DevOps in Switzerland 2025: Scaling DevOps with Platforms and AI

DevOps in Switzerland has reached a tipping point. Once a grassroots movement, it is now a strategic lever for digital resilience, efficiency, and innovation. The DevOps in Switzerland Report 2025, jointly produced by Zühlke and VSHN, presents clear signals of this transformation. Drawing from 184 survey responses, the sixth edition of the report reveals how Swiss organizations are not just adopting DevOps, but scaling it through platform engineering and augmenting it with AI.

DevOps in Switzerland Report 2025

1. DevOps: A Strategic Standard

The report confirms what many practitioners experience daily: DevOps is the operational standard in Switzerland. Agile collaboration, cross functional ownership, and continuous delivery are now embedded across industries, from IT and banking to the public sector. However, success is no longer determined by tool adoption alone. Organizational culture, leadership alignment, and the ability to deliver at scale have become decisive.

2. Platform Engineering: DevOps at Scale

Over half of Swiss organizations (54%) now have dedicated platform engineering teams. These teams are building internal developer platforms (IDPs) to reduce complexity and accelerate delivery. The key drivers?

• Autonomy and developer experience

• Faster innovation cycles

• Operational consistency through self service platforms

While tools like Backstage are gaining traction, 40% of organizations still lack an IDP. The practice is maturing, but not yet universal. Interestingly, many adopters prioritize enablement over governance, highlighting the need to evolve platforms from technical systems into strategic products.

“Platform engineering is no longer optional, it’s foundational.”

3. Artificial Intelligence: From Hype to Copilot

AI is quietly becoming a DevOps copilot. One third of Swiss DevOps teams already use AI, especially in:

• Code review and quality assurance

• Architecture design support

• CI/CD automation

Yet AI adoption remains uneven. Late stage lifecycle phases like testing, compliance, and security are still underexplored. Measurement, too, is inconsistent, only a few teams have defined clear KPIs for AI driven initiatives. Nonetheless, developer sentiment is overwhelmingly positive: 79% feel comfortable working with AI tools.

4. Tooling: Dominant, but Diversifying

The Swiss DevOps stack continues to consolidate around key technologies:

• GitLab, Kubernetes, and Terraform remain dominant.

• Linux strengthens its hold as the production OS of choice.

• Argo CD and GitHub are on the rise, suggesting growing adoption of cloud native and GitOps practices.

FinOps and MLOps are still early stage. Observability remains a cornerstone, with Grafana and Prometheus leading the way.

5. The Culture Gap Persists

Despite technological maturity, cultural challenges remain. Top blockers include:

• Legacy systems and technical debt

• Resistance to change

• Talent shortages and unclear ownership

As the report makes clear, DevOps success in 2025 is less about tools, and more about trust, leadership, and organizational design.

Outlook: Where We Go Next

Looking ahead, the report identifies three emerging focal points:

• Platforms as products, not just technical enablers

• AI augmented engineering across the full software lifecycle

• Outcome based measurement, moving beyond speed to value

As Swiss enterprises face growing complexity and economic uncertainty, DevOps will remain the adaptive core of modern software delivery.

The future of DevOps is platform enabled, AI augmented, and outcome driven, but still powered by people.

📥 Download the full report for detailed insights, data visualizations, and practical recommendations. https://www.vshn.ch/blog/jetzt-verfuegbar-devops-in-der-schweiz-report-2025/

🎥 And don’t miss the release video for highlights, context, and behind the scenes perspectives from the authors.