Is DevOps a crowded space?

I often talk with people who say that DevOps is a crowded space. There are in fact a lot of DevOps tools out there, but it is also a very large space. When I look at the space, I’m always struck not by how many tool vendors are out there but rather by how vast the need is. As I write this, I’m sure there’s an engineer out there struggling with a repetitive task that she would like to automate. There’s a security team looking in vain for an off-the-shelf way to get better visibility or enforce best practices. There’s a DevOps team with an industry-specific need that isn’t addressed by any exisiting tool.

When we think about ‘crowded,’ we think about both a small physical space and loads of people. If you put loads of people into a large physical space, it’s not crowded anymore. 10 people in the kitchen is crowded, 10 people in a stadium is not. I think the mistake many founders are making is focusing too much on the 10 people and then looking through a distorted lens at the size of the space and concluding that it’s much smaller than it actually is.

The DevOps ecosystem, and the related Kubernetes ecosystem, is big. Not only are there tons of companies in the ecosystem, there are also tons of opportunities and plenty of wide open spaces.

Don’t position yourself in a way that competes with everyone else out there. You don’t have to — there are plenty of unclaimed territories.