Flagger vs Weave GitOps

Flagger is a self-hosted Kubernetes operator that automates progressive delivery for applications running on Kubernetes. It gradually shifts traffic to a new version while checking measures such as HTTP or gRPC request success and latency. Deployment approaches include canary releases, A/B testing, and blue/green deployments, routed through an ingress controller or a service mesh compatible with the Kubernetes Gateway API. Built-in checks cover HTTP request success rate and duration; teams can add custom metrics and webhooks for acceptance tests, load tests, or other validation. Release analysis can query systems including Prometheus, Datadog, CloudWatch, New Relic, Graphite, Dynatrace, InfluxDB, and Google Cloud Monitoring. If SLO analysis detects a performance drop, Flagger rolls back the release automatically. Manual controls allow approval, pausing, or resuming deployments, and notifications can go to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, or Rocket. It is configured through Kubernetes custom resources, works with Kubernetes-compatible CI/CD solutions, and can be used with Flux for GitOps canary pipelines. Flagger is Apache 2.0 licensed and free.

Weave GitOps extends Flux with deployment insights and tools for continuous delivery across teams. Its dashboard lets operators inspect application lifecycles, detect drift, check cluster health, roll back changes, and monitor operations. Both Open Source and Enterprise require a running Kubernetes cluster. The free Open Source edition includes a GitOps CLI for macOS and Linux. Enterprise adds deployment across multiple clusters in cloud and hybrid environments using Git and Cluster API. It supports canary, blue/green, and A/B rollouts, with success and rollback criteria based on metrics from Prometheus, Datadog, or New Relic. Enterprise also offers policy-as-code checks at commit, build, deploy, and runtime stages, plus team workspaces, multi-tenancy, role-based access, and enterprise identity integration. OIDC login and Kubernetes RBAC govern access. Infrastructure integrations include Terraform, Crossplane, and any Cluster API provider. Enterprise advertises critical 24/7 support for workloads and requires an entitlement from Weaveworks. The Open Source installation guide notes that dashboard login sessions are not persisted when scaling to multiple replicas.