15 DevSecOps Tools to Know in 2024

What Are DevSecOps Tools? 

DevSecOps tools integrate security practices within the DevOps process to ensure secure software development. By embedding security early in the development lifecycle, these tools help teams identify vulnerabilities before they become costly to fix. They automate tasks like code review, security testing, and compliance checks, making it easier to maintain a secure environment without slowing down the development process.

These tools enable collaboration between development, security, and operations teams, ensuring that security is considered at every stage. By using DevSecOps tools, organizations can create a proactive stance towards security, reducing risk while improving development speed.

Key Features of DevSecOps Tools 

DevSecOps tools typically include the following capabilities.

Automated Security Testing

Automatically scanning code for vulnerabilities allows developers to receive feedback on potential security issues in real time, integrating security checks into the regular CI/CD pipelines. Early detection and remediation become more feasible as automation takes over manual testing efforts.

These tools support various testing types, including static analysis, dynamic analysis, and interactive testing. By automating these processes, DevSecOps tools reduce human error and ensure consistent application of security checks.

Container Security

With the rise of containerization, ensuring container security has become essential. DevSecOps tools offer container security features including image scanning and runtime protection. Image scanning assesses vulnerabilities before deployment, ensuring containers are free from known security issues.

Runtime protection monitors containers for suspicious activities, blocking threats in real time. These tools also enforce policies to ensure consistent security posture across different environments. By integrating security into the container lifecycle, DevSecOps tools provide protection from build to deployment.

Threat Intelligence and Monitoring

DevSecOps tools leverage threat intelligence to enhance the identification of potential security threats. They provide real-time monitoring, gathering data from various sources to detect abnormal patterns indicative of security breaches. Monitoring tools help developers maintain vigilance, enabling quick responses to emerging threats.

Threat intelligence aggregates data about new vulnerabilities, zero-day attacks, and other emerging risks, allowing organizations to adjust defenses proactively. By integrating monitoring and intelligence, DevSecOps tools ensure protection across the software development lifecycle.

Compliance and Policy Management

Compliance with industry standards is crucial, and DevSecOps tools help organizations adhere to these requirements. These tools offer policy management features that automate compliance checks and ensure adherence to regulations like GDPR or HIPAA. By automating compliance, organizations can avoid penalties and maintain trust among users and partners.

Policy management tools allow for custom policy creation, tailoring controls to meet specific organizational requirements. These features integrate into existing workflows, providing continual assurance that security and compliance standards are met.

Incident Management and Forensics

Incident management in DevSecOps tools focuses on rapid detection and response to security incidents, minimizing impact. These tools provide logging, alerting, and reporting capabilities, which are crucial for effective incident response. The ability to quickly identify and isolate threats enables teams to contain breaches before they escalate.

Forensic capabilities are equally important, offering detailed analysis and records of security incidents to understand their root causes. This information is vital for improving security measures and preventing future breaches.

Dan Garfield
VP of Open Source, Octopus Deploy
Dan is a seasoned leader in the tech industry with a strong focus on open source initiatives. Currently serving as VP of Open Source at Octopus Deploy, contributing as an Argo maintainer, co-creator of Open GitOps, and leveraging extensive experience as a co-founder of Codefresh, now part of Octopus Deploy.

TIPS FROM THE EXPERT

In my experience, here are tips that can help you maximize the potential of DevSecOps tools:

  1. Prioritize the integration of tools based on risk: Rather than trying to implement every tool at once, assess the critical areas of risk within your current software development lifecycle. For example, if open-source vulnerabilities are your biggest concern, prioritize integrating Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools first, and then expand to other areas like Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST).
  2. Use context-aware security testing to reduce false positives: Tools like Snyk and SonarQube can provide many alerts, but not all are critical. Implement context-aware security testing that considers the application environment, data flows, and threat modeling to prioritize critical issues. This minimizes “alert fatigue” and focuses developer attention on what matters most.
  3. Leverage feedback loops for rapid response and learning: Establish feedback loops between your security tools and developers. For example, when a vulnerability is detected in code, the tool should immediately notify the responsible developer, along with remediation guidance. Continuous feedback loops can foster a culture of proactive improvement and learning within teams.
  4. Integrate Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) security scanning: As infrastructure becomes more dynamic, tools like Puppet and Terraform introduce risks through IaC misconfigurations. Incorporate IaC security scanning within your CI/CD pipelines to detect and resolve issues before deploying infrastructure changes, reducing the risk of insecure configurations.
  5. Perform “Shift Right” security testing in addition to “Shift Left”: While shifting security left is a core principle of DevSecOps, don’t overlook the benefits of shift-right practices, like running security tests and validation in production environments. Use canary releases, feature flags, and real-user behavior monitoring to validate security in a realistic setting, ensuring your tools are catching issues throughout the lifecycle.

