Microsoft Azure DevOps Reviews

We are currently involved in a financing exchange project, and we use this solution to keep track of the exchange activities within the backlog. We are not taking advantage of the repository and the code stuff at this stage. 

The most valuable feature for us at this stage is the Azure Boards.

I really like the user interface. For comparison, I have been using JIRA for several years now, and I am rather skilled at using that tool. The reason for my using Azure DevOps is because my client uses it. My first impression of DevOps, after using JIRA, is that it has a much better, more intuitive, and more user-friendly interface. That first impression is still valid, today.

There is a lack of integration and portability with other tools and products.

I would like to see better interoperability with the agile scaling frameworks.

When I first started using Azure it was impossible to figure out how to do the configuration correctly. Perhaps there should be a configuration environment that hides some features and is not open for everyone.

I find it difficult to find some of the features, although it may be that they are not enabled, or perhaps I have to take some time to better understand the tool.

I cannot really comment on the scalability of this solution. We are running in a microenvironment with only a few users and a few integrations. It is enough for us at the moment, but if we want to go forward and continue to work with it then that will be a discussion for later.

We have approximately fifty users right now. There are three or four administrators, and the remainder of them are end-users.

I have not contacted technical support. Coincidentally, I needed support today, so I went online to find the answer. The toolkit for helping yourself is there, but perhaps it should be more integrated into the solution.

I have used JIRA for several years, and although I am impressed with the interface in Azure DevOps, JIRA still has better integration with other tools.

The initial setup for this solution is much easier than for that of JIRA.

My advice for anyone implementing this solution is to have an expert for every fifty users of the solution. This person is responsible for configurations and so forth.

If you have a Microsoft environment then this is an easy choice for you, but if you don't then I think that JIRA would be a better choice.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We produce multiple different software for different markets in different countries. It's really for everything you can possibly think of, from online games to financial systems, to payment gateways, to APIs, to service desks, back-office analysis tools, admin tools, et cetera. We use it for anything and everything really.

The solution is great due to the fact that it's kind of an entire ecosystem. I'd say the work items are probably the most valuable aspect.

The stability has been great.

The solution is scalable. 

The interface is very bad. It's an aspect that really needs to be worked on. It is going to probably get the developers to start abandoning work items.

Our initial setup was quite complex. 

The presence of Microsoft in the country is limited.

I've used the solution since it came on the upgraded from Team Foundation Server - about ten years. We've used it for a very long time. 

The stability has always been really good. There aren't bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.

We've found the scalability to be good. We have about 2,000 users on it right now. We haven't had any issues with scaling as needed. 

For us, the initial setup was extremely complex due to the multiple organizations we had on the go. We actually had to abandon our initial rollout and rethink the whole process though. 

I'm in compliance, and therefore cannot speak to what the maintenance process is like for the solution. 

We had a combination of both in-house and vendor help with the setup process. We've got enterprise agreements with Microsoft, so they always give us resources to assist with our deployments. We already had TFS deployed, so it was an upgrade, really.

I don't deal with licensing. I can't speak to how much the solution costs.

I'm just a customer and an end-user.

I'd advise new users to plan very carefully the way that they would like to set up projects. The model that you choose is extremely important and you might have to do a lot of rework if you don't get it right the first time.

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten. It's Microsoft. It's backed by the mighty, mega Microsoft. You can't get fired for choosing the top product run by a top multinational company. The downside for us here is, in South Africa, there are only two points of presence. For the data, if it's fully hosted, we only have Capetown and Johannesburg. When it comes to back hall speeds for internet, it could be better if we had points of presence in all the major cities, however, I suppose it's too much investment for Microsoft to make.

We use Microsoft Azure DevOps for applications that analyze data and the data scientist creates the test data for the manual and automatic application tests. Here in Europe, we need anonymous synchronization of all data for testing.

We create special applications for creating data for direct tests.

Microsoft Azure DevOps has been very good for creating pipelines, and all the solutions for creating task management for developers and for the business. 

All of the tests of the applications are done on the mobile or web interface and it could be improved.

The connection to Power BI could improve. Power BI is a very good platform for reporting and presenting processes, but a good engine does not exist to present the process development in time in Power BI. It's a typical business reporting tool.

I have been using Microsoft Azure DevOps for approximately one year.

Microsoft Azure DevOps is highly stable.

There are two options to build. The first option is to build in the cloud, which is very stable but not quickly. The second is to build the systems in the local networks. 

We have 5 to 10 people using this solution in my organization. We have three DevOps and the others are the QA cluster.

We do not use support from Microsoft, we have not had any problems.

The initial setup of this solution was complex. Every part of the implementation was difficult.

For us to implement our production it took approximately 10 to 20 sprints. One sprint is two weeks.

We require a three-person team for the maintenance and support of the solution.

The price of the solution is expensive.

All people who work on projects must have good staff in development in .net, and need to have certificates. The minimal certificate is the AZ-204 Azure developer, it is obligatory.

