DevOps users will grow significantly this year

DevOps and open source are not slowing down, a newly released report shows. GitLab released its 2018 Global Developer Survey to understand what developers think about their workplace, workflow, and tools within their IT organization.

While outdated tools and company resistance to change remain challenges, the need for DevOps continues to grow. According to the report, only 23% consider DevOps as their development methodology. However, IT management has named DevOps as one of the top three investment areas for 2018, indicating that the number of DevOps adopters is sure to grow this year.

GitLab found that most developers agree that DevOps workflows save time during the development process. Teams that have adopted DevOps have proven improvements in productivity, saving at least 50% more of their time.

45% of DevOps practitioners deploy on demand, and 71% of DevOps practitioners say automation of the software development lifecycle is a top priority. This compares to 39% and 60% among agile practitioners.

The study also found that remote teams tend to be more satisfied and productive overall than in-office teams. 41% of these remote teams agree that this is based on having a strong DevOps process in place, while only 34% of office teams agree.

The report highlights that open source tools are the unifying factor across all market segments.

92% of respondents believe that open source tools are very important for software innovation. 75% of respondents said it is important to use open source tools. 84% claim that they prefer using open source tools over non-open source tools.

Almost half of respondents (45%) claimed that most of their tools are now open source, while 15% said that all of their tools are open source. The majority of respondents (60%) agreed that open source tools are "more secure, improve overall software quality and simplify the development process."