Notable DevSecOps Tools 

Automation and Configuration Tools

1. Red Hat Ansible Automation

Red Hat Ansible Automation is an enterprise automation platform. By integrating with DevSecOps workflows, it allows organizations to automate tasks across different domains, including security, infrastructure, and cloud, while reducing risk and ensuring consistent security practices. 

Key features of Red Hat Ansible Automation:

  • Automation solution: Provides a platform to handle all automation use cases, from IT operations to security orchestration, enabling consistent and efficient automation across an organization.
  • Security automation: Automates the enforcement of security policies and threat detection, helping teams mitigate risks by ensuring security configurations are consistently applied across systems.
  • Event-driven automation: Uses rule-based triggers to automatically respond to events in real time, streamlining IT operations and reducing manual intervention.
  • Integration across domains: Integrates with infrastructure, network, and cloud environments, automating workloads from datacenter to cloud and edge.
  • Flexible deployment options: Offers both managed and self-managed deployment, allowing organizations to choose the best approach for their automation strategy.

Source: Red Hat

2. StackStorm

StackStorm is an open-source, event-driven automation platform to connect applications, services, and workflows across a DevSecOps environment. It allows organizations to automate tasks ranging from simple conditional logic to complex workflows, integrating with external systems and services. 

License: Apache-2.0

Repo: https://github.com/StackStorm/st2

GitHub stars: 6k+

Contributors: 150+

Key features of StackStorm:

  • Event-driven automation: Automates responses to external events through real-time triggers and actions, allowing security and operational workflows to run automatically based on predefined rules.
  • IFTTT (If This, Then That) engine: Provides a platform for simple conditional automation, enabling teams to set and execute “if this, then that” rules to automate various tasks.
  • Triggers and actions: Triggers detect external events, while actions represent outbound integrations. These can be linked through rules, enabling automated responses across services like Docker, Puppet, or OpenStack.
  • Workflows: Supports complex workflows by stitching multiple actions together, enabling multi-step processes for tasks like incident response or infrastructure management.
  • Sensors: Python-based plugins that monitor external systems for events and trigger automation workflows, ensuring real-time responses to system changes or security alerts.

Source: StackStorm 

3. Codacy Quality

Codacy Quality is an automated code review tool to help developers ensure high-quality, secure code throughout the software development lifecycle. With its integration into DevSecOps workflows, Codacy allows teams to monitor code quality, enforce test coverage, and address security vulnerabilities before they reach production. 

Key Features of Codacy Quality:

  • Automated code quality monitoring: Continuously checks code against quality standards, ensuring that issues are detected and resolved early in the development process.
  • Test coverage enforcement: Monitors and enforces unit test coverage, helping teams improve code quality and avoid regressions by ensuring all changes are properly tested.
  • Security issue prioritization: Provides a security dashboard to identify, prioritize, and fix critical vulnerabilities, integrating with risk management strategies.
  • Git integration: Works natively with popular Git platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket, fitting into existing developer workflows without the need for additional tools.
  • Centralized dashboard: Offers visibility into the quality and security health of all repositories, providing a simple grading system to benchmark code quality across projects.

Source: Codacy 

4. Puppet

Puppet is an open-source configuration management tool that automates the provisioning and management of infrastructure. It helps DevSecOps teams define, enforce, and maintain system configurations across diverse environments, ensuring that infrastructure remains consistent and compliant with security standards. 

License: Apache-2.0

Repo: https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppet

GitHub stars: 7k+

Contributors: 500+

Key Features of Puppet:

  • Infrastructure as Code: Allows teams to define infrastructure configurations as code, ensuring that all systems are configured consistently and according to predefined policies.
  • Automated compliance: Continuously monitors and enforces configuration compliance, automatically remediating deviations from defined security policies or standards.
  • Cross-platform support: Manages infrastructure across various operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS, providing flexibility in heterogeneous environments.
  • Node management: Scales to manage thousands of nodes, ensuring that large, distributed infrastructures are kept up-to-date and secure.
  • Reporting and auditing: Provides detailed reports on system configurations and changes, offering visibility into compliance status and audit trails for security reviews.