I rate Microsoft Azure DevOps a nine out of ten.

The plugins are the biggest thing. I like how Visual Studio is designed as a shell application, and then the plugins make it do what you want it to do.

Microsoft could improve Visual Studio by making it easier to find the plugins you need to get your job done. Maybe they could implement an AI search instead of a simple tech search. Sometimes, people come up with a catchy name for something, and you don't know how it's spelled. For example, a developer might come up with a packet wizard and spell weird, like P-A-K-I-T.

I've been working with Microsoft Visual Studio since it first came out in 1997, so about 24 years.

Visual Studio is very stable.

I don't think scale applies to Visual Studio because it's a developer tool. And I haven't had a lot of experience with massive projects where multiple teams are working on the same source code. I've only worked on a team of a few people.

I think support is probably pretty decent, but I've never had to use it. I just look at Visual Studio's source code to troubleshoot it. 

The setup is pretty straightforward. Visual Studio runs pretty fast.

I'd say Visual Studio is a nine out of 10. If you're thinking about adopting Visual Studio, research the kind of functionality you need. 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.

We are an agile shop. We use it to build our sprints and for our user stories. We have everything aligned in epics and we track all of our requirements and our velocity.

We are still getting used to it and there is a lot that I haven't looked at yet. For me, at this early stage, the most valuable features are the basic functionality. This includes the ability to build and customize sprints.

I like the tracking and that we can monitor our velocity.

It took a bit longer to figure out, but now that we have, it's easy to use.

When converting to DevOps, it was difficult to map.

I have been using Microsoft Azure DevOps since October 2020 when we converted from Jira to DevOps.

It's stable now that it is up and running. It was a steep learning curve, but not the fault of DevOps. We did not put together adequate training.

Others in the company may have scaled this solution. I have not explored this area yet.

I have not contacted technical support.

Previously, we were using Jira. Now that DevOps is running, I find that for what I am doing, does the same things as Jira. The main difference is in naming convention and layout.

I wasn't part of the conversion from Jira to DevOps but it was a painful process. We lost data, things didn't map. My Scrum Master who used it was not happy with the process.

I would rate Microsoft Azure DevOps and eight out of ten.

We use the solution for performance testing in general.

One of the main features is the user interface is very good.

The user management in the solution could improve.

I have been using it for four years.

The support for this solution has been fine.

The price is reasonable for the solution.

I rate Microsoft Azure DevOps a nine out of ten.

We primarily use Azure DevOps for the early phase of software development projects. We don't use it for building the software. Rather, it is for development support. It handles management of the features, the composition, the definition of requirements, and checking our requirements against the use cases. 

Since it is a cloud product, it is constantly updated and not the responsibility of the user.

The quality of the user interface is very good.

It is a well-integrated product in terms of the development lifecycle. There are different functional areas from the requirements to finish including test management, product development, and deployment. I do not personally make use of all of these components together, but I understand from my colleagues that make wider use of it that everything integrates nicely.

It lacks integration with Office 365. It would be very useful if it had better integration with Microsoft Word because we would like to be able to define the priority requirement document and add it to different stages of the backlog. Currently, it is difficult to do this. There are some third-party products for this but they are either quite expensive or do not function properly.

I would like to see the requirement management links between work items improved.

An API to develop custom functions would be useful because we work with a large integrator that uses TFS, the on-premises version, and have seen what they do. One of the advantages of it is that you can develop using the XML approach to customization. Essentially, the customizability is more in-depth. This could be done, even without going to the code level, if they provided an API or and SDK. Although the interface currently used for customization is good, we sometimes find it limited. It would be more complex to use but also allow for greater potential.

I have been using Azure DevOps services for two years.

This is a stable service.

I would say that it is scalable. On a recent project, we had a lot of users and did not experience any issues in terms of performance.

I have only been in contact with technical support on one occasion and they gave me a good and prompt answer. From my experience, I can say that I am satisfied.

I do not personally have experience with other products, although the company has some experience with Jira.

In summary, this is a good product but I would like to see better Office integration and API support.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The Repos, Wikis, and pipelines are all excellent features.

The solution could work to improve their reporting.

The stability of the solution is good.

The scalability of the solution is good. I would give it a four or five-star rating. We have plans to increase usage. Right now we have about 100 users on the solution.

Technical support has been excellent. On that side, Microsoft is very good. The customer support of Microsoft has really improved this past year. On the cloud side also we are very satisfied because it offers very good support.

We did not previously use a different solution.

The initial setup is straightforward. We just implement it from the cloud. We took it and configured it with our local website infrastructure, so there was nothing much to do.

There is a licensing fee of $6/user per month. That's not too much money for us. There aren't really any additional costs beyond that.

We considered using Jenkins, but we decided to use Azure DevOps because we have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft. It was much easier.

We are using the public cloud deployment model.

Potential users should not hesitate to move to Azure DevOps. It keeps on progressing and keeps on adding new features all of the time, so it's a solution that I would highly recommend people use.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.