Source: globenewswire.com (original press release, March 2018)
Nexus Repository Wins Best Open Source DevOps Tool
Sonatype announced in March 2018 that its Nexus Repository Manager had been named Best Open Source DevOps Tool by Computing magazine at the DevOps Excellence Awards 2018. The award was presented on 21 March 2018 at a gala ceremony in London, where Computing recognised outstanding achievements from organisations, individuals, and solutions operating within the DevOps space.
Wayne Jackson, CEO of Sonatype, commented on the award:
“Nexus Repository has become a de facto standard within DevOps toolchains worldwide and is simply the best way to continuously control binaries and build artifacts as they flow through the modern SDLC. We’re honoured that Computing and the DevOps Excellence Award judges saw the value, and importance, in what we’ve built with Nexus Repository. This award further validates the choice that 10 million developers have made to use Nexus as their system of record for open source components, build artifacts, and release candidates.”
— Wayne Jackson, CEO, Sonatype
What Is Nexus Repository?
Nexus Repository Manager is a universal artifact repository that helps development teams store, organise, and distribute software components — from raw source dependencies through to release candidates and final binaries. It acts as a single source of truth for all build artifacts within the software development lifecycle (SDLC), enabling teams to enforce quality gates, security policies, and license compliance at the point where components enter the pipeline.
A key differentiator at the time of the award was its broad format support. Nexus Repository offered free support for all major package formats, including:
- Java (Maven, Gradle)
- JavaScript (npm)
- Python (PyPI)
- Ruby (RubyGems)
- .NET (NuGet)
- Docker container images
- Git LFS (large file storage)
Key Stats Cited at the Time of the Award (March 2018)
The following figures were reported by Sonatype as part of the award announcement and reflect the state of the Nexus ecosystem in early 2018:
- 10 million active users across approximately 150,000 software development organisations
- 115,000 repositories scanned daily for open source security vulnerabilities
- 44 free community-built integrations
- 100+ free online training videos
- 50 DevOps reference architectures featuring Nexus
DevOps Toolchain Integrations
Part of Nexus Repository’s appeal to DevOps teams is its out-of-the-box compatibility with a wide range of established tools. At the time of the award, documented integrations included:
- CI/CD: Jenkins, Bamboo
- IDEs: Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA
- Containers & orchestration: Docker, OpenShift, Mesosphere
- Configuration management: Puppet, Chef
- Issue tracking & quality: JIRA, SonarQube
This breadth of integration means Nexus can be inserted into an existing toolchain without requiring teams to replace other components — a practical advantage when evaluating repository managers for enterprise adoption.
About Sonatype
Sonatype is best known as the organisation behind several foundational open source infrastructure projects: Apache Maven, the Maven Central Repository, and Nexus Repository. The company positions itself at the intersection of open source consumption and security governance — helping engineering teams benefit from the vast open source ecosystem while managing the associated supply chain risks.
As of the 2018 announcement, Sonatype was privately held, with investment from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Accel Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, and Goldman Sachs.
Why This Recognition Matters for DevOps Teams
An artifact repository manager is often an unglamorous but critical piece of DevOps infrastructure. Without a well-governed repository, teams face problems such as:
- Uncontrolled ingestion of third-party dependencies with unknown vulnerabilities
- Build reproducibility failures when upstream packages change or disappear
- Difficulty enforcing licence compliance across large codebases
- Slow build pipelines caused by repeated internet fetches of identical artifacts
Nexus Repository addresses all of these concerns by acting as a proxy, cache, and governance layer between developers and the open source ecosystem. Winning the Computing DevOps Excellence Award in this category reflected its widespread adoption and the practical value it delivers inside real-world SDLC pipelines.
Note: Statistics and product capabilities described in this article reflect the state of Nexus Repository as of March 2018. Current figures and supported formats may differ. Consult sonatype.com for up-to-date information.