Platform engineering tools: 12 solutions to know in 2026

Octopus Deploy is a sophisticated, best-of-breed Continuous Delivery (CD) platform for modern software teams. It offers powerful release orchestration, deployment automation, and runbook automation while handling the scale, complexity, and governance expectations of even the largest organizations with the most complex deployment challenges.

Key features:

• Reliable risk-free deployments: Define your deployment process once and use it across all environments so you can deploy to production with the same confidence you deploy everywhere else.
• Deployments at scale: Octopus is the only CD tool with built-in multi-tenancy support. You can deploy many customer-specific instances using the same deployment process.
• One platform for DevOps automation: You can use runbooks to automate operations tasks to remove toil. You can use runbooks to provide safe self-service operations to other teams.
• Streamlined compliance: Octopus has role-based access control, single-sign-on (SSO) as standard, and a complete audit trail to make audits a breeze.

Learn more about Octopus Deploy

GitLab provides a DevSecOps platform that integrates the software lifecycle—from planning and source code management to CI/CD and security testing—within a single system. By consolidating development workflows and automation pipelines in one platform, it enables teams to manage code, build pipelines, and security processes from a unified environment.

Key features:

• Unified DevOps platform: Combines planning, source code management, CI/CD, and release management within a single environment.
• Automated CI/CD pipelines: Automates building, testing, packaging, and deployment processes to accelerate software delivery.
• Integrated security testing: Incorporates security scanning tools such as SAST, SCA, secret detection, and DAST directly into development pipelines.
• Single data source for development workflows: Stores projects, releases, and code within a unified data layer to improve collaboration and traceability.
• Compliance and audit capabilities: Supports access controls, audit trails, and policy enforcement to help organizations meet regulatory requirements.

Argo CD is a Kubernetes-native continuous delivery system that follows the GitOps model. It continuously monitors the live state of applications running in Kubernetes clusters and compares them with the desired configuration stored in Git repositories. When differences are detected, the system can automatically synchronize the environment with the declared state.

Key features include:

• GitOps-based deployment model: Uses Git repositories as the source of truth for application configuration and deployment states.
• Automated synchronization: Continuously compares running applications with the desired configuration and applies updates when changes occur.
• Multi-cluster management: Enables deployment and management of applications across multiple Kubernetes clusters.
• Configuration tool compatibility: Supports Kubernetes manifests defined using tools such as Helm, Kustomize, Jsonnet, and YAML files.
• Operational visibility: Provides dashboards, logs, and health status information for applications running in Kubernetes environments.

Jenkins is an open-source automation server used to support Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery workflows. It runs as a server-based application in environments such as servlet containers and can also operate as a standalone web application. Jenkins integrates with multiple version control systems and build tools, allowing teams to automate building, testing, and deployment processes through configurable pipelines and scripts.

Key features include:

• Automation server for CI/CD: Automates building, testing, and deploying software to support continuous integration and delivery processes.
• Flexible build triggers: Supports triggers such as webhooks, scheduled jobs, manual execution, and dependencies on other builds.
• Extensible plugin system: Uses plugins to integrate with tools, extend functionality, and support testing, reporting, and external systems.
• Version control integration: Works with systems such as Git, Subversion, Mercurial, and others to manage source code workflows.
• Support for build tools and scripts: Executes builds using tools like Apache Maven, Ant, and custom shell or batch scripts.

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It organizes containers into logical groups and manages them across clusters of machines, enabling reliable application operation at scale across cloud and on-premises environments.

Key features include:

• Automated rollouts and rollbacks: Gradually deploys application updates and can automatically revert to previous versions if issues occur.
• Service discovery and load balancing: Assigns IP addresses and DNS names to containers and distributes traffic across them.
• Storage orchestration: Automatically connects applications to storage systems such as local storage, cloud storage, or network storage.
• Self-healing capabilities: Restarts failed containers, replaces unhealthy instances, and maintains application availability.
• Horizontal scaling: Automatically scales applications up or down based on workload demands.

Docker is a containerization platform that uses operating system-level virtualization to package applications and their dependencies into containers. These containers run in isolated environments while sharing the host system kernel, enabling consistent execution across different systems. Docker includes a runtime engine and supporting tools to build, manage, and distribute containerized applications.

