Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Azure DevOps VS CircleCI

Compare Azure DevOps VS CircleCI and see what are their differences

Azure DevOps logo Azure DevOps

Visual Studio dev tools & services make app development easy for any platform & language. Try our Mac & Windows code editor, IDE, or Azure DevOps for free.

CircleCI logo CircleCI

CircleCI gives web developers powerful Continuous Integration and Deployment with easy setup and maintenance.
  • Azure DevOps Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-05-21
  • CircleCI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05

Azure DevOps features and specs

  • Comprehensive Suite
    Azure DevOps offers a complete suite of tools for DevOps practices including Azure Repos, Azure Pipelines, Azure Boards, Azure Test Plans, and Azure Artifacts, making it a one-stop solution.
  • Scalability
    Azure DevOps is highly scalable, catering to organizations of all sizes—from small startups to large enterprises.
  • Integrations
    Seamlessly integrates with numerous third-party tools and services, as well as other Microsoft products like Azure, making it highly flexible.
  • Customization
    Offers extensive customization options such as personalized dashboards, customized pipelines, and tailor-made workflows to suit specific project needs.
  • Cloud-Agility
    Being a cloud-based service, it offers the benefits of easy access, regular updates, and reduced need for maintenance.
  • Security
    Provides robust security features including role-based access control, auditing, and compliance with various industry standards.
  • Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
    Supports end-to-end CI/CD processes, making it easier to automate builds, tests, and deployments.
  • Community and Support
    Large community of users and strong support from Microsoft, offering plenty of resources for troubleshooting and getting help.

Possible disadvantages of Azure DevOps

  • Complexity
    The rich feature set can be overwhelming for new users, requiring a steep learning curve.
  • Cost
    Can be expensive for small teams and organizations, particularly if advanced features and higher user limits are required.
  • Azure Dependency
    While it integrates well with other cloud providers, the full potential of Azure DevOps is best realized when used in conjunction with other Azure services.
  • Performance
    Users have reported occasional performance issues, particularly with complex pipelines or large repositories.
  • Limited Offline Capabilities
    As a cloud-based service, Azure DevOps offers limited capabilities when offline access is needed.
  • Usability
    Some users find the interface to be less intuitive compared to other DevOps tools in the market, requiring additional training and adaptation.

CircleCI features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    CircleCI offers a user-friendly interface and straightforward configuration, making it accessible for both beginners and experienced users.
  • Scalability
    CircleCI easily scales with your project, allowing for flexible resource allocation and handling multiple workflows in parallel.
  • Extensive Integrations
    CircleCI supports a wide range of integrations with various tools and services like GitHub, Bitbucket, Docker, and Slack, enabling seamless workflows.
  • Speed and Performance
    With features like advanced caching, dependency management, and parallelism, CircleCI enables faster builds and quicker feedback cycles.
  • Customizability
    CircleCI provides powerful configuration options through YAML files, allowing users to tailor their CI/CD pipelines to specific project requirements.
  • Free Tier Availability
    CircleCI offers a free plan that includes several features, making it suitable for small projects and open-source contributions.

Possible disadvantages of CircleCI

  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While CircleCI is generally user-friendly, mastering advanced configurations and optimizations can take time and require a deeper understanding of the platform.
  • Cost for Higher Tiers
    The pricing for higher-tier plans can become expensive, especially for large teams or enterprises requiring extensive usage and advanced features.
  • Limited Concurrency in Free Plan
    The free plan has limited concurrent builds, which might not be sufficient for larger projects with high parallelization needs.
  • Occasional Stability Issues
    Users have reported occasional performance and stability issues, particularly during high-demand periods, which can slow down the build process.
  • Configuration Complexity
    If not properly managed, the YAML configuration files can become complex and difficult to maintain for larger projects, leading to potential misconfigurations.

Azure DevOps videos

Agile with Visual Studio Team Services

More videos:

  • Review - Introduction to Azure DevOps
  • Review - The Top 5 BEST VSTs of 2018
  • Review - Visual Studio Team Services vs Team Foundation Server
  • Review - Should You Buy Purity VST still ? "Top 5 BEST VSTs of 2020"
  • Review - Azure DevOps Project, is it Worth it?
  • Review - Pull Requests in Azure DevOps
  • Review - Git with Visual Studio Team Services

CircleCI videos

CircleCI Part 1: Introduction to Unit Testing and Continuous Integration

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How To Setup CircleCI On Your Next Project (Vue, React, or Angular)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Azure DevOps and CircleCI)
Git
100 100%
0% 0
Continuous Integration
19 19%
81% 81
Code Collaboration
100 100%
0% 0
DevOps Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Azure DevOps and CircleCI

Azure DevOps Reviews

Top 7 GitHub Alternatives You Should Know (2024)
Azure DevOps is a cloud-based platform from Microsoft that offers a suite of tools and features for the entire software development lifecycle.
Source: snappify.com
Top 10 Most Popular Jenkins Alternatives for DevOps in 2024
Azure Pipelines tightly integrates with GitHub to display pipeline statuses in your PRs, run jobs automatically in response to repository events, and automatically deploy your projects. The solution is also extensible with custom tasks and integrations, making it a good fit for teams that need to retain Jenkins’ customization capabilities but want a managed service that’s...
Source: spacelift.io

