AWS CodePipeline vs. Copado

I think AWS CodePipeline is a great tool for anyone wanted automated deployments in a multi-server/container AWS environment. AWS also offers services like Elastic Beanstalk that provide a more managed hosting & deployment experience. CodePipeline is a good middle ground with solid, built-in automation with enough customizability to not lock people into one deployment or architecture philosophy.

Incentivized

When we have a large organization and number of changes and deployments are more than we should go for Copado. As we know it is a paid managed package and the cost is high so for dealing with fewer deployments it is not preferable to buy. Copado is well suited for users who don't have much technical understanding. So those users can see the User interface select the changes that need to be deployed by selecting the metadata. From Git operation to deployment all is handled by Copado itself. Copado has reduced the efforts for creating the package.xml and direct deployments can be done within a few clicks. Another Major aspect is that it can be directly synced with Jira or Azzure board from where the user stories will be synced and actions can be performed accordingly. For small organization, Copado can be expensive and to set up and maintain we need a technical person to do so.

Incentivized

• It is reliable and works without errors
• It integrates well with our repository and all other AWS functions as well as our end database

Incentivized

• Metadata Deployments
• Data Deployments
• Salesforce CPQ deployments that require a lot of various Data
• Transferring deployments between teams.

Incentivized

• Ease of use - things like CircleCI or other tools are a bit easier to learn.
• Ability to build from more sources.

Incentivized

• Back promotions are sometimes difficult and behave in a weird manner
• After the deployment to production next changes in the pull request shows all the changes from the previous release as well
• Cannot be used through mobile

Incentivized

Overall, I give AWS Codepipeline a 9 because it gets the job done and I can't complain much about the web interface as much of the action is taking place behind the scenes on the terminal locally or via Amazon's infrastructure anyway. It would be nicer to have a better flowing and visualizable web interface, however.

Incentivized

Our pipeline takes about 30 minutes to run through. Although this time depends on the applications you are using on either end, I feel that it is a reasonable time to make upgrades and updates to our system as it is not an every day push.

Incentivized

We didn't need a lot of support with AWS CodePipeline as it was pretty straightforward to configure and use, but where we ran into problems, the AWS community was able to help. AWS support agents were also helpful in resolving some of the minor issues we encountered, which we could not find a solution elsewhere.

Incentivized

CodeCommit and CodeDeploy can be used with CodePipeline so it’s not really fair to stack them against each other as they can be quite the compliment. The same goes for Beanstalk, which is often used as a deployment target in relation to CodePipeline.

CodePipeline fulfills the CI/CD duty, where the other services do not focus on that specific function. They are supplements, not replacements. CodePipeline will detect the updated code and handle deploying it to the actual instance via Beanstalk.

Jenkins is open source and not a native AWS service, that is its primary differentiator. Jenkins can also be used as a supplement to CodePipeline.

Incentivized

Flosum is a downgrade for sure and I do not recommend it. Gearset is an upgrade and my preferred solution. Gearset has simplified the deployment path and makes it very easy to move between Salesforce instances. If there are any difficulties with Gearset they also have the best customer support for any deployment tool I've tried. Overall I'd say Gearset is #1, Copado #2 and Flosum a distant #3.

Incentivized

• CodePipeline has reduced ongoing devops costs for my clients, especially around deployment & testing.
• CodePipeline has sped up development workflow by making the deployment process automated off git pushes. Deployment takes very little coordination as the system will just trigger based on what is the latest commit in a branch.
• CodePipeline offered a lot of out-of-the-box functionality that was much simpler to setup than a dedicated CI server. It allowed the deployment process to built and put into production with much less and effort and cost compared to rolling the functionality manually.

Incentivized

• It has reduced the efforts to create package.xml manually and deploy the changes
• Another positive impact is that we can track the commits to which org they have reached in an organized way and we don't need to maintain them separately
• For setting Copado it take a lot of time and training is required for the complete setup which is time-consuming

Incentivized