The fifth annual report confirms record productivity for software teams, fueled by robust CI practices and the adoption of generative AI
SAN FRANCISCO—CircleCI, a leading continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform, today published its fifth annual State of Software Delivery report. The research analyzes nearly 15 million data points from teams building on CircleCI’s cloud CI/CD platform, providing concrete, quantitative insights into the development practices of 22,000 teams. This makes it the largest objective study of software development practices of its kind. The report also offers data-backed strategies for teams looking to improve against the software delivery metrics covered.
The report’s data analyzes specific developer productivity metrics year over year, including workflow duration, throughput, recovery speed, and success rate, to evaluate benchmarks for high-achieving developers. This year, developers routinely met or exceeded the following metrics:
Duration
Developer workflow durations are 13 percent faster this year, averaging 2m and 49s across all branches compared to the maximum benchmark of 10 minutes. However, while shorter durations reduce friction and tighten feedback loops, they can also obscure problems such as insufficient test coverage or manual toil outside of the pipeline. The best teams balance speed and stability by tailoring their workflows to the needs of each development stage.
Throughput (deployment)
Developer throughput rose 10 percent this year, averaging 1.68 deploys per day, meeting the recommended benchmark of being able to deploy at least one or more times a day. This suggests teams’ ability to adapt and thrive in the increasingly resource-constrained world of software delivery. Emerging practices such as the use of platform engineering to optimize developer experience and scale effective practices across teams, as well as the safe and strategic use of AI-powered tools for code generation, error resolution, and predictive analysis, give innovative teams an edge.
Mean time to recovery (MTTR)
Developers recovered 17 minutes faster this year, averaging 57m 33s, and for the first time in the report’s history beat the recommended benchmark of 60 minutes or less. These results continue a multiyear trend of accelerated recovery times and suggest a growing focus on maintaining deploy-ready code. Rapid error recovery is a prerequisite to increasing deployment frequency, and the notable increase in throughput identified in this year’s report provides more evidence that fast MTTR supports the broader objective of keeping delivery pipelines flowing smoothly.
Success Rate
Developers increased success rates on the main branch by five percent this year, averaging 82.5 percent, which is approaching the recommended 90 percent success rate. Higher success rates on the main branch are especially noteworthy, given the corresponding increase in throughput and workflow durations. These trends indicate teams are not only generating more code but also subjecting it to higher levels of scrutiny and implementing more effective ways to ensure its quality before deployment.
“As the software industry continues to adapt to new tools, processes, and market forces, the best organizations are rethinking not just how they deliver software but also how they define and measure success. When efficiency is paramount, CI/CD allows teams to deliver more value in less time, setting the foundation for stable, sustainable growth in an era of rapid change.” Jim Rose, CEO of CircleCI.
This year’s data represents a clear call to action for technology leaders and organizations. The best organizations are shipping more features and recovering from errors faster than ever before. Organizations must adopt the technologies and practices that drive efficiency, productivity, and value-focused delivery to remain competitive. For many, this involves:
- Shifting to smaller, more agile teams
- Responsibly integrating AI-powered tools to accelerate code generation and issue resolution.
- Embracing DevOps and continuous delivery models to streamline deployment processes.
"Our most recent IDC DevOps survey shows that more than 70% of organizations consider their DevOps strategy a driver of high or extremely high business value, reflecting a trend towards more accountability for business outcomes," said Jim Mercer, Program Vice President of Software Development, DevOps & DevSecOps at IDC Research. "Many top drivers for scaling DevOps are closely aligned with business priorities." Jim Mercer, Program Vice President of Software Development, DevOps & DevSecOps at IDC Research
The full 2024 State of Software Delivery report is now available for download.
Methodology
The 2024 State of Software Delivery Report analyzes data from nearly 15 million workflows from over 22,000 organizations in 149 countries. The data was collected within the first 28 days of September 2023.
About CircleCI
CircleCI is a leading continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform, enabling more than two million global users on elite engineering teams like Okta, Hinge, and Hugging Face to rapidly build, test, deploy, and monitor software they can trust. Through powerful pipeline automation, CircleCI manages limitless complexity at scale through unmatched flexibility and reliability, reducing the time from build to delivery by 3x the industry average. For more information about CircleCI, visit www.circleci.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.