DevOps Vs Agile: Which One to Choose for Software Development?

• Software
• June 6, 2025

by Bhumi Goklani

Are you an enterprise leading a tech initiative where delivery speed, collaboration, and continuous improvement are top priorities? You searched for various software development methodologies but got stuck on DevOps vs Agile? These two may seem similar but have significant differences, benefits, and challenges. In this guide on DevOps vs Agile, we break down both methodologies, compare them through a business lens, and show when to choose what and when & how they can work together.

Still thinking Agile and DevOps are the same regarding software development? Or maybe you know the differences between Agile and DevOps but aren’t sure which is the right fit for your next project?

It’s obvious and strategic to have a debate around DevOps vs Agile methodology for software development projects. The reason is that there is a lot of confusion around overlapping outcomes, team dynamics, process vs tooling, lifecycle focus, and business context.

While both aim to accelerate software delivery and improve product quality, they take very different paths to get there and sometimes even make alliances. Hence, choosing the right one between Agile methodology vs DevOps for your project can be critical.

This blog is made specifically for you to know every detail about these two software development methodologies and frameworks and make a wise choice.

Understanding Agile Methodology

When we hear Agile software development, we think of flexibility, collaboration, and customer-centric delivery. But is this really true? Well, the answer to that is covered in the sections below as we define agile methodology, core values and principles, working, and pros and cons of agile methodologies.

Let’s deep dive into the basics of agile methodology for software development:

What is Agile Methodology in Software Development?

Agile is a software development methodology that is aligned with the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto. It is also based on iterative development, which focuses on the partnership of the cross-functional teams to get the required solutions.

Unlike other approaches (e.g., the Waterfall model) that prioritize building an entire product at once, Agile teams develop software in small, manageable increments called “iterations” or “sprints” – usually lasting 1 to 4 weeks.

Top examples of agile methodologies include Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and Feature-driven Development (FDD). Also, check the popular debate on Scrum vs Waterfall to know why this agile methodology rocks.

Agile is not a specific process or tool. It’s a mindset/framework based on the Agile Manifesto, working on set values and principles, which we have mentioned in the below section.

Core Values and Principles of Agile

There are 4 core values and 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto, which covers:

Agile Core Values Include:

• Individuals and interactions over process and tools
• Prioritizing the delivery of functioning software over comprehensive documentation
• Emphasizing ongoing customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Agile Principle Covers:

• Customer satisfaction first
• Welcome changing requirements
• Deliver working software frequently
• Business people and developers must work together
• Build projects around motivated individuals
• Proactive communication
• Promote sustainable development
• Continuous attention to technical excellence
• Simplicity is essential
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs with self-organizing teams
• Reflection and adaptation

Pros and Cons of Agile Methodology

If you see the top pros of agile methodology, they include flexibility and faster delivery. With pros, Agile also comes with drawbacks. So, the cons of agile methodology include scope creep, less predictability, and more.

Let’s explore more pros and cons of agile methodology for software development:

Agile Benefits:

• Offers faster time-to-market with frequent working software delivery.
• Involves the customer in the software development project from start to end for better product alignment with real needs.
• Adapts to changing software development requirements flexibly.
• Encourages improved team collaboration within cross-functional teams, ensuring better communication and shared ownership.
• Delivers higher product quality by embedding agile testing and feedback at the end of each sprint.
• Reduces software failure risks as it helps to identify & fix problems early on.

Agile Challenges:

• Demands high commitment and discipline, including constant communication, active participation, and mature team collaboration.
• Less predictable timelines and deliverables make it less suitable for fixed-scope projects.
• Scope creep risks are there due to the inclusion of continuous feedback, leading to frequent changes.

May not scale easily without structure, leading it to become not such a good option for large enterprises due to its chaotic nature if scaled frameworks like SAFe or LeSS are not used.

Exploring the DevOps Methodology for Continuous Delivery

The term DevOps is actually the combination of two words: Development and Operations. DevOps is a practice using which the IT teams and developers interact and build the relationship with each other.

But why are enterprises so obsessed with DevOps? Well, that secret lies in our guide to enterprise DevOps solutions.

Let’s explore everything you need to know about DevOps in software development as we cover what DevOps is and how it works, its advantages, and its potential drawbacks:

What is DevOps in Software Development?

