Azure DevOps vs TFS: A Comprehensive Comparison Guide

Choosing the right tool for your development team can be overwhelming, especially with the numerous options available. Azure DevOps and TFS (Team Foundation Server) are two popular choices, but they have distinct differences.

Azure DevOps is a cloud-based platform that offers a comprehensive set of tools for development teams, including version control, project planning, and continuous integration and delivery. It's a cloud-based solution that requires no upfront costs or infrastructure investments.

TFS, on the other hand, is a server-based platform that requires a significant upfront investment in hardware and maintenance. It's a self-hosted solution that can be installed on-premises.

In this comparison guide, we'll delve into the key differences between Azure DevOps and TFS, helping you make an informed decision for your team's needs.

Azure DevOps generally has the advantage over TFS due to its modern capabilities and user satisfaction.

TFS is known for robust code management, extensive integration capabilities, and strong support with Microsoft tools.

Azure DevOps stands out with extensive collaboration features, versatile deployment pipelines, and a modern approach to development.

TFS requires enhanced cloud integration, simpler maintenance processes, and modern UI updates.

Azure DevOps provides swift cloud-based deployments with comprehensive resources, though some users prefer more personalized support akin to TFS.

TFS aligns with budget constraints and provides a predictable pricing model suitable for enterprise agreements.

Azure DevOps is seen as a premium option but offers substantial ROI due to continuous updates and cloud-based efficiencies, making it a worthwhile investment with its feature-rich environment.

Azure DevOps and TFS share many features, but they also have some key differences.

Azure DevOps offers a free tier, allowing teams to get started with up to 5 users and 10 GB of storage.

One of the main benefits of Azure DevOps is its seamless integration with other Microsoft tools and services, making it a great choice for teams already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Azure DevOps offers two distinct pipeline styles: classic and YAML.

Classic pipelines have limitations in the steps they can use, exposing different security boundaries and modeling deployments in distinct ways.

YAML pipelines, on the other hand, have more features, with six listed in the release notes for Azure DevOps 2022.

Microsoft doesn't recommend one pipeline style over the other, but hints at a preference for YAML in their release notes and public forums.

The GitHub issue "What's the long term plan for Classic Release Pipelines?" suggests a lack of commitment to classic pipelines.

Octopus provides a unified deployment experience, regardless of whether you define your process as code or not, eliminating the need to support both styles.

First-Class Multi-Tenancy is a game-changer for businesses that need to manage deployments for multiple customers. This feature allows you to manage deployments to a single customer or a group without duplication.

You can deploy a copy of your software for every customer, but that can lead to a huge number of deployment pipelines. With Octopus, you can avoid this problem with its first-class multi-tenancy support.

Multi-tenancy is particularly suited to scenarios like white-labeled software, where every customer gets their own unique branding. It's also great for SaaS software where every customer gets their own database.

Some examples of scenarios where multi-tenancy is useful include:

By using multi-tenancy, you can save time and resources that would be spent duplicating release definitions for every customer. This is especially important for businesses with a large number of customers.

Process customization is a powerful feature that lets you tailor the work-tracking experience to fit your team's unique workflow. You can customize work item types, states, and fields directly through the user interface without needing to edit XML files.

Azure DevOps Services uses the Inheritance process model, which supports WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) customization. This model allows you to easily customize work item types, states, and fields directly through the user interface.

With Azure DevOps Server, you can choose between the Inheritance process model and the On-premises XML process model. The Inheritance process model also supports WYSIWYG customization, making it easy to customize work item types, states, and fields directly through the user interface.

The On-premises XML process model supports customization through the import or export of XML definition files for work-tracking objects. However, this approach can cause issues, such as custom process templates and the witadmin.exe tool being disabled to avoid problems.

Customizing projects directly within the web user interface (UI) ensures they're automatically updated when new versions of their base processes are released with Azure DevOps Services upgrades. You can also use REST endpoints to customize your processes programmatically, which is a more advanced approach.

Here's a comparison of the two process models:

By choosing the right process model, you can create a customized work-tracking experience that meets your team's specific needs and workflow.

User management is crucial to ensuring proper access and organization in Azure DevOps Services and Azure DevOps Server.

You can provide access to groups of users in Azure DevOps Services by adding Microsoft Entra groups to Azure DevOps Services groups.

In Azure DevOps Services, you can assign Basic access for free to five users without Visual Studio subscriptions.

To give at least Basic access to more users, you must set up billing and pay for more users.

Microsoft Entra groups provide access to groups of users, with access levels automatically assigned at first sign-in.

