Azure DevOps
Ranked 7 of 20 CI/CD services by recommenders
Praised as reliable and quiet, a git and pipeline host that rarely goes down. Critics say it feels neglected, with a clunky UI and features being removed.
Praised as reliable and quiet, a git and pipeline host that rarely goes down. Critics say it feels neglected, with a clunky UI and features being removed.
78 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 24
- criticize it
- 54
- approval share
- 31%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 24 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Reliable with few outages
“Our Azure hosted instance rarely (if ever) has had an outage that effects our ability to work.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Incident with Github.com” “we have no issues whatsoever with Azure Devops....ever. It's excellent. Seriously.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “GitHub and the Crime Against Software” “our repos (including PRs, CIs) worked as normal on Azure DevOps”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub” - Comment from 26 May 2026 in “GitHub Actions down again today”
- Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “An Update on GitHub Availability”
- Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Incident with Actions, Pull Requests and Issues”
- Comment from 28 Apr 2026 in “An Update on GitHub Availability”
Does what it says
“Yes, for the most part it does what it says on the lid very well.”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “GitHub and the Crime Against Software” “ADO may be stuck in time but at least it works.”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “GitHub is (partially) down again. Do you look for alternatives?” “I personally think it's great for what it does.”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Ghostty is leaving GitHub” Preferred over GitHub lately
“Github has declined more to the point where I do prefer Azure DevOps.”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “GitHub and the Crime Against Software” “actually a surprisingly okay github replacement”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Incident with Pull Requests, Issues, Git Operations and API Requests” Stays out of the way
“all usability quarks aside, I actually prefer these days since Microsoft doesn't really touch it and it just sits in corner doing what I need”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Another GitHub outage in the same day” “We did this succesfully in Azure DevOps and GitLab”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: How do small teams make sure recurring tasks don't slip?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Feels neglected, in maintenance mode
“It works fine,it just feels like it has been under a kind of maintenance mode for a while.”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “GitHub appears to be struggling with measly three nines availability” “Microsoft has made clear that ADO is on life support, and are slowly stripping features out like public repos.”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Bye, Bye GitHub” “It really feels like ADO was just quickly patched together to they can offer it as part of a complete package.”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?” - Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Another GitHub outage in the same day”
Clunky, slow UI
“just because microsoft is unable to make their ui usable at scale”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: I built a social media management tool in 3 weeks with Claude and Codex” “I can't use them in pinned tabs because somehow they manage to get into a totally broken state”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Federal Cyber Experts Called Microsoft's Cloud "A Pile of Shit", yet Approved It” “It is slow as molasses, issues are more project management oriented instead of coding”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “I Like GitLab” - Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Another GitHub outage in the same day”
Bugs and silent failures
“Azure Devops was also missing the ssh keys earlier today, both in the web ui and for ssh login.”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “GitHub partial outage” “Type the same id number into a bug related links twice. It'll have no match, and then a match.”
Comment from 29 Nov 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?” “the app service deployment pipeline just silently failed while trying to build our app”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft's Azure Linux” Old TFS code, rebranded
“AD is just sourcesafe/tfs/vsts with rebranding, each time trying to get rid of the bad reputation”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions” “AZDO is basically TFS rebranded, so yeah, not much actions since they killed Source safe”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Another GitHub outage in the same day”
Other CI/CD services people recommend
The four most recommended other CI/CD services, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | 234 | 741 | 24% | 12 | 2 yrs21 owners | — |
| Jenkins | 67 | 57 | 54% | 9 | — | — |
| GitLab CI | 56 | 25 | 69% | 11 | 3 yrs9 owners | Approved |
| Dagger | 43 | 23 | 65% | 10 | — | — |
| Azure DevOpsThis page | 24 | 54 | 31% | 10 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 89 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Azure Devops was, in my opinion, ok bordering on good”
“ADO was reliable and easy to use”
“we've had mixed results in reliability between ADO and Github actions”
“Microsoft has made clear that ADO is on life support, and are slowly stripping features out like public repos.”
“MS incorrectly tried to stamp a Copilot "watermark" to any and all Azure DevOps commits”
“our repos (including PRs, CIs) worked as normal on Azure DevOps”
“As someone who maintained a product that was, until recently, on Azure DevOps, stay away.”
“Our Azure hosted instance rarely (if ever) has had an outage that effects our ability to work.”
“My team uses Azure DevOps for our git forge, which is somehow a completely different product than GitHub.”
“ADO may be stuck in time but at least it works.”
“Yes, for the most part it does what it says on the lid very well.”
“Github has declined more to the point where I do prefer Azure DevOps.”
“we have no issues whatsoever with Azure Devops....ever. It's excellent. Seriously.”
“actually a surprisingly okay github replacement”
“Azure DevOps never has these hiccups for us”
“IMO the .yaml config for ADO was an improvement... though it carries similar issues to GHA. I mostly use it as a script runner.”
“Concur on the rock solid comment.”
“I personally think it's great for what it does.”
“It's been pretty rock solid”
“just because microsoft is unable to make their ui usable at scale”
“It works fine,it just feels like it has been under a kind of maintenance mode for a while.”
“I can't use them in pinned tabs because somehow they manage to get into a totally broken state”
“It lends itself to utterly byzantine dependency trees for the CI definitions”
“I suspect the author has not been subjected to ADO, or he'd have literally exploded”
“copy and pasting text from a work item would take the background colour with it”
“AZDO is basically TFS rebranded, so yeah, not much actions since they killed Source safe”
“all usability quarks aside, I actually prefer these days since Microsoft doesn't really touch it and it just sits in corner doing what I need”
“whatever intern they had implement dark mode didn't understand how CSS works”
“Even MSFT Azure's own documentation regularly treats it as a second class citizen to GitHub.”
“My "favourite" restriction that an Azure DevOps PR description is limited to a pathetic 4000 characters.”
“Azure DevOps doesn't have any hosted images above the minimum-sized ones”
“the app service deployment pipeline just silently failed while trying to build our app”
“It is slow as molasses, issues are more project management oriented instead of coding”
“We did this succesfully in Azure DevOps and GitLab”
“the fundamental flaws with that approach didn't really become apparent for a few years”
“AD is just sourcesafe/tfs/vsts with rebranding, each time trying to get rid of the bad reputation”
“Wait for more VPs in North Carolina to retire before finally killing the brand”
“It really feels like ADO was just quickly patched together to they can offer it as part of a complete package.”
“Type the same id number into a bug related links twice. It'll have no match, and then a match.”
“Azure Devops was also missing the ssh keys earlier today, both in the web ui and for ssh login.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.