2 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.8/5 (107 reviews)

Cost For Project.co: Free to $10 per month

4. Clarive

Clarive is a program that will streamline, computerize, and quicken your company’s whole release management procedure. Clarive’s streamlined process simplifies application distribution. This release management system controls the flow of program updates from testing to live use. Clarive’s fundamental function is to interface between the many parties involved in a release’s development and completion of the delivery itself.

When managing and coordinating activities for testing, configuring, and producing software applications, Clarive also applies principles from diverse disciplines like DevOps, lean, ITIL, and agile, using resources like Kanban boards, automation, and workflow modeling. In addition, it gives you the tools you need to control several ecosystems, which improves the velocity and consistency with which your business’s applications may be released.

What Clarive Is Best For

• Provides a means of monitoring your release as it rolls out in phases.
• Prepare a schedule that accounts for all the time, money, and resources required to complete a project.
• Offers a Kanban board for developing an implementation
• Features a comprehensive delivery system.

User Rating

• G2: N/A
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (3 reviews)

Cost For Clarive: Free to $2 per month

Final Thought

This article looks at the Release Management process and the finest Release Management Tools available today. Your decision on a release management solution should be guided by various criteria, including the complexity of your projects, the size of your organization, and the number of projects you’re working on at once.

We have discussed many tools and the benefits they may provide to your organization when integrated into your DevOps pipelines. I hope this article has provided you with all the answers you sought. If you have any thoughts or edits for this piece, please share them.