List of the Top 14 Application Release Orchestration (ARO) Tools for GitLab in 2025

IBM DevOps Deploy, formerly known as IBM UrbanCode Deploy, serves as an application-release platform that facilitates the continuous delivery of software across diverse environments by merging deployment automation with a wealth of visibility, traceability, and auditing capabilities. It improves the rate at which software releases occur by implementing automated and repeatable deployment procedures that cover development, testing, and production stages. The platform effectively simplifies the deployment of multichannel applications, ensuring that consistency and repeatability are maintained across both on-premises and cloud-based settings. By leveraging a centralized server, organizations have the ability to manage thousands of endpoints distributed across various clouds, data centers, or mainframes with ease. Additionally, the platform enhances robustness and streamlines process design through established integrations with a broad spectrum of tools and technologies, including Jira, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Microsoft, ServiceNow, and WebSphere, thereby promoting a more agile development ecosystem. This all-encompassing approach not only speeds up delivery but also significantly boosts overall operational efficiency while enabling teams to respond swiftly to changing market demands.

JFrog Pipelines empowers software development teams to speed up the update delivery process by automating their DevOps workflows in a secure and efficient way across all involved tools and teams. It encompasses key functionalities such as continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD), and infrastructure management, effectively automating the complete journey from code creation to production deployment. This solution is tightly integrated with the JFrog Platform and is available through both cloud-based and on-premises subscription options. It boasts horizontal scalability, offering a centralized management system that can support thousands of users and pipelines within a high-availability (HA) framework. Users can easily build complex pipelines with pre-built declarative steps that eliminate the need for scripting, enabling the connection of multiple teams in the process. Additionally, it collaborates with a broad spectrum of DevOps tools, allowing different steps within the same pipeline to function across various operating systems and architectures, thereby reducing the need for multiple CI/CD solutions. This adaptability positions JFrog Pipelines as an invaluable tool for teams looking to optimize their software delivery workflows while ensuring seamless integration across different platforms. Its ability to handle diverse environments makes it a pivotal resource for modern software development.

Incredibuild stands out as the premier platform for accelerating development processes. Our innovative platform enhances the speed of developer and CI builds through advanced distribution and caching technologies, dramatically reducing wait times from hours and days to mere minutes. Crucially, this enhancement occurs without any alterations to your existing code, tools, or workflows, whether implemented on-premises or in the cloud. With Incredibuild, users gain improved visibility into their builds, experience significant acceleration, and benefit from intelligent orchestration of build assets, achieving build times that are 8-10 times faster. More than 200,000 developers and managers across over 2,000 organizations, including renowned names such as Microsoft, Amazon, Citibank, Adobe, Disney, Intel, Samsung, and EPIC Games, leverage Incredibuild to supercharge their development efforts and enhance customer satisfaction. This widespread adoption illustrates the platform's effectiveness in transforming development timelines and outcomes for companies of all sizes.

The database change process has not experienced the same level of improvement from DevOps as other areas have. It is essential to integrate CI/CD methodologies into database management. Over the past few years, there have been remarkable advancements in application release technologies. Previously, the rollout of new software could take weeks or even months, but organizations have revamped their workflows, enabling them to release updates in just days or even hours. Every software project inevitably necessitates database schema migrations. There are numerous reasons that warrant updates to the database, such as the need to add new attributes to existing tables or create entirely new tables to accommodate new features. Additionally, bug fixes often require adjustments to the names and data types within the database. Furthermore, to improve performance, it may become necessary to implement additional indexes. Despite the adoption of DevOps practices, many organizations still rely on manual processes for updating stored procedures and making changes to database schemas, indicating a gap that needs to be addressed. This inconsistency highlights the need for a more streamlined approach to database management within the context of modern software development practices.

Kaholo is a low-code automation tool designed for IT workflows that empowers developers to streamline their processes efficiently. This platform enables developers to automate their tasks more swiftly, and it can be utilized by anyone in the development field without requiring expertise in scripting or specialized software. Its user-friendly approach makes workflow automation accessible to a broader range of developers.

Enhance your product communication with Onset to keep users informed and engaged in a unified manner. Provide timely notifications that focus on what truly matters, ensuring users stay updated according to their preferences. By scheduling release notes for automatic publication on a future date, you can maintain seamless communication with your audience. Take advantage of tagging your releases using SemVer, CalVer, or any custom versioning system that fits your needs. Pay close attention to customer feedback regarding any modifications or updates made to your product. You can create content in Markdown or paste it directly, allowing for effortless conversion into rich text. Share your release updates externally through a secure private link, increasing visibility outside your organization. With an AI-powered writing assistant, the quality of your release notes can be significantly improved. Keep everyone in the loop regarding the features you are working on, their development status, and your plans for the future. Moreover, actively solicit customer feedback on your upcoming features to determine which ones resonate most with your audience. This comprehensive strategy not only keeps users engaged but also cultivates a collaborative atmosphere for ongoing product development while encouraging open communication about future enhancements. Ultimately, this approach fosters stronger relationships with your users, making them feel valued and heard.

