A DevOps team’s biggest problem can start innocently enough: maybe one person wants to add a tool to automate deployment, and then someone else wants to add a tool for code review. More tools keep being added until suddenly teams are dealing with a tangled and complicated toolchain that is wasting more time and money than it was intended to save.
This "toolchain tax" — the hidden and insidious cost of using multiple development tools — begins gradually, but it can lead to serious bottlenecks in software production. Tools accumulate until teams find themselves managing a complicated chain that wastes more time and money than it saves, affecting their ability to meet customer needs and stay ahead of competitors.
That problem is becoming clear to DevOps professionals who are looking to shake off the shackles of a toolchain. GitLab’s 2024 Global DevSecOps Survey reveals the scale of this challenge and the pain point it’s creating. More than half of DevOps teams are juggling six or more tools in their development chain — and 13% of them are managing up to 14 different tools.
The workday cost of this complexity? DevOps professionals are spending up to three-quarters of their time just maintaining and integrating these tools instead of developing software. More than 78% report wasting between 25% to 100% of their time keeping their toolchain running.
Respondents say that’s a problem.
The study showed that nearly 64% want to consolidate their (sometimes sprawling) toolchains because of challenges with monitoring, development delays, and unhappy developers. That percentage ticks up for a few industries. Respondents in the automotive industry clocked in at 76.5%, while more than 72% in manufacturing are looking to consolidate.
And when respondents talk about how much of their responsibilities revolve around maintaining and/or integrating their DevOps toolchains, it’s clear why they want to cut back or eliminate them. According to the survey, about 20% reported that maintenance and integration take up to 24% of their time, with more than 40% saying it accounts for 25% to 49%, and more than 27% say it uses up 50% to 74% of their workday. That’s more than 78% of DevOps professionals saying they waste at least a quarter of their day keeping their toolchain running.
“The everyday life of one of our developers was spread across many different services,” said Nadav Robas, DevOps & DevSecOps manager at Agoda, a major online travel booking platform headquartered in Singapore. “I was looking to free up the hands of my DevOps engineers from having to do everyday maintenance work, maintaining uptime, and learning domain knowledge.”
It all adds up to a lot of time spent doing things that aren’t directly developing and deploying software. It also means that DevOps team mates aren’t doing as much of what they love doing — being innovative and creative — which affects their work experience and happiness.
Eliminating the toolchain tax
Teams clearly are tired of paying the toolchain tax. And now they’re ridding themselves of this problem by adopting a full DevSecOps platform. That one move can create efficiencies, replace hands-on tasks with automation, shift security left, reduce costs, reduce aggravations, and drive critical advantages for both DevOps teams and the overall business.
“I didn’t want them to be experts in individual tools,” said Robas. “Instead, I wanted them to focus on the things that actually matter — how we produce code, how we properly deploy code. We could do that with a platform.”
Beyond streamlining operations, a single platform also means companies aren’t paying licensing fees for multiple tools. To calculate what a company could save by replacing a toolchain, use this ROI calculator. [1]
Having a comprehensive platform that boosts productivity while reducing costs is a superpower, especially in economically challenging times, because it can help deliver value to customers more quickly.
Decrease toolchain sprawl with GitLab
A DevSecOps platform — like GitLab’s single, end-to-end platform — helps companies cut out the potentially costly integration work that comes with using various tools, and helps organizations create and release software faster, while increasing security and compliance. It’s a mixture of benefits that shorten cycle times and increases productivity, enabling teams to build software with velocity, trust, and visibility.
And that creates value for customers.
“GitLab has provided our developers with a single pane of glass they can use to see all the processes of the software development lifecycle without jumping back and forth from one tool to another,” says Nadav. “We wanted to consolidate all our services into a single platform and we did. We’re more productive, more secure, and our developers are having a better experience.”
See the benefits that migrating to an end-to-end GitLab platform can bring to your organization.
[1] Please note that ROI may vary depending on many factors, and the ROI calculator does not reflect actual results as results may vary.
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