I use Spacelift to deploy my applications, particularly AWS applications and infrastructure to my personal AWS account.
External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
The GitOps feature automatically picks up changes from my GitHub projects
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I introduced Spacelift to the company I was working with. Although they were not fully convinced initially, through a POC, my manager liked it. However, they did not fully adopt it because they were changing their technology infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
I appreciate that I just have to connect to my AWS account with my credentials, and Spacelift handles the rest. I particularly like the GitOps feature, which automatically picks up changes from my GitHub projects.
It also offers the default plan feature, prompting for confirmation before applying any changes. This helps manage costs effectively, as it prevents unintentional deployments that could incur expenses.
What needs improvement?
There are a few areas for improvement. For instance, getting notification webhooks is not easy. In the free version, there's no straightforward way to be notified once a deployment is finished.
Spacelift requires creating a notification policy, which involves using the open policies framework. However, this feature is not available on the free plan. Additionally, for each new project, I need to create a new IAM role, which is not optimal. It would be better if I could use a single role for all interactions with my AWS account.
For how long have I used the solution?
I found out about Spacelift sometime last year, but we can say I've been using it since the beginning of this year, in January.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I've never experienced any stability issues with Spacelift. It has been reliable without any bugs or breakdowns.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability hasn't been a major test for me since I've mostly dealt with small projects and a small company with a few clients. However, there was a time we scaled our infrastructure by deploying the same module five times, and Spacelift handled it all at once.
How are customer service and support?
I have never had to contact their support team for any reason.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I could have used Jenkins, which is not so easy to set up. I could have used CodeBuild, which is not that hard but would have required more effort compared to Spacelift.
How was the initial setup?
Spacelift is really easy to set up. I just create my account, my project, and then create a stack. I add the name of my stack, provide my GitHub account, and add my AWS credentials. Whenever I push to my GitHub, Spacelift executes the plan and gives me errors if there are any.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I've never checked the pricing because I enjoy using it for free. Besides the notification feature, I haven't needed any paid features.
What other advice do I have?
If you want to get off the ground quickly without spending too much time setting up your GitOps or infrastructure development, Spacelift is the tool for you. It allows you to start as soon as possible.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Modernized tool for infrastructure deployments
What is our primary use case?
We have adopted this tool to replace Terraform Enterprise. It is a CICD tool for Terraform-related deployments. Currently, we are utilizing it for AWS, but we plan to extend it to multi-cloud, including Azure and GCP.
How has it helped my organization?
By using Spacelift, we have been able to cut down our costs significantly from spending around three million dollars a year on Terraform Enterprise to around sixty thousand dollars. It has been fast and efficient, providing significant savings to our organization.
What is most valuable?
Spacelift operates differently compared to Terraform Enterprise. It has stacks where you can execute your runs.
A valuable feature of Spacelift is that you can attach labels, and it is a modernized tool for infrastructure deployments. It is pull request-based, and you can see all the Terraform plan and apply logs on the pull request itself, which is not available across any other CI/CD tools.
What needs improvement?
The self-hosted version does not have a lot of features compared to the SaaS version, such as cloud integrations for Azure and GCP. We did some feature requests, and they are working on these improvements.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Spacelift for one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have no issues with stability. It has been working fine all the time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is highly available and scalable. We can launch a number of workers to match any number of deployments. We have around five thousand stacks in Spacelift without any issues.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service needs improvement. Currently, we have a vendor contract through which we generally send an email, but there is no proper support system similar to AWS. It is something that can be improved significantly.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Terraform Enterprise and switched to Spacelift for its modern features and cost savings.
What was our ROI?
We went from spending three million dollars a year on Terraform Enterprise to spending sixty thousand dollars with Spacelift, saving us a significant amount.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost savings with Spacelift have been substantial, from three million dollars a year with Terraform Enterprise to sixty thousand dollars.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We used Terraform Enterprise previously.
What other advice do I have?
If someone has a bigger infrastructure and manages it themselves, Spacelift could be beneficial as it saves time and increases productivity.
I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Streamlined infrastructure deployments with enhanced compliance and integrated user interface
What is our primary use case?
We use Spacelift to deploy all of our infrastructure with Terraform. It serves as a SaaS offering, allowing us to effectively manage our infrastructure deployments through the cloud version.
How has it helped my organization?
Spacelift has helped us a lot with scaling our infrastructure deployment. Before using it, deploying a new stack was cumbersome. Now, it is relatively easy. Additionally, Spacelift has automated everything for us, making it really easy to deploy from Salesforce.
What is most valuable?
One key feature is the Spacelift policies, which we can attach to deployments to ensure compliance with our standards. The user interface is also user-friendly, allowing for seamless integration. The integration with Terraform is also noteworthy, as it simplifies our processes a lot.
What needs improvement?
Spacelift currently lacks features that can help with complex type deployments and coordination for major deployments. It would be helpful if Spacelift had features that allowed us to orchestrate major deployments and stack dependencies more effectively.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Spacelift for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Spacelift is very high, probably a nine out of ten. We have a high level of confidence when we deploy, knowing that it will work ninety-nine percent of the time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
At our scale, we definitely need Spacelift to be scalable, especially since we have many Terraform projects. Features that allow us to perform bulk actions on several stacks really help us scale. The scalability is essential and rated eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service is good. We communicate with them via Slack, which makes it easy to get in touch. They are keen to listen to all feature requests, although it doesn't mean they will implement them. I would rate them probably seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Atlantis before switching to Spacelift because it has more features.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was relatively easy, taking about one day to set up everything. Only two people were involved in the initial setup. That said, now every engineer can deploy their own stack.
What about the implementation team?
Two people were involved in setting up the Spacelift account initially, and now just two people are required for maintenance.
What was our ROI?
Spacelift has provided organizational value by making infrastructure deployment less cumbersome and relatively easy compared to our previous methods.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't have visibility on the pricing, setup cost, and licensing as I was not involved in signing the contract.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We were using Atlantis before Spacelift.
What other advice do I have?
It is advisable to put even the Spacelift configuration in Terraform. It helps a lot to scale.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.