This fully automated DevOps platform is crafted for the effortless distribution of dependable software releases from the development phase straight to production. It accelerates the initiation of DevOps projects by overseeing user management, resource allocation, and permissions, ultimately boosting deployment speed. With the ability to promptly identify open-source vulnerabilities and uphold licensing compliance, you can confidently roll out updates. Ensure continuous operations across your DevOps workflow with High Availability and active/active clustering solutions specifically designed for enterprises. The platform allows for smooth management of your DevOps environment through both built-in native integrations and those offered by external providers. Tailored for enterprise needs, it provides diverse deployment options—on-premises, cloud, multi-cloud, or hybrid—that can adapt and scale with your organization. Additionally, it significantly improves the efficiency, reliability, and security of software updates and device management for large-scale IoT applications. You can kickstart new DevOps initiatives in just minutes, effortlessly incorporating team members, managing resources, and setting storage limits, which fosters rapid coding and collaboration. This all-encompassing platform removes the barriers of traditional deployment issues, allowing your team to concentrate on driving innovation forward. Ultimately, it serves as a catalyst for transformative growth within your organization’s software development lifecycle.

IBM DevOps provides a robust release management solution tailored for large organizations, featuring pipeline orchestration and real-time analytics capabilities. With this platform, teams can effectively visualize their entire DevOps toolchain along with its data, which supports the evaluation of value generation as projects transition from initial ideas to delivery to customers. The integration of various pipelines from different tools is accomplished seamlessly, allowing for a comprehensive view of operations. This system equips teams with essential insights to pinpoint areas of value creation, identify bottlenecks, and tackle challenges related to team dynamics. Furthermore, it illustrates opportunities to enhance automation while maintaining necessary controls and visibility. The release orchestration across multiple deployment tools is made more efficient, and security and testing metrics are unified across the organization. Enhanced governance across tools leads to a more integrated methodology, promoting consistency throughout the enterprise. Users benefit from a real-time perspective of their pipelines, enabling them to monitor progress from concept to production. This solution not only supports business leaders in making informed strategic choices but also assists DevOps teams in managing various continuous delivery pipelines effectively. Ultimately, it streamlines the governance and automation of the software release process, improving overall collaboration and efficiency. By reinforcing a cohesive approach to software development and deployment, it underscores the significance of unity in enterprise settings. Additionally, this integration fosters a culture of continuous improvement, driving better outcomes for both teams and organizations as a whole.

Digital.ai Release, which was formerly recognized as XebiaLabs XL Release, is a dedicated solution designed for managing releases within Continuous Delivery (CD) frameworks. It enables organizational teams to craft and supervise their releases effectively, automate IT workflows, and improve the duration of releases by analyzing and optimizing their practices. With a strong emphasis on automation and orchestration, this platform offers extensive visibility into release pipelines, catering to even the most expansive enterprises. Users can adeptly handle intricate release pipelines while planning, automating, and scrutinizing each component of the software delivery lifecycle. This tool not only facilitates the management and improvement of software delivery initiatives but also keeps users informed about the progress of both automated and manual operations within the release pipeline. It assists in pinpointing potential obstacles, reducing mistakes, and alleviating the risks tied to release failures. Furthermore, it enables the monitoring of the entire release procedure, delivering real-time status updates across a variety of tools and systems, from initial code development to final production rollout. Users have the added benefit of customizing their dashboards to highlight the most vital information for each release, enhancing their overall management experience. This customization fosters a concentrated approach towards essential tasks, ultimately leading to more streamlined and successful release outcomes, while also promoting collaboration among team members for better synergy.

