Buddy (formerly Springloops) is a SVN/Git source code management tool focused on web development teams. It allows users to code in parallel and share code safely concentrating on results, not on lost changes or overwritten files. With quick deployments, users get rapid collaboration in protected space.
$0
per month
Octopus Deploy
Score 10.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Australian company Octopus Deploy offers their eponymous automated deployment and release management software that integrates with the user's preferred CI server and adds deployment & ops automation capabilities. Octopus Deploy enables developers, release managers, and operations folks to bring all automation into a single place. The vendor states that by reusing configuration variables, environment definition, API keys, connection strings, permissions, service principals, and automation logic,…
$12
Pricing
Buddy
Octopus Deploy
Editions & Modules
Free (for freelancers)
$0
per month
On-premises (for teams)
$35
per month per user
Pro (for teams)
$75
per month
Hyper (for teams)
$200
per month
Cloud
Free 30 day trial
unlimited targets/users/projects
Server
Free 30 day trial
unlimited targets/users/projects
Enterprise
Starting at $18 per month
Enterprise
Starting at $18 per month
Server
Starting at $12 per month
Cloud
Starting at $12 per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Buddy
Octopus Deploy
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
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Octopus Server edition is available as a 30 day free trial on our unlimited tier for any scenario, including production, and commercial use. After the trial period ends you can keep your working configuration and upgrade to a paid license and continue deploying uninterrupted.
Octopus Cloud is an alternative that is hosted by us, and is also available as a 30 day unlimited trial. No credit card is needed to create a Octopus Cloud trial instance. You can convert the Cloud trial to a paid instance at any time during or after the trial period, and keep all of your instance configuration.
Octopus also offers an Enterprise tier which offers advanced features for teams at scale including, advanced high availability, insights & DORA metrics, ServiceNow & Jira Service Management integration, unlimited instances, 24/7 support & service credits, and a Customer Success Manager.
Volume discounts are available above 500 targets, and temporary bursting for certain scenarios is supported.
Springloops is the best tool for deployment to any environment. Especially, the auto-deployment feature on development servers is essential for the early stages of development. The built-in source control mechanisms are a perfect combination of ease of use and a rich feature set that allows the development team to have an easier and more complete view of each part of the project. A section that is lacking is time tracking - but then this is not the main usage of the service.
The ability to manage different stages and define a workflow is very useful for ops troubleshooting as well as deployment. You can see which version each environment has for each project, and promote or redeploy versions.
You can view deployment logs and dig deep into problems or long deployment steps.
Finding old releases can be a pain, and there isn't a good way to compare releases.
It does not really lend itself well to viewing what the content of a release is further than the version number. Ideally, you would be able to tie a deployment to the builds from the build server as well as specific commits from source control.
Many different platforms, languages, and operating systems are supported. You can deploy to your own server or the cloud. You can deploy to Windows, Linux, etc.
Many different "step templates" are included, which make it very easy to deploy what you want, how you want. Such as deploying over SSH, FTP, etc.
Support is very responsive and personable. You won't just be talking to a robot or a script. They will either solve your problem or understand it enough to solve it in a future release.
Their documentation is well thought-out and very helpful. I have found very few missing pieces.
Support for non-Microsoft applications needs to be improved to bring it on par with other comparable automation tools.
It doesn't yet provide integration options with other IT management tools like JIRA and HP Support to implement continuous delivery and true DevOps processes.
Support for AWS/Azure has been included very recently and it's not still very mature and feature rich and is expected to improve further in upcoming releases.
Apart from being a great versioning control system Springloops offers the options to automatically deploy code to multiple systems. This feature alone is a determining factor to renew Springloops over and over again. Another important factor is that it offers a full set of tools that help the team during the development cycle. No switching between time-tracking to project management. This is a real time-saver.
Easy to use, automatic deployments, comments on projects are only a few factors. Multiple servers per project is another must-have feature. User permissions and rights offer granular control on access to the system
Some functionality feels slightly hidden in the menu system. For example: script modules are in the same menu as packages, where I feel that are not related entities. One is code for the deployment, the other is the thing that you are deploying...
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.
I rarely use it but when I need it the team is there. During the initial steps of Springloops, I had close contact with one of the founders. He provided support to me over Skype! He didn't have to but he did. We had a couple of long talks about some issues I was facing. He has there regardless of time. It was a great experience
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.
Springloops has a built-in feature that is lacking from Bitbucket (at least on the out-of-the-box functionality). Deployment of projects to various servers/development stages. The process is so easy and painless that even remote servers can act as local environments. This is a feature that differentiates Springloops from other solutions that require other tools to perform the same task.
Octopus Deploy was the obvious choice at the time, its strong .net support, robustness, ease of use, and integration into an existing process was a big plus. Also, Octopus Deploy was kind enough to give my organization a not for profit community licence. In addition, the product comes from a local Brisbane based company and it is always good to support local businesses when you can.
Any automated deployment process will save your company a ton of money on testing and bugs. When you don't automate your deployments, you can't be certain that what you are moving between environments is the exact same code with the same or appropriate configuration. What you tested might not be what got deployed.
We've saved a lot of money using Octopus over the mostly manual process we were using before. We've removed a lot of the errors that come from manual, human intervention.
Octopus has also allowed us to accomplish more with fewer people. It is easy to bring new people up to speed on the deployment process, and we can be confident of success after very little training.