For organizations using Microsoft accounts for signing in, you must explicitly assign access levels to each user.

In Azure DevOps Server, you grant users access to deployments by adding Active Directory (AD) groups to various Azure DevOps groups.

AD group memberships stay in sync, so as users get added or removed in AD, they automatically gain or lose access to Azure DevOps Server.

All use is on the honor system, so be sure to specify access levels for users based on their licenses.

You can assign unlicensed users Stakeholder access only, while users with an Azure DevOps Server Client Access License (CAL) can have Basic access.

Visual Studio subscribers can have either Basic or Advanced access, depending on their subscriptions.

You must manage access to features by assigning users to an access level, and all users must be assigned to a single access level.

You can give free access to work item features to an unlimited number of Stakeholders, and an unlimited number of Visual Studio subscribers can have access to all Basic features at no extra charge.

You can add multiple instances of the integration for different output targets. For example, one for the ASP.NET server.

One instance can be used for the C# client, allowing you to push all targets to the same repository. Be sure to use different Output Folders to avoid conflicts.

This approach can be useful for developers who need to work with multiple projects simultaneously. It helps keep their code organized and prevents errors.

Azure DevOps easily scales to meet demands, thanks to the dynamic nature of the public cloud. Load balancing happens automatically.

You can scale Azure DevOps Server, but it requires manual intervention to add resources to the deployment. Large hardware investments may be needed to prepare for peak usage.

Whether you're using Azure DevOps Services or Azure DevOps Server, you can choose from various options and configurations to help you scale efficiently.

Scalability is a critical aspect of any business, and Azure DevOps offers various options to help you scale efficiently.

Azure DevOps easily scales to meet demands, thanks to the dynamic nature of the public cloud. Load balancing happens automatically.

To scale Azure DevOps Server, you'll need to manually add resources to the deployment, which can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. Large hardware investments may be needed to prepare for peak usage.

Whether you're using Azure DevOps Services in the cloud or Azure DevOps Server on-premises, scalability options are available to help you grow your business.

Here are some key differences between scaling Azure DevOps Services and Azure DevOps Server:

Access and Availability is a crucial aspect of scalability and performance. Azure DevOps offers anytime, anywhere access since it’s cloud hosted.

This means users can collaborate from around the world, making it an ideal choice for global teams. However, this also means that you're reliant on the cloud provider for uptime.

Azure DevOps Server, on the other hand, relies on your own network. Remote access would need to be configured through a VPN.

This can be a bit more complicated to set up, but it also gives you more control over your infrastructure. However, it's worth noting that downtimes are possible if on-premises outages occur.

Here are some key differences between Azure DevOps and Azure DevOps Server:

Integration and deployment with Azure DevOps is a powerful combination, especially when paired with Octopus Deploy. With Octopus, you can get the most powerful release management, deployment, and runbook automation capabilities.

You can deploy an ASP.NET Core application to Azure websites using Octopus and Azure DevOps/TFS. This can be done by using the Push Packages to Octopus task, which allows you to select which Octopus instance to push the package to, replace packages, and add additional arguments.

The Octopus tasks can be called directly from Team Build or from Pipelines within Azure DevOps, making it possible to use Azure Pipelines for high-level release approvals while still getting the benefits of Octopus at deployment time.

Using Octopus Deploy can be a powerful addition to your integration and deployment process. With Azure DevOps, you get source control, build/CI, and bug tracking, while Octopus provides release management, deployment, and runbook automation capabilities.

Octopus Deploy can be used with Azure DevOps to create a seamless integration. This combination allows you to deploy an ASP.NET Core application to Azure websites using Octopus and Azure DevOps/TFS.

To set up or change the integration, you must be the owner of an API. This involves following specific steps, including opening your API in the SwaggerHub editor and selecting the version you want to synchronize with your Azure DevOps Server or TFS repository.

You can push packages, create releases, and trigger deployments from Azure DevOps Pipelines with the official Octopus extension. This extension allows you to connect your Azure DevOps dashboard to Octopus and use a dashboard widget to display the status of your Octopus deployments.

The tasks you need to perform a deployment in Octopus are available in Azure DevOps. These tasks provide a number of options, including which instance to deploy to and options for channels and tenanted deployments.

To configure the integration, you can follow these steps:

If you no longer want to sync with Azure DevOps Server or TFS, you can disable or delete the integration.

Existing files will remain in your repository, but SwaggerHub will not update them anymore.

Disabling the integration is a straightforward process that allows you to maintain control over your repository.