This article is based on a press announcement originally published on asiaone.com regarding the launch of Octopus Cloud.
Octopus Deploy Moves to the Cloud with Octopus Cloud
Octopus Deploy, the deployment automation tool used by more than 20,000 companies worldwide, launched a cloud-hosted version of its platform called Octopus Cloud. The product offers all the capabilities of the self-hosted Octopus Deploy, but removes the burden of provisioning and maintaining infrastructure from the engineering team’s plate.
Paul Stovell, CEO and founder of Octopus Deploy, described the motivation behind the release: “Octopus Cloud offers all the same features and functions that users know and love in the self-hosted product, only now it’s delivered in a more seamless way. With Octopus Cloud, users can spin up a new instance with just a few clicks.”
Why a Cloud-Hosted Offering, and Why Now?
Octopus Deploy was founded in 2011, at a time when most organizations deployed applications on-premises and ran tools like Octopus on virtual machines inside their own data centres. Over time, Stovell observed a clear architectural shift in how customers operated their infrastructure:
- Phase 1 – On-premises VMs: Octopus ran alongside hundreds of other VMs in enterprise environments.
- Phase 2 – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Customers moved workloads to the cloud, but Octopus remained just another VM they managed themselves.
- Phase 3 – Platform as a Service (PaaS): Customers eliminated nearly all self-managed VMs, leaving Octopus as the last remaining self-hosted VM in their stack.
That third phase made the business case clear. As Stovell put it: “When we started hearing comments like ‘Octopus Deploy is the only VM that I have left,’ we knew it was time to change the status quo.”
What Octopus Cloud Offers DevOps Teams
Octopus Deploy sits at the handoff point between a Continuous Integration (CI) server and production, handling the deployment orchestration that CI tools typically do not cover. The cloud-hosted version retains the full feature set of the self-hosted product, including support for automating deployments of:
- .NET applications
- Java applications
- Node.js applications
- Databases
- Other popular application types
Monthly feature refreshes, patches, and minor updates continue on the cloud platform, managed entirely by the Octopus team rather than the customer.
Organisational Challenges of Running a SaaS Product
Stovell was candid about the internal changes required to support a hosted offering. With self-hosted Octopus, customers are their own first line of support because they control the infrastructure. A cloud product demands 24/7 incident response from the vendor itself. Stovell explained:
“Octopus Cloud was a great technical challenge, but also a challenge for us as an organization. With self-hosted Octopus, customers ran their own infrastructure and thus tend to be their own first line of support. With Octopus Cloud, we need to be able to respond to incidents 24/7. This meant maturing as an organization, and expanding our team around the world. One of the things we got right was hiring and putting a very talented team together to make this happen.”
Paul Stovell, CEO and Founder, Octopus Deploy
A Long-Term Investment, Not a Finished Product
The launch is positioned as the beginning of a longer journey rather than a completed milestone. Stovell acknowledged that real-world production usage will drive continued optimisation of the platform:
“Creating Octopus Cloud has been a fantastic journey and we are certainly not at the finish line. This is a long-term investment for the company and as we learn more from running in production, we will continue to evolve and optimize the platform for the Cloud.”
Paul Stovell, CEO and Founder, Octopus Deploy
About Octopus Deploy
Founded in 2011 by Paul Stovell, Octopus Deploy specialises in deployment automation that picks up where CI servers leave off. At the time of this announcement, the company reported more than 20,000 customers globally, including 20 Fortune 100 companies. The platform supports both on-premises and cloud deployment targets.
A free 30-day trial of Octopus Cloud was available at launch via the Octopus Deploy website.