Key features include:

• Container-based virtualization: Runs applications in isolated containers that share the host operating system kernel.
• Docker engine runtime: Provides a daemon and API to manage container lifecycle and operations.
• Portable container images: Uses read-only images to package applications and dependencies for consistent deployment.
• Multi-environment compatibility: Supports running containers across Linux, Windows, and macOS environments.
• Container orchestration support: Includes capabilities such as clustering and scaling through tools like Docker Swarm.

Backstage is an open-source framework used to build internal developer portals that centralize software services, infrastructure resources, and development tools. It provides a unified interface where teams can manage services, access documentation, and discover components within their software ecosystem.

Key features include:

• Centralized software catalog: Maintains a structured inventory of services, libraries, websites, and other software components.
• Service ownership visibility: Displays information about service owners, dependencies, and related infrastructure resources.
• Software templates: Provides templates that allow developers to create new services with predefined configurations and best practices.
• Integrated documentation system: Uses a documentation-as-code model where project documentation is written alongside application code.
• Extensible plugin architecture: Supports custom plugins that integrate internal tools and external services into the platform.

Humanitec is a platform engineering tool designed to manage infrastructure provisioning through a centralized orchestration layer. It connects developer requests, infrastructure modules, and deployment processes, allowing organizations to enforce policies and standards when infrastructure resources are created.

Key features include:

• Platform orchestration layer: Coordinates infrastructure provisioning requests across multiple tools and environments.
• Policy-based infrastructure provisioning: Enforces security, compliance, and cost policies when infrastructure resources are requested.
• Infrastructure lifecycle management: Manages provisioning, updates, and rollbacks across development environments.
• Ephemeral environment creation: Enables temporary environments that can be automatically created and removed during testing or development.
• Configuration drift detection: Identifies when infrastructure changes deviate from defined configurations.

OpsLevel is an internal developer portal that helps organizations manage and improve visibility across their software ecosystem. It aggregates data from development tools and infrastructure systems to create a centralized catalog of services, ownership information, and operational insights.

Key features include:

• Software catalog automation: Automatically discovers and catalogs services, APIs, and infrastructure components across development environments.
• AI-powered catalog enrichment: Adds metadata such as ownership, documentation, and dependencies to software components.
• Engineering standards enforcement: Uses automated checks and scorecards to track service quality and operational standards.
• Self-service developer workflows: Allows teams to perform operational tasks and manage services through a unified interface.
• Role-based access controls: Provides granular access management to control how teams interact with the platform.

Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool that enables teams to provision and manage infrastructure using declarative configuration files. It allows organizations to define infrastructure resources such as compute instances, storage, and networking components, and automatically apply the desired configuration across environments.

Key features include:

• Declarative infrastructure management: Describes infrastructure using configuration files that specify the desired system state.
• Multi-cloud provider support: Integrates with numerous infrastructure providers including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others.
• Infrastructure version control: Allows infrastructure configurations to be tracked and updated using version control systems.
• Automated infrastructure provisioning: Creates, modifies, or removes infrastructure resources automatically based on configuration changes.
• Reusable infrastructure modules: Supports modular infrastructure definitions that can be reused across multiple projects.

Ansible is an open-source automation platform used for configuration management, application deployment, and infrastructure orchestration. It enables IT teams to automate tasks using human-readable scripts called playbooks that describe the desired system configuration.

Key features include:

• Agentless automation architecture: Uses SSH or native remote management protocols to execute tasks without installing agents on managed systems.
• YAML-based playbooks: Defines automation tasks using simple, human-readable configuration files.
• Infrastructure configuration management: Automates system configuration and software deployment across infrastructure environments.
• Scalable automation framework: Supports automation across diverse environments including cloud platforms, servers, and network devices.
• Idempotent operations: Ensures that systems remain in the desired state without applying unnecessary changes.

Pulumi is an infrastructure-as-code platform that allows developers to define and manage infrastructure using general-purpose programming languages. It enables teams to write infrastructure logic using constructs such as functions, loops, and classes, and supports deployment across multiple cloud providers through a unified API. Pulumi also integrates with CI/CD systems and provides tools for testing and managing infrastructure changes.

Key features include:

• Programming language support: Uses languages such as TypeScript, Python, Go, C#, Java, and YAML to define infrastructure.
• Reusable infrastructure components: Enables packaging and reuse of infrastructure patterns across projects and environments.
• Multi-cloud support: Provides a unified interface to manage resources across providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Kubernetes.
• Testing and validation tools: Allows previewing changes, running unit tests, and validating infrastructure before deployment.
• Built-in state and secrets management: Supports encrypted state storage, secrets handling, and audit tracking for infrastructure changes.