In answer to what does DevOps mean, you can simply say, “DevOps is a software engineering culture, mindset, and set of practices that unifies teams working on software development (Devs) and IT operations (Ops) and streamlines their processes with automation.”

The aim of the DevOps lifecycle includes breaking silos between development and operations teams to enable faster and more reliable software releases.

What does DevOps do? It looks after shortening the software development lifecycle, increasing deployment frequency, and ensuring high software quality. But how does DevOps make it happen? That we’ve covered in the section below.

How Does DevOps Work?

DevOps mainly takes the help of continuous and automated lifecycle through a CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment) pipeline. Here’s how a typical DevOps pipeline functions:

1. Teams (devs, ops, QA, and security) come together to create the software development plan by defining goals, features, and tasks using tools like Jira or Confluence.
2. Developers write code in small increments. Use Git for version control and submit pull requests for peer review.
3. Code then automatically goes for testing and integrates with the main branch. Here, DevOps tools like Jenkins and CircleCI help a lot.
4. Infrastructure setup (IaC) is done using code using Terraform and configured automatically using Ansible.
5. Code is deployed to the staging/production environment with zero downtime. Tools like ArgoCD and Spinnaker can help.
6. Software runs in live environments and is monitored in real-time for performance and reliability.
7. Logged software errors reach developers for fixes.

Benefits of DevOps

DevOps is considered the best practice in software development as it offers numerous benefits, including faster software delivery, breaking down team silos, and increased team productivity.

Some of the key advantages of DevOps include:

• Helps to achieve faster product time-to-market with a CI/CD pipeline.
• Brings development and operations teams on the same page, resulting in improved team collaborations.
• Ensures higher deployment frequency, leading to faster innovation and quick customer feedback loops.
• Delivers better product quality and reliability with continuous testing and monitoring, helping to spot and fix bugs early on. (Also know DevOps testing strategy.)
• Offers better scalability and flexibility, specifically for microservices, containerization, and cloud-native development.

DevOps Challenges

When planning to adopt DevOps for software development, there are many roadblocks companies face, including resistance to cultural change, potential cost increases, possibilities of over-complexity, and a lot more.

Let’s have a detailed look at the disadvantages of DevOps that you should consider as an organization:

• DevOps is the cultural shift, which may give rise to cultural resistance in some organizations.
• Not suitable for small or low-complexity projects.
• Setting up a full DevOps pipeline with proper CI/CD, IaC, and monitoring requires expertise and time. If you haven’t yet, you may need to hire DevOps engineers from a service company.
• DevOps pipeline setup without proper controls may introduce vulnerabilities.
• Though it breaks silos, if teams lack the ability to maintain shared responsibility and ownership effectively, the process can break down.

Key Differences Between Agile and DevOps

After reading the pros and cons of Agile methodology and DevOps, you must be having a little bit of confusion, as both showcase many similarities. You might be having confusion, like how DevOps is different from Agile. While Agile focuses on the development process, DevOps is more concerned with the software delivery lifecycle – from coding to deployment and even after that.

As we break down key differences between DevOps and Agile methodology, you’ll have clarity around that confusion:

Purpose and Focus

As Agile is the key part of software development methodology, it mainly aims for,

| “How do we build software better and faster for the user?”

Hence, it breaks down software development into small chunks, involves user feedback, and improves the software over time based on that.

On the other side, DevOps, being a culture and set of practices, focuses on:

| “How do we deliver and run that software efficiently and reliably?”

Hence, DevOps involves a CI/CD pipeline in the process that works around the automation of building, testing, integrating, deploying, releasing, and maintaining software. That’s all, while maintaining active collaboration and ownership between development and operations teams.

Team Structure

You must be thinking, does team structure have anything to do with software development methodology and practice? Yes, it has!

Agile teams include developers, testers, designers, and product managers, mainly, all working together in “sprints” to build features.

DevOps teams include developers, QA, system admins, and operations engineers, each focusing on creating a smooth path from writing software code to making it run flawlessly in live environments.