CircleCI Reviews

The Best Alternatives to Jenkins for Developers
CircleCI is a cloud-based CI/CD platform that has gained significant traction in recent years. With a focus on simplicity and ease of use, CircleCI offers a streamlined approach to automating your build, test, and deployment processes. One of its standout features is its strong support for Docker, making it a great choice for teams working with containerized applications.
Source: morninglif.com
Top 5 Jenkins Alternatives in 2024: Automation of IT Infrastructure Written by Uzair Ghalib on the 02nd Jan 2024
CircleCI– Get unparalleled performance and insights with CircleCI’s interactive dashboard and automatic upgrades – revolutionizing the way you build and deploy your applications.
Source: attuneops.io
Top 10 Most Popular Jenkins Alternatives for DevOps in 2024
CircleCI can be a Jenkins replacement for teams seeking a managed experience where performance and support options are priorities. CircleCI is also investing heavily in building new capabilities that cater to the pipeline requirements of apps using AI and ML.
Source: spacelift.io
35+ Of The Best CI/CD Tools: Organized By Category
CircleCI is a complete CI/CD pipeline tool. You can monitor the statuses of your various pipelines from your dashboard. Additionally, CircleCI helps you manage your build logs, access controls, and testing. It’s one of the most popular DevOps and CI/CD platforms in the world.
10 Jenkins Alternatives in 2021 for Developers
CircleCI is generally recognized for its flexibility and compatibility. Customization is obviously an important factor when making the switch from Jenkins and CircleCI certainly takes an impressive swing at providing users with a solid collection of features.

Social recommendations and mentions

Azure DevOps might be a bit more popular than CircleCI. We know about 99 links to it since March 2021 and only 77 links to CircleCI. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Azure DevOps mentions (99)

  • The Pain That Is GitHub Actions
    Although, I never saw a public announcement of this discontinuation, ADO is kind of abandoned AFAICT and even their landing page hints to use GitHub Enterprise instead [1]. [1] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/devops. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Top 17 DevOps AI Tools [2025]
    Azure DevOps is a comprehensive set of tools and services provided by Microsoft. It is one of the most used DevOps AI tools when integrated with Azure’s AI and machine learning services. This integration enhances CI/CD processes, test automation, and infrastructure management. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Azure Container Instances vs Sliplane
    By default ACI deploys containers from a registry, which means if you want to setup a CI/CD pipeline, you need to configure some addional services like Azure Container Registry to store your images and Azure DevOps to build your images. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • The Hidden Costs of Poor Code Quality: Why Testing Matters
    Microsoft's Azure DevOps team saw 80% fewer customer-reported bugs in 6 months with automated testing. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Effective Software Development Workflow: From Idea to Delivery
    Azure DevOps: Comprehensive CI/CD by Microsoft for software delivery. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
View more

CircleCI mentions (77)

  • Improving API Performance In Legacy Systems: A Guide for API Developers
    Tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, and CircleCI offer capabilities for parallel testing and test caching, allowing multiple tests to run simultaneously. This approach significantly reduces overall testing time and prevents unnecessary delays in deployment. Industry leaders such as Netflix and Amazon employ these practices to minimize outages and maintain high service quality. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Top 17 DevOps AI Tools [2025]
    CircleCI is a leading cloud-based platform for CI/CD that automates the software development process, enabling teams to build, test, and deploy applications with efficiency and precision. By integrating seamlessly with popular version control systems like GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket, CircleCI enhances collaboration and accelerates development cycles. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Building a serverless GenAI API with FastAPI, AWS, and CircleCI
    GitHub and CircleCI Accounts: You will need a GitHub account to host your project’s repository and a CircleCI account to automate testing and deployment through CI/CD. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • CircleCI vs. Jenkins
    CircleCI is a CI/CD platform that automates the process of building, testing, and deploying software. It helps developers integrate code changes more frequently and efficiently, ensuring that software development teams can detect and fix errors quickly. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • AIOps, DevOps, MLOps, LLMOps – What’s the Difference?
    CI/CD tools: Tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, and GitLab CI to automate the build and deployment pipeline. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Azure DevOps and CircleCI, you can also consider the following products

Jenkins - Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration server with 300+ plugins to support all kinds of software development

Travis CI - Simple, flexible, trustworthy CI/CD tools. Join hundreds of thousands who define tests and deployments in minutes, then scale up simply with parallel or multi-environment builds using Travis CI’s precision syntax—all with the developer in mind.

Codeship - Codeship is a fast and secure hosted Continuous Delivery platform that scales with your needs.

GitLab - Create, review and deploy code together with GitLab open source git repo management software | GitLab

Helix ALM - Helix ALM is the single, integrated application that lets you centralize and manage requirements, test cases, issues, and other development artifacts and their relationships.

Buddy - The simplest CI/CD tool ever made, acclaimed by top developers worldwide. It uses delivery pipelines to build, test and deploy software. Pipelines are created with over 100 ready-to-use actions, that can be arranged in any way.