Source: Puppet 

Security Scanning and Threat Management

5. CheckPoint CloudGuard

CheckPoint CloudGuard is a cloud security platform to protect applications, workloads, and networks from known and unknown risks. It integrates security into every phase of the cloud lifecycle, from development to deployment, using AI-powered technologies.

Key Features of CheckPoint CloudGuard:

  • Cloud native application protection: Safeguards the entire application lifecycle, from code to cloud, while managing security posture, detecting misconfigurations, and enforcing best practices.
  • Web application firewall: Protects web and API traffic with AI-based threat prevention, defending against known and unknown attacks without relying on traditional signatures.
  • Cloud network security: Offers cloud-native security gateways with threat prevention and unified management across public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.
  • Cloud detection & response: Provides security intelligence, including intrusion detection, traffic visualization, and analytics for cloud monitoring.
  • Code security: Monitors code, identifies security risks, and protects sensitive assets like API keys, tokens, and credentials to ensure secure and compliant software development.

Source: CheckPoint

6. Snyk 

Snyk provides a developer-first approach to container security, empowering teams to identify, prioritize, and fix vulnerabilities. By integrating container and Kubernetes security into the development process, Snyk enables teams to address security issues early, before workloads reach production. This tool simplifies container security for developers and DevOps, making it easier to remediate vulnerabilities without interrupting workflows. 

License: Apache-2.0

Repo: https://github.com/snyk/cli

Sponsor: Checkmarx

GitHub stars: 4k+

Contributors: 200+

Key Features of Snyk:

  • Integrated vulnerability detection: Identifies security vulnerabilities in container images, base images, and Kubernetes workloads within the developer’s IDE, catching issues early in the development process.
  • Automated remediation: Provides automated fixes with recommended base image upgrades, allowing developers to resolve vulnerabilities efficiently with minimal manual intervention.
  • Continuous monitoring: Monitors containers for newly discovered vulnerabilities after deployment, sending alerts via tools like Slack, Jira, or email to ensure up-to-date protection.
  • Context-aware prioritization: Prioritizes vulnerabilities based on context and exploitability, allowing teams to focus on the most critical issues and reduce noise in remediation efforts.
  • Unified application and container scanning: Scans both container images and their open source dependencies from a single platform, offering a holistic view of security across the software ecosystem.

Source: Snyk

7. ZAP

ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy) is an open-source security tool for finding vulnerabilities in web applications. It is commonly used in DevSecOps workflows to automate security testing during the software development lifecycle. ZAP’s active scanning features help teams identify vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and insecure configurations. 

License: Apache-2.0

Repo: https://github.com/zaproxy/zaproxy

Sponsor: Checkmarx

GitHub stars: 12k+

Contributors: 200+

Key Features of ZAP:

  • Active and passive scanning: Automatically detects vulnerabilities through both active testing (probing web apps for flaws) and passive scanning (analyzing HTTP responses), providing a comprehensive security assessment.
  • Automated vulnerability detection: Integrates with DevOps workflows to perform automated scans as part of CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that security testing is continuous and consistent.
  • Scripting and extensibility: Supports custom scripts and plugins to extend functionality, enabling users to automate tests and adapt ZAP to their environment.
  • Intercepting proxy: Acts as a proxy between the browser and the web application, allowing manual exploration of app vulnerabilities, which is useful for detecting complex issues missed by automated scans.
  • Reporting: Generates detailed vulnerability reports, allowing security teams to review and prioritize remediation efforts based on severity and impact.

Source: ZAP 

8. SonarQube

SonarQube is a code analysis tool that integrates security into the software development lifecycle (SDLC), enabling teams to adopt a shift-left approach. This developer-centric tool identifies and remediates vulnerabilities early in the process, reducing risks and ensuring that code meets secure coding standards. By performing static analysis and continuous code reviews, SonarQube helps developers catch security issues before they reach production.

