Platform engineering vs DevOps vs SRE
DevOps is a way of working, SRE keeps production reliable with SLOs and error budgets, and platform engineering builds the tools that make both easier. How the three overlap and how to tell them apart.
The three names overlap, and companies use them differently. A useful way to separate them is by what each one is mainly about.
| Main idea | Focus | Typical output | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DevOps | A way of working: development and operations share ownership of delivery and running | Culture and practices: automation, CI/CD, feedback | Faster, safer releases |
| SRE | Treat reliability as an engineering problem, with measurable targets | Reliability: SLOs, error budgets, incident response | A service that meets its reliability target |
| Platform engineering | Build an internal product that makes the other two easier for developers | Developer experience: self-service, golden paths | An internal developer platform |
DevOps
DevOps is not a job title or a tool. It is the practice of breaking down the wall between the people who write software and the people who run it, and automating the path in between.
SRE
Site reliability engineering comes from Google. A team agrees on a service level objective, measures it, and uses the remaining margin, the error budget, to decide how fast to ship. See the Google SRE book chapter on service level objectives.
Platform engineering
Platform engineering takes the lessons of DevOps and SRE and turns them into a product for developers. The CNCF Platforms white paper describes it as inspired by the cross-functional cooperation DevOps promised. Instead of every team building its own pipeline and monitoring, a platform team offers them as a golden path.
How they work together
- DevOps gives the shared way of working.
- SRE gives the reliability targets the platform has to help teams meet.
- The platform makes the right way the easy way, so teams do not need to be experts in all of it.
Next
- Back to the learning path