Concourse vs Spinnaker: What are the differences?

# Introduction

Concourse and Spinnaker are both popular continuous delivery tools used by software development teams to automate their build, test and deployment processes. While they serve a similar purpose, they have key differences that differentiate them in terms of functionality and use cases.

1. **Architecture**: Concourse follows a pipeline-based architecture, where tasks and resources are defined in a YAML file to create a linear workflow. On the other hand, Spinnaker uses a Kubernetes-style declarative API with stages and pipelines defined in a JSON format, offering more flexibility and scalability for complex deployment scenarios.

2. **Integration**: Concourse is heavily integrated with containerization platforms like Docker and Kubernetes, making it a preferred choice for teams working with containerized applications. In contrast, Spinnaker provides integrations with a wide range of cloud providers, offering support for multi-cloud deployments and hybrid environments with ease.

3. **Approval Process**: Concourse lacks built-in support for an approval process, which means that all stages in a pipeline run sequentially without human intervention. In contrast, Spinnaker offers an approval process where designated users can manually approve or reject each stage, providing greater control over deployment workflows.

4. **Rollback Mechanism**: Concourse does not have a native rollback mechanism, making it challenging to revert to previous versions in case of issues during deployment. On the other hand, Spinnaker provides a robust rollback mechanism that allows users to easily roll back to a previous, stable version in case of failures or bugs in the current deployment.

5. **Community Support**: While both Concourse and Spinnaker have active communities contributing to their development, Spinnaker has a larger user base and a more extensive support network, making it easier for users to find resources, documentation, and solutions to their deployment challenges.

In Summary, Concourse and Spinnaker have distinct architectural differences, with Concourse being more focused on pipelines and containerization, while Spinnaker offers a broader range of integrations and features for managing complex deployment workflows.