IBM DevOps Deploy vs. Liquibase vs. Octopus Deploy

IBM UrbanCode Deploy is excellent for code deployments such as Java, .Net, C++, etc. It can also deploy and run SQLs reasonably well. Where it lacks is the ability for executables, Jars, WARs, EARs, etc.

Incentivized

Based on my experience so far on using Liquibase in my current project, I have seen that Liquibase changelogs are version control where multiple team members and developers can work together on database and deployed automatically via CI/CD Pipeline integration using github actions and it applies same changelogs to all enviroments to remain in sync and avoid any enviroment drift. Also as Liquibase stores changelog audits in DATABASECHANGELOG table it helps in tracking purposes and to easily rollback any change . Whereas in some scenarios I feel that Liquibase have some drawbacks where if complex transformation between tables is not optimized for bulk data operations which eventually degrades database performance.

Incentivized

Octopus Deploy is well suited for our requirements of deploying across multiple environments with one consistent release. We are saving a lot of time by not having to package and move release files around. Our release process is more efficient and consistent with automation. There are some parts that we could probably perform with existing tools such as DevOps and there are one or two features we have to workaround to fit for our setup such as the step templates to install websites. These are minor in our opinion.

Incentivized

• Visual deployment instructions.
• Inventory management of environments.
• Component configuration at a granular level with customization.

Incentivized

• Liquibase tracks changes in a metadata table contained directly in the target database, making easy administration for the DBA.
• Liquibase handles many validation tests out of the box, making it easy to choose which ones you want to include, with options for writing your own if you choose. This makes it robust and flexible in terms of validation before deployment.
• Liquibase provides easy integration into deployment pipelines for CI/CD. We use it with GitHub for source control and Circle CI for validation and deployment pipelines.

Incentivized

• Octopus integrates nicely with TeamCity, our build server.
• Octopus uses the same deployment packages across environments and makes it easy to track their progress across those environments.
• Octopus makes it easy to handle configuration across environments which is usually a particularly difficult task.

Incentivized

• IBM UrbanCode Deploy does code deployments easy enough, but configurations or ex deployments are a little more complicated. I work on packaged systems, so most of the code I get is form a vendor that I have to deploy.
• IBM UebanCode Deploy integration into the mainframe world would be ideal. My company uses Mainframe and OpenSystems technologies, and many times there are dependencies between the deployments.

Incentivized

• I would like Liquibase to explore all errors in the changelog files compared to one at a time. We spent a lot of time troubleshooting one error at a time versus having a batch log of errors in each file.
• Understanding where to get support on things. I spent a lot of time researching externally to learn what the best practices were. Although I found some of the youtube videos helpful, I would like a little more of a technical support. This may be a feature with the paid tier, however, we leveraged open source.
• Seeing more examples of how others use Liquibase and their usecases will be helpful. That way we can learn from each other which may help us improve on our own deployments.

Incentivized

• In the past has been somewhat .net focused but that has been changing in recent times
• Would be great if community licenses for NFP organizations were perpetual - but in saying that I appreciate that Octopus does provide my organization with a community [license]. Not all organisations do
• I can’t think of any other

Incentivized

We are and will continue using Liquibase and it has become an integral part of our portfolio offering, any new product is by default adopting Liquibase stack.

Incentivized

Would be a 10 except for the retirement of the free Community Edition.

Incentivized

It's challenging to get a working knowledge of the product without having someone show you the ropes. Linking components with applications and applications with resource trees and resource trees with application deploys is not intuitive. However, once past that learning curve, the possibilities open up, and things become easier to understand and allow for further granularity.

Incentivized

Liquibase has several features, on their free plan, that matches exactly our expectations and needs: this already makes it standout from its competitors. On top of that, the setup was straightforward: we are running an integration with Databricks, and there were only two steps truly needed, install the driver and the plugin, done. This is the type of seamless experience our team appreciates the most when evaluating a tool or service.

Incentivized

Octopus Deploy has greatly helped us to improve our reliability and frequency of our deployments and given us the confidence to deploy much more often, with a direct benefit to customers. Cross-platform support and release to Cloud require more focus on the product side.

Incentivized

Octopus Deploy is a software that runs very effectively, is easy to use, does not require such a high learning curve, provides the necessary tools to carry out the functions it offers, making it a very flexible software, it also allows that can be configured according to the needs of the user and provides integrations with other very advantageous tools since they are carried out in a very favorable way.

Incentivized

I've not worked directly with IBM UrbanCode Deploy support. My DevOps team administers the environment and deals with that.

Incentivized

Liquibase has been responsive and even is letting our group test some new products they are developing and even made code changes to their production system because of a couple bugs we have reported. Liquibase licensing has also been easy and simple. I have nothing bad to say about any of the Liquibase staff I have talked to. They also hold free information webinars for new content that helps spread adoption and moving the product forward.

Incentivized

Octopus Deploy support has always been there for us, even when using the free tier, we get responsive hands-on help. We haven't needed to use that level of support since the documentation is clearly written, and help is readily available within the interface itself. Using Octopus Deploy is a truly joyful experience.

Incentivized

Build process takes a toll.

Incentivized

There is no real competitor when it comes to what Liquibase does - at least not at the time we considered it three years ago. It was an easy choice in this regard, but we could have said no to it if it made our workload more difficult. But our proof of concept showed there were easy wins to be had by implementing its software.

Incentivized

There aren't really any competitors in the land of ASP.NET. Deployment is too ad-hoc. Other tools exist that have massive downsides, like Web Deploy. Most aren't even supported anymore. You could argue that containers (Docker) are a competitor, but containers cannot be used for everything and solve a somewhat different problem. Octopus Deploy is even able to help with containers. To us, Octopus Deploy was really the only really polished solution.

Incentivized

Great support from professional services.

Incentivized

• Push button deployments.
• Consistency and ability to focus on other tasks.
• Required quite a bit of upfront customization with certain web deployments (WebSphere, etc.)
• Opened the door to other types of deployments and other automation.

Incentivized

• We need to re-educate developers to use Liquibase.
• In some cases, it is hard to align when several teams work on the same DB.
• On the other hand, Liquibase provides order and consistency in managing DB changes.
• Evidence and traceability are a plus.

Incentivized

• Allows us to deploy to our fleet quickly and without interruption to service
• Can roll back to previous releases quickly, allowing us to back out of breaking changes in the worst-case scenarios.
• Integration with several targets has allowed us to explore new platforms for our products, such as Docker in AWS ECS.

Incentivized