Tools We Actually Use
A curated list of DevOps tools, platforms, and learning resources we genuinely recommend. No fluff — only tools that engineers use in production every day.
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Cloud & Hosting
— Platforms to deploy and scale your infrastructureThe industry standard. EC2, EKS, S3, Lambda — everything you need for production workloads.
Simpler and cheaper than AWS for small-to-medium projects. Great Kubernetes managed service (DOKS).
Best-in-class platform for Next.js and frontend deployments. Zero-config, instant previews.
CDN, DDoS protection, DNS, and edge computing. Free tier is incredibly generous.
Containers & Orchestration
— Run and manage containerized workloadsThe standard for local container development. Run any workload consistently across machines.
Free Docker Desktop alternative. Includes nerdctl, containerd, and a local k3s cluster.
Terminal UI for Kubernetes. Navigate pods, logs, and resources 10x faster than kubectl.
GUI Kubernetes IDE. Visualize cluster state, resource metrics, and workloads.
CI/CD & GitOps
— Automate your build, test, and deployment pipelinesInfrastructure as Code
— Define and manage infrastructure declarativelyThe standard IaC tool. Define cloud resources in HCL, version them, and deploy reliably.
IaC using real programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Go). Great for complex logic.
Kubernetes package manager. Templatize and share your K8s manifests as charts.
Monitoring & Observability
— Know what's happening in your systemsFull-stack monitoring — metrics, logs, traces, APM, and alerts in one platform.
Prometheus + Loki + Tempo as a managed service. Free tier is very usable.
Serverless Redis and Kafka. We use it for our post view counter — zero ops.
Security & Secrets
— Keep your infrastructure and credentials safeSecrets management and data protection. Dynamic secrets, encryption, and PKI.
Free open-source vulnerability scanner for containers, filesystems, and IaC configs.
Developer-first security — scan code, containers, and dependencies for vulnerabilities.
Learning & Certifications
— Level up your DevOps skillsHands-on labs for Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Linux, and DevOps. The best platform for practical, job-ready skills.
Cloud certification prep — AWS, GCP, Azure. Video courses + hands-on labs.
Mumshad Mannambeth's Kubernetes course is the best K8s resource online. Always on sale.
Using a tool we missed?
Reach out at hello@devopsboys.com — we're always looking to add genuinely useful tools.
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