Plutora is a comprehensive software delivery management platform that accelerates the delivery of value across your organization. Acting as a centralized hub, it oversees software delivery teams, processes, and tools without being tied to any particular methodology, automation, or vendor, making it versatile and adaptable. This solution systematically improves your digital transformation initiatives by promoting the scaling of Agile and DevOps practices throughout the entire organization. It empowers users to visualize and map their value streams efficiently by utilizing data from critical systems to generate important metrics such as cycle time, lead time, and process time. By managing initiatives and changes within the portfolio, users can effectively organize dependencies associated with releases. In addition, Plutora provides the capability to plan, manage, and synchronize releases alongside their respective IT resources, ensuring seamless operations. It also facilitates scheduling and orchestrating pre-production environments for any delivery pipeline, which is vital for successful deployments. Moreover, users can effortlessly plan, track, and manage the execution of production cut-over activities, ensuring a smooth transition during releases. With Plutora, organizations can maintain a focus on continuous improvement, or "Kaizen," at every stage of the delivery process. The platform also enhances operational efficiency by enabling the integration of key systems and transforming data through multiple methods, ultimately driving better collaboration and performance. This holistic approach to software delivery management ensures that teams can respond swiftly to changing business needs and deliver high-quality software consistently.

The Ozone platform enables businesses to efficiently and safely deploy contemporary applications. By streamlining DevOps tool management, Ozone simplifies the process of deploying applications on Kubernetes. It seamlessly integrates your current DevOps tools to enhance the automation of your application delivery workflow. With automated pipeline processes, deployments are expedited, and infrastructure management can be handled on-demand. Additionally, it enforces compliance policies and governance for large-scale app deployments to mitigate the risk of financial losses. This unified interface facilitates real-time collaboration among engineering, DevOps, and security teams during application releases, fostering a more cohesive workflow. Embracing this platform can significantly improve overall operational efficiency and enhance productivity across various teams.

Boost your organization's agility and competitive edge by enabling faster, safer, and more frequent changes in SAP. In the rapidly evolving marketplace, leading companies must possess innovative capabilities to stay ahead of their competition and swiftly adapt to changing market conditions. Nevertheless, businesses managing complex SAP environments frequently encounter significant challenges when attempting to implement rapid and low-risk modifications. ActiveControl offers a state-of-the-art solution with its sophisticated automation, introducing a groundbreaking approach to managing change and release processes that allows organizations to adopt agile development, DevOps, and continuous delivery within their SAP ecosystems. The platform features customizable workflows that facilitate the automated deployment of both SAP transports and non-SAP changes, subject to the required approvals. Users can either determine specific import schedules for their systems or opt for a continuous delivery model, where change deployments and related manual tasks are efficiently synchronized across all SAP environments. To maximize the benefits of DevOps, it is essential to integrate your SAP systems into your broader IT infrastructure while following best-practice delivery strategies. This integration not only enhances operational efficiency but also cultivates a culture of ongoing improvement and adaptability to market dynamics. By embracing these innovations, organizations can position themselves to respond proactively to emerging challenges and opportunities.

Cloud 66 provides an all-encompassing platform for building, deploying, and scaling applications across multiple cloud environments, effectively removing the usual difficulties tied to server management. It supports a diverse array of programming languages and frameworks, which allows for great adaptability in your development workflow. The platform adeptly constructs, configures, and manages all vital databases and components required for your projects. You have the option to deploy directly to your own accounts with various cloud providers or even utilize on-premise servers. By integrating your Git repository with Cloud 66, you unlock compatibility with all major Git services, including GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps, regardless of whether your code is organized in a mono-repo or multi-repo structure. Additionally, the platform is structured to accommodate every programming language and framework, either through native integration or by leveraging container technology. To enhance productivity, users can directly link their cloud provider accounts to Cloud 66, which supports all top cloud services, including AWS, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Azure, and Linode. Moreover, Cloud 66 smartly evaluates your code to determine the essential components required for your application to function properly, and it also supports static site generators like Gatsby, Hugo, and Jekyll, addressing a broad spectrum of development requirements. With its user-friendly features and robust capabilities, Cloud 66 emerges as a superb choice for developers looking to optimize their workflow and improve deployment efficiency while managing their applications seamlessly.

DROPS is an advanced release management tool designed to improve, secure, and unify the application deployment process across various infrastructures such as data centers, hybrid models, and multi-cloud systems. It supports multiple platforms, seamlessly integrates with various CI/CD pipelines, and offers both agent-based and agentless operation modes. With features that include thorough release management, automated infrastructure provisioning, and 24/7 availability, DROPS aims to streamline deployment processes while maintaining consistent and reliable delivery. This flexible solution is capable of managing both legacy and modern applications, catering to the diverse needs of businesses. Users can opt for agent-based or agentless methods without the burden of agent installation or maintenance. If agents are needed, DROPS will automatically handle their provisioning to fit your specific setup. The intuitive web console allows for planning and managing application deployments without requiring extensive scripting knowledge, enhancing collaboration among stakeholders and technical teams, which ultimately boosts overall project efficiency. Consequently, DROPS not only simplifies the deployment process but also significantly improves communication and coordination throughout the software development lifecycle, leading to more successful project outcomes.