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GoCD vs Microsoft Azure DevOps comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

GoCD
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
18th
Ranking in Release Automation
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (17th)
Microsoft Azure DevOps
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
2nd
Ranking in Release Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
137
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of GoCD is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 10.3%, down from 19.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.3%
GoCD1.0%
Other88.7%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

RajeshReddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at Infosys
The UI is colorful, but the user experience must be improved
We can see all the pipelines with a simple search. The UI is colorful. The user experience is very rich. The product is very easy to learn if we know a bit of the basics. If we have someone to show us how to use it, it is very easy.
Bharadwaj Deepak Mohapatra - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at ENTERPRISE SYSTEM SOLUTIONS LIMITED
Have built reliable end-to-end pipelines and streamlined cloud provisioning through consistent collaboration practices
I am currently working with open-source tools such as Jenkins for my main CI/CD pipeline, and for enterprise clients, I am using Microsoft Azure DevOps CI/CD pipeline. For other clients, I have also implemented CI/CD YAML pipelines through GitLab CI/CD workflow and GitHub Actions. I am creating the end-to-end CI/CD pipeline from development to deployment and monitoring all of this. Azure Boards is easier than Jira for my understanding because there are very easy points to manage the Agile methodology which we work on. Because it is a GUI, sometimes the process may take a few minutes more than the CLI process since the backend is running the exact CLI, but we are commanding through the GUI. There is definitely a time lag, but it is more secure. Microsoft Azure DevOps pipelines work very seamlessly rather than other CI/CD pipelines, as of my understanding. The downside is that the process may take more time when deploying some clusters, Kubernetes, Azure AKS service, or some vast microservice architecture deployments. There may be a little bit of lag I feel, though I cannot tell very strictly that this is a disadvantage, but sometimes it takes a little more time than other cloud infrastructures. All the major things are done by GUI, which is somewhat a little slow. However, if considering automations, process, monitoring, and provisioning, then it is the best cloud service across all the other service providers. Our implementation is a hybrid cloud. Microsoft Azure DevOps is definitely easily scalable. I have worked on many Kubernetes infrastructures and microservice deployments, and I have seen that replication is very good because it is very easy. The replication process is very straightforward. I definitely advocate for using less code because it is very time-consuming. If using GCP or Amazon Web Service, there is more interaction related to work over the CLI process. In terms of Microsoft Azure DevOps, there are many things done by the GUI, which is the best part.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The UI is colorful."
"GoCD's open-source nature is valuable."
"Permission separations mean that we can grant limited permissions for each team or team member."
"The most notable aspect is its user interface, which we find to be user-friendly and straightforward for deploying and comprehending pipelines. We have the ability to create multiple pipelines, and in addition to that, the resource consumption is impressive."
"We can forecast tasks and the number of hours a task will take and can compare it with how long a task actually takes."
"Azure DevOps' collaborative features are good, and it integrates well with other tools in the software development process, like quality testing, documentation, and agile development."
"Overall, so far we have no major issues to report."
"They have been lately adding features to the services on a regular basis. Every two weeks, they are adding functionality to Azure DevOps Services to match it with what Azure DevOps Server or on-prem would offer. So, we continue to get more robust functionality. My favorite right now is that they are starting to open up the API availability within Azure DevOps Services. Another thing that I like about Azure DevOps is that you can use it with any of the products that are on the market. You can integrate it with Jenkins and other open-source products to complete that fully functional CI, CD, CT, CM, and CS pipeline. It continues to enhance."
"The most valuable feature is that we can run integrations with DevOps. From a QA perspective and a testing perspective, we can run those tests and integrate automation tools. Then we can run those tests as part of the deployment process. Every time we are deploying something, it automatically runs all the tests."
"Fields can be customized and the reporting is good."
"The simplicity and ease of use are two features that we have found to be most valuable."
"The nice thing about Visual Studio Code is that it's a modular design. So if you're working on a strange language that has a different syntax, you can just get a plugin that'll format your code for you based on the language it's in."
 

Cons

"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."
"The aspect that requires attention is the user management component. When integrating with BitLabs and authenticating through GitLab, there are specific features we desire. One important feature is the ability to import users directly from GitLab, along with their respective designations, and assign appropriate privileges based on that information. Allocating different privileges to users is a time-consuming process for us."
"It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified."
"The tool must be more user-friendly."
"Microsoft Azure DevOps could improve by having better integration with other email servers."
"At times, our development work encounters issues, particularly when executing numerous CI/CD processes."
"The functions have too much dependency right now, so it makes it really, really hard to upgrade and make a change in the code."
"As for room for improvement, more features need to be added to the classic pipeline. The build and release pipelines are present, but there has not been much improvement there."
"The solution's roadmap and Gantt charts could be improved."
"The installation time of this solution depends on the environment it is being implemented in. We had a couple of projects that took around two weeks of implementation. This included the whole integration of the DevOps and everything together."
"The price could be lowered. It would be nice if it was cheaper."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution and it is inexpensive."
"It's an open-source and free tool."
"The main agile features are very expensive."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other solutions that necessitate servers and physical hardware."
"I find that the pricing is good, and it is competitive with the other vendors in the market."
"Most of the things that we need and use are incorporated in the corporate solution — there are no additional costs."
"The costs are moderate and justify the value provided."
"As a Microsoft Partner, you get a discount on the pricing. Licensing costs are around $80 a month for DevOps, but for Azure, it is about $200 a month."
"There is a license for this solution."
"The price is cheaper than Jira and some of the other competing tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with GoCD?
One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be sim...
What is your primary use case for GoCD?
The solution helps us deploy microservices across multiple environments.
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Valuable features for project management and tracking in Azure DevOps include a portal displaying test results, check-in/check-out activity, and developer/tester productivity.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Adaptive ALM, Thoughtworks Go
Azure DevOps, VSTS, Visual Studio Team Services, MS Azure DevOps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ancestry.com, Barclay Card, AutoTrader, BT Financial Group, Gamesys, Nike, Vodafone, Haufe Lexware, Medidata, Hoovers
Alaska Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Columbia, Skype
Find out what your peers are saying about GoCD vs. Microsoft Azure DevOps and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.