License: LGPL-32.0

Repo: https://github.com/SonarSource/sonarqube

GitHub stars: 9k+

Contributors: 200+

Key Features of SonarQube:

  • Static application security testing (SAST): Detects hidden vulnerabilities within code, including those stemming from third-party libraries, by analyzing data flow to uncover deeply embedded security risks.
  • Real-time secrets detection: Identifies sensitive information, such as API keys and credentials, using semantic and regex analysis.
  • Multi-language security: Supports over 30 programming languages, detecting security vulnerabilities like SQL injection, XSS, and buffer overflows, ensuring protection across a wide range of technologies.
  • Security reports and compliance: Offers detailed reports aligned with standards such as OWASP Top 10, CWE Top 25, and ASVS 4.0, helping teams track compliance, manage vulnerabilities, and improve overall security posture.
  • Continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) integration: Embeds into CI pipelines to provide automated feedback, enabling early detection of security flaws and ensuring secure code before deployment.

Source: SonarQube 

9. Checkmarx One

Checkmarx One is a cloud-native application security platform that secures the software development lifecycle from code to cloud. By providing a suite of application security tools in one platform, Checkmarx One empowers organizations to integrate security into the DevOps process. 

Key Features of Checkmarx One:

  • Code to cloud security: Offers a range of security tools, including static application security testing (SAST), software composition analysis (SCA), API security, and dynamic application security testing (DAST), covering every stage of the SDLC.
  • DevSecOps integration: Integrates directly into development pipelines, offering real-time feedback on security vulnerabilities without disrupting workflows, and enabling faster remediation.
  • Cloud-native and AI-powered: Provides AI-enhanced security insights to detect and prioritize critical vulnerabilities, reducing false positives and improving overall security outcomes.
  • Application security posture management (ASPM): Continuously monitors and manages security posture across applications, ensuring compliance and identifying risks from misconfigurations and malicious packages.
  • Supply chain security: Protects against vulnerabilities in open-source dependencies and third-party packages by generating software bill of materials (SBOM) and detecting malicious code in the supply chain.

Source: Checkmarx 

10. Aqua Security

Aqua Security is a cloud security platform designed to protect applications across their entire lifecycle, from development to deployment and beyond. With tools that integrate into DevOps workflows, Aqua enables organizations to secure applications in any environment, including cloud, container, and serverless platforms. 

Key Features of Aqua Security:

  • Cloud security: Provides visibility into multi-cloud environments, identifying and fixing misconfigurations and vulnerabilities to prevent security breaches.
  • Real-time threat prevention: Protects against known vulnerabilities and zero-day attacks in real-time, leveraging threat detection across containerized and serverless applications.
  • CI/CD pipeline integration: Integrates into CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tools, allowing teams to embed security checks throughout the development process without slowing down innovation.
  • Multi-platform flexibility: Secures applications across all environments, including Kubernetes, serverless platforms, containers, and cloud providers, ensuring protection.
  • Compliance automation: Continuously audits and maps security findings to compliance frameworks like PCI and SOC2, simplifying compliance management and helping organizations meet regulatory requirements.

Source: Aqua Security

11. Sysdig

Sysdig is a cloud security platform that provides end-to-end protection for cloud environments, helping organizations prevent, detect, and respond to threats across their cloud infrastructure. By integrating runtime insights, Sysdig enables security teams to prioritize real risks, offering visibility and context to speed up the mitigation process. 

License: Apache-2.0

Repo: https://github.com/draios/sysdig

GitHub stars: 7k+

Contributors: 150+

Key Features of Sysdig:

  • Cloud detection & response: Delivers real-time threat detection and AI-powered analysis to identify and stop attacks across cloud environments, ensuring swift and effective responses.
  • Vulnerability management: Provides vulnerability scanning and detailed assessments to detect risks in cloud-native workloads, enabling teams to remediate issues before they escalate.
  • Cloud posture management: Offers a view of cloud risks, instantly identifying posture drifts and misconfigurations across multi-cloud environments to maintain a secure and compliant posture.
  • Permissions & entitlements management: Helps enforce zero-trust security by identifying users and identities with excessive permissions, ensuring that access controls are properly managed.
  • Runtime insights: Leverages real-time data from active environments to prioritize risks, offering context to make mitigation more effective by focusing on what is actually in use.

Source: Sysdig 

Deployment Management

12. Codefresh

Codefresh is a modern, cloud-native CI/CD platform specifically designed to work with Docker and Kubernetes. It provides a powerful and user-friendly interface for building, testing, and deploying containerized applications. 

