GitOps vs. DevOps: Understanding the Next Evolution of CI/CD

 How GitOps enhances DevOps practices using ArgoCD and FluxCD

As DevOps practices mature, engineering teams are embracing GitOps—a new paradigm that extends and refines the capabilities of DevOps, especially in the Kubernetes ecosystem. But how exactly does GitOps differ from traditional DevOps, and where do tools like ArgoCD and FluxCD fit in?


In this blog, we’ll explore the fundamentals of GitOps vs. DevOps, break down their differences, and showcase how GitOps enhances the CI/CD pipeline using real-world tools.

🚀 What is DevOps?

DevOps is a cultural and technical movement aimed at unifying software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). It focuses on:

  • Automating build, test, and deployment pipelines (CI/CD)

  • Collaboration between teams

  • Monitoring and improving feedback loops


Common DevOps tools include Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and CircleCI for CI/CD automation.

🔄 What is GitOps?

GitOps is a modern approach to DevOps that uses Git as the single source of truth for infrastructure and application deployment. The core idea is: “If it’s not in Git, it doesn’t exist.”


GitOps introduces declarative infrastructure and configuration management, where desired states are stored in Git and automatically applied to your infrastructure using continuous reconciliation tools like ArgoCD or FluxCD.

🆚 GitOps vs. DevOps: Key Differences

Feature

DevOps

GitOps

Source of Truth

Varies (CI pipelines, scripts, config mgmt)

Git repository

Infrastructure Mgmt

Often procedural (Terraform, Ansible)

Declarative (YAML manifests in Git)

Deployment Trigger

CI/CD pipelines push to environment

Git changes automatically synced by GitOps

Audit & Rollback

Logs and manual rollbacks

Git history = audit log, instant rollback

Tooling Focus

Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps

ArgoCD, FluxCD, Weave GitOps

⚙️ GitOps Tools: ArgoCD and FluxCD


🔸 ArgoCD

  • A declarative GitOps controller for Kubernetes

  • Continuously syncs your desired app state from Git

  • Supports automated sync, manual approval gates, and visual dashboards

  • Integrates with Helm, Kustomize, and plain YAML


🔧 Example:
Push updated Helm chart to Git → ArgoCD detects change → Auto-syncs to Kubernetes cluster.

🔹 FluxCD

  • A lightweight GitOps operator by CNCF

  • Supports multi-source and multi-tenancy GitOps workflows

  • Native integration with Helm, Kustomize, Terraform

  • Compatible with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket


🔧 Example:
Commit Kubernetes manifests to a repo → FluxCD pulls changes and applies them to the cluster → Monitors drift and re-applies as needed.

💡 Benefits of GitOps


✅ Improved Security & Auditability

  • Git’s versioning provides a full audit trail and change history.

✅ Faster Rollbacks

  • Revert a commit, and the system automatically restores the previous state.

✅ Enhanced Reliability

  • Infrastructure is always synced to the declared state—self-healing capabilities.

✅ Better Developer Experience

  • Developers can manage deployments using familiar Git workflows (pull requests, merges, reviews).

🏗️ Real-World Use Case


Scenario: A SaaS platform running Kubernetes wants to adopt GitOps to improve deployment reliability.


Solution:

  • Teams define app configurations as YAML files in a Git repo.

  • ArgoCD is deployed to production Kubernetes clusters.

  • Any change to the repo triggers automatic syncing by ArgoCD.

  • Rollbacks and change history are managed through Git.


Impact:

  • Reduced deployment time by 35%

  • Instant visibility into cluster state

  • Near-zero configuration drift

🧠 Best Practices

  1. Use Separate Repos for infra and app manifests

  2. Protect Git Branches with code reviews and CI checks

  3. Monitor GitOps Controllers to ensure syncs are successful

  4. Enable Drift Detection to reconcile discrepancies

  5. Leverage Secrets Management (e.g., Sealed Secrets, Vault)