Process and Workflows

This is the point where you’ll see the clear difference in the DevOps vs Agile development debate. Let’s know the difference in processes and workflows of Agile methodologies and DevOps practices:

Agile uses sprints, which break down software development into short development cycles, usually of 1 to 4 weeks. At the end of each sprint, the team delivers a small part of the software ready to be deployed in a staging environment and go live.

DevOps uses pipelines known for automating workflows for building, testing, integrating, and releasing code in the production environment. It follows the CI/CD process, where:

• CI = Continuous Integration (merging code and testing it)
• CD = Continuous Delivery/Deployment (automating the release of it)

Tools

With Agile mainly involved in the software development lifecycle, it looks after planning, task tracking, and collaboration.

| Agile software development tools include: Jira, Trello, Scrum boards, Asana, etc.

On the other hand, DevOps gets more involved in automating software delivery. Hence, it looks after deployment, infrastructure management, and monitoring.

Feedback and Improvements

Well, both the software development methods include feedback and improvements in their lifecycles, but what differs is how they take feedback and to what precision they make improvements in a software.

Agile feedback comes from humans, who could be stakeholders, users, and customers. After each sprint, they undertake feedback to consider it as input for the next sprint/version improvements.

DevOps feedback comes from systems and tools – the ones continuously observing/monitoring the software build in live environments. This feedback is around error logs, performance metrics, or uptime dashboards. This helps teams fix issues and improve reliability.

Automation

Well, for both approaches, Automation has a different meaning.

In Agile, automation can significantly bring improvements, specifically in the area of testing. However, it’s not mandatory to achieve that fully.

In DevOps, automation is a must. It’s the essence behind DevOps’s success, from code integration and testing to deployment and monitoring.

Security

In the debate between Agile methodology vs DevOps, security has a place, but where it is is the difference.

Agile considers security, but often at a later stage.

DevOps, on the other hand, integrates security from the start. It includes security checks from the development to the deployment path.

Also, know the popular debate going around DevOps vs DevSecOps to know more about security implementation in SDLC.

Let’s check the quick go-through table to better understand key differences between DevOps and Agile methodology:

Key Similarities Between Agile and DevOps

While DevOps and Agile methodology serve different purposes, they also have many shared principles and common goals. In the discussion around DevOps vs Agile similarities, key pointers include enhanced productivity, faster delivery, and quality software delivery.

Some of the key similarities between Agile and DevOps include:

• Both Agile and DevOps are built around delivering value to customers quickly and continuously.
• Both break down team silos and encourage cross-team communication and collaboration.
• Both leverage automation to streamline processes and eliminate manual errors.
• Both emphasize the importance of fast feedback to improve the product.
• Both work on common goals for delivering quality software.
• Both rely on data-driven decision-making to guide improvements.
• Both promote a culture of learning and evolving.

When Do Agile and DevOps Work Together?

As Agile and DevOps have significant differences, many ask one common question: “Can we use both Agile and DevOps in one project?” The answer to that question is simply yes!

Both of these approaches have characteristics that complement each other, specifically when used together in the modern software development lifecycle with a proper strategy.

Let’s break down when and how Agile and DevOps methodologies work together effectively:

End-to-End Software Development Lifecycle

When planning to streamline the entire software lifecycle, from planning and development to deployment and monitoring, it’s a wise decision to use Agile and DevOps together.

Now, let’s see how you can separate their tasks while making Agile and DevOps work in harmony. In this:

Agile handles: Planning, designing, developing, and testing features in short cycles (sprints).

DevOps handles: Integrating, deploying, operating, and monitoring those features in real environments using CI/CD and automation.

Need for Faster Time-to-Market

In industry-specific software development projects, like finance, healthcare, or retail, where speed and reliability are a must, using Agile and DevOps together can help to release the product and updates faster, and that too without compromising on quality. Here:

Agile leverages iterative development for faster deliveries.

DevOps automates testing, releasing, and scaling procedures while ensuring software build quality and security.

Here, blue-green deployments stand for a software development strategy where one environment (blue) hosts the current production environment, while another (green) hosts the new environment.

When a Continuous Feedback is Essential

Both Agile and DevOps rely heavily on feedback loops. The only difference is the source of feedback. When combined, both sources create a 360-degree feedback loop, supporting rapid iteration and problem-solving.

Agile Feedback Comes From: Users and Product stakeholders

DevOps Feedback Comes From: System logs, Performance metrics, and Error tracking.