License: Commercial

Key features of Codefresh:

  • Flexible and customizable pipelines using YAML configuration files
  • Live debugging with integrated logging and monitoring
  • Integration with popular services like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket
  • Native GitOps support powered by Argo CD and Argo Rollouts
  • Powerful pipeline debugger for troubleshooting pipelines with breakpoints
  • Advanced workflows with parallel steps
  • Docker-based plugin mechanism for extending pipelines
  • Zero config, workspace, and container caching
  • Helm repository

Learn more about Codefresh for continuous integration

13. Jenkins

Jenkins is an open-source automation server widely used for continuous integration and continuous delivery. It automates the building, testing, and deployment of software, allowing development teams to integrate code changes frequently and deliver applications faster. Jenkins supports numerous plugins, enabling integration with various DevSecOps tools and workflows. 

License: MIT

Repo: https://github.com/jenkinsci/jenkins

GitHub stars: 23k+

Contributors: 700+

Key Features of Jenkins:

  • CI/CD pipeline automation: Orchestrates the entire build, test, and deploy process, allowing for continuous delivery of code into production environments.
  • Extensible plugin ecosystem: Supports over 1,000 plugins for integrating with other tools, such as Git, Docker, Kubernetes, and monitoring platforms, providing flexibility and customization for DevSecOps workflows.
  • Declarative pipelines: Uses a simple, script-based syntax to define complex CI/CD workflows, enabling teams to automate every aspect of their software development lifecycle.
  • Parallel execution: Supports the simultaneous execution of multiple tasks, such as running tests on different platforms or environments, optimizing speed and efficiency in the deployment process.
  • Automated testing: Integrates with testing tools to run automated unit, integration, and security tests, ensuring that code is thoroughly vetted before deployment.

Source: Jenkins 

14. Cloud Foundry

Cloud Foundry is an open-source platform as a service (PaaS) that simplifies the deployment, scaling, and management of cloud-native applications. It provides a flexible, multi-cloud environment where developers can focus on coding without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. 

License: Apache-2.0

Repo: https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cli

GitHub stars: 1k+

Contributors: 250+

Key Features of Cloud Foundry:

  • Multi-cloud support: Works with public and private clouds, allowing organizations to deploy applications across multiple cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
  • Automated scaling: Dynamically scales applications based on demand, ensuring performance and availability without requiring manual intervention.
  • Container-based deployment: Uses containers to deploy applications, enabling consistent and portable deployments across different environments.
  • Integrated security: Enforces security policies at the platform level, including automatic patching, encryption, and identity management, ensuring compliance with security best practices.
  • DevOps-friendly: Enables rapid development and deployment cycles, integrating with CI/CD tools to streamline the delivery pipeline.

Source: Cloud Foundry 

15. GitLab CI/CD

GitLab CI/CD is an integrated continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tool built into GitLab. It automates the software development lifecycle by simplifying code integration, testing, and deployment. With its tight integration into GitLab’s repository management, issue tracking, and security features, GitLab CI/CD enables teams to build, test, and release code faster while ensuring security and compliance. 

License: CC BY-SA 4.0, MIT, others

Repo: https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq

GitHub stars: 23k+

Contributors: 1900+

Key Features of GitLab CI/CD:

  • Pipeline automation: Automates the entire CI/CD process, from code integration to testing and deployment, ensuring rapid and reliable delivery of applications across environments.
  • Built-in security scanning: Includes automated security checks like Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dependency Scanning, and Container Scanning, helping teams identify and fix vulnerabilities early in the development lifecycle.
  • Continuous integration & delivery: Runs tests and builds continuously on every code commit, allowing for automated deployments based on predefined conditions and ensuring faster delivery cycles.
  • Auto DevOps: Automatically configures CI/CD pipelines, security scans, and monitoring, simplifying the setup for new projects and enforcing best practices without manual intervention.
  • Multi-cloud deployments: Supports deployment to multiple cloud platforms, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Kubernetes, enabling teams to seamlessly release applications across different environments.

Source: GitLab

Conclusion

DevSecOps tools are instrumental in integrating security into every stage of the development lifecycle, fostering a proactive security posture while maintaining speed and agility in software delivery. By automating security testing, monitoring for vulnerabilities, managing compliance, and simplifying deployment, these tools ensure that security practices are consistently applied without slowing down the development process. 

Ready to Get Started?

Deploy more and fail less with Codefresh and Argo