LaunchDarkly

LaunchDarkly is a versatile software that has been utilized by a variety of users to tackle different challenges and improve their development processes. One of the primary use cases is implementing and testing features without full deployment, which reduces risk and increases user acceptance. Users have found that LaunchDarkly allows them to address individual problems by introducing new features and ensuring they meet needs and resolve issues. By hiding incomplete features from end users, the software enables more frequent code deployment, reducing code conflicts.

Another common use case for LaunchDarkly is facilitating Trunk Based / Continuous Deployment workflows and targeting specific user segments. Users rely on the software to run UI experiments and determine the optimal customer experience. It has been particularly valuable for software development teams in managing released features in customer-facing products. Feature flags are used to hide large feature sets until they are complete, documented, and ready for customer use. Additionally, LaunchDarkly enables the rollout of new code variants and passing new features to a limited number of users before a full release, thanks to its ability to set up targeting based on different values.

Despite its wide-ranging benefits, some users have mentioned that the limited number of seats for engineers has slowed down the adoption of LaunchDarkly. However, those who have integrated it into their workflows have observed significant improvements in their product development process. The software has allowed development teams to deploy code faster and with more confidence, ultimately improving quality standards by enabling selective feature rollouts to internal testing accounts before broader releases.

In addition, LaunchDarkly has proved invaluable for feature flagging, testing, and hiding of features, allowing for constant deploys without affecting production systems. It ensures stability during structural changes and enables effective management of feature rollouts across different teams or platforms. Testing features in production has been beneficial for identifying issues that may not have been caught in QA. Furthermore, LaunchDarkly serves as an environment for CI/CD pipelines, providing control over what is seen live without mimicking a live environment on staging.

Notably, LaunchDarkly's ease of use has been widely appreciated by users, contributing to improved team productivity. The software allows for controlled rollouts to different user groups and helps manage new feature development effectively. With its ability to speed up time to delivery by deploying changes behind feature flags until ready for customer exposure, engineers have found it to be an invaluable tool. Feature flags also allow for showing specific customers specific features, further enhancing the flexibility provided by LaunchDarkly.