To Build DevSecOps Culture

When security is the utmost priority, using the Agile and DevOps approaches together is the ideal decision. Why? Because it helps to bring DevSecOps culture to life.

Agile prioritizes discussions around security during the software development sprint planning.

DevOps automates security checks (like vulnerability scanning and policy enforcement) as a part of the deployment process.

To Foster a Culture of Collaboration and Shared Ownership

Silos can break down the team collaboration and even become the reason for slower product time-to-market. This is especially the case when DevOps strategies are not planned wisely and Agile is not applied to the right projects.

So, to fill that gap, deciding to bring DevOps and Agile together for a modern software development project, you can embrace a culture of collaboration and shared ownership.

Agile promotes teamwork between developers, testers, and product owners.

DevOps extends the collaboration to ops, security, and infrastructure teams.

To sum this up, we’d say Agile and DevOps together create a high-performance software delivery culture that’s fast, reliable, collaborative, and continuous.

DevOps vs Agile: Choosing the Right Software Development Methodology

This is not about picking the right winner from the comparison of DevOps vs Agile, but finding the best software development methodology that aligns well with your team’s goals, structure, and product requirements. 

Here’s a breakdown to help you decide when to use Agile and when to go with DevOps:

When to Choose Agile Methodology

Agile methodology becomes ideal when your team needs flexibility, continuous feedback, experimentation, and rapid iteration during the development phase.

So, choose Agile if:

• You’re building a new product or developing an MVP, where frequent changes and experiments can arise.
• Your software product solution requires user feedback and market validation.
• You have the leverage to deliver software in small chunks over a full product launch.
• Your team is cross-functional but doesn’t necessarily have to be involved in infrastructure or deployments.
• You’re providing software development services to industries/projects that are continuously evolving (e.g., startups, marketing platforms, mobile apps).

When to Choose DevOps Practices

When there’s a requirement to automate deployments, enhance operational reliability, and speed up release cycles after development is complete, DevOps becomes the best option.

So, choose DevOps if:

• You already have a stable product but need faster, safer, and automated deployments for updates.
• Your team is using manual processes, leading to delayed releases or production issues.
• You want to automate real-time monitoring, logging, and incident response.
• You’re deploying software built in cloud-native environments, containers, or microservices architectures (e.g., using DevOps for SaaS product development).

Summing Up

The end goal of both software methodologies, Agile and DevOps, is to ensure faster software time-to-market. Many companies discover Agile methodologies working fantastically for them, but they may forget to look at the drawbacks it brings to their project along with great flexibility. Vice versa is the thing with the DevOps approach. Some find the balance between drawbacks by using Agile and DevOps together. So, it’s very subjective to the software development project.
In that case, approaching software consulting services from experts is the wise decision to identify the best software development methodologies that work in your business’s favor in terms of goals, timeline, budget, and more.

How MindInventory Supports Agile and DevOps Implementation

Whether you want to leverage agility in your software development cycles or streamline your continuous delivery with the DevOps pipeline, you can hire a dedicated software development team from us. From the software development discovery phase to designing to development and even with scaling, our team can support any stage of SDLC.

Now, let’s see how we can help with Agile and DevOps implementation:

Step 1: We start with a basic consultation to know your business goals and priorities

Step 2: We then analyze your project stage and maturity

Step 3: Evaluate the tech stack you may be interested in using for the project

Step 4: Consider compliance security and monitoring needs

Step 5: Ask for your budget

Step 6: Summing up all, we give you the software development methodology (whether Agile, DevOps, or a combination of both) that meets the criteria.

Step 7: We set up a clear implementation roadmap, including key milestones, team roles, tools, and integration touchpoints.

Step 8: Based on the strategy, we implement the software, test it, and deliver it.

Step 9: We don’t just stop at delivery but also extend it with ongoing support to ensure long-term success.

From fintech and healthcare to e-commerce and enterprise SaaS, we’ve helped businesses across domains implement scalable Agile and DevOps practices. As a result, we delivered faster releases, reduced downtime, and improved their customer experience. Our project from the logistics & transformation industry – Transportation Management System – is the best reference to our capabilities.

FAQs About DevOps Vs Agile