The State of Database DevOps Report 2025

Teams are embracing Database DevOps, yet obstacles remain

For too long, database changes have been a source of frustration and late-night emergencies. While application development has embraced DevOps best practices, database change management still lags behind—forcing teams to schedule deployments after hours, cross their fingers on weekends, and brace for the fallout if something goes wrong.

But that’s changing.

We surveyed developers, database administrators, architects, and engineering leaders to understand the state of Database DevOps today – asking how teams are bridging the gap between application delivery and database management, to ship software faster and more reliably. The results reveal a fundamental shift: more teams are modernizing their approach, reducing manual bottlenecks, and automating database changes with the same speed and safety as their application code. The best teams aren’t waiting until the weekend to deploy—they’re making database changes confidently during business hours, knowing rollbacks are seamless and risks are minimized.

This report, built from front-lines survey data and Liquibase’s deep experience in database change management, uncovers the key trends, challenges, and best practices shaping the industry. Whether you’re optimizing an existing Database DevOps practice or just getting started, these findings will set you on a clear path towards smart, strategic decisions in your Database DevOps journey, and hopefully gain a competitive edge.

The insights here are just a taste of the full report

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Liquibase is the leader in Database DevOps

Liquibase is not only one of the fastest growing open source projects in the world, it is the de facto standard for Database DevOps. With 5,000 GitHub Stars and more than 45 million downloads, Liquibase has grown 66% a year, on average, over the last five years. In 2024, it was downloaded more than one million times per month––13 million times overall. 

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1. AI/ML workloads are limiting organizations with less mature DevOps

AI/ML feasts on data, so it stands to reason that the organizations investing in automating and optimizing their data pipelines are the ones poised to reap the benefits of the booming AI economy. But those still relying on manual processes are fast falling behind. 

The State of Database DevOps results are revealing. In 2025, organizations in the early stages of DevOps practices cited data pipelines and AI/ML workloads as their top database management challenge, with 78% of organizations operating in a traditional environment with Dev and Ops separate, reporting it as the single biggest hurdle to overcome. In contrast, just 44% of organizations running mature DevOps practices, with visible achievements and no team gaps, have faced the same challenges. 

The stark differences between organizations at the beginning of their Database DevOps journey, versus those embracing DevOps at every level illustrate that it’s worth getting the basics right. Focusing on the fundamentals at the application and service release levels enables you to establish the solid foundation required to keep the AI/ML beast well fed.  

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2. Database DevOps benefits take time to brew

Organizations too often view Database DevOps as a way to move quickly, but the initial problems solved by DevOps have nothing to do with speed and automation. 

Stratified for DevOps maturity, less mature organizations are more likely to apply 

version control for database schema changes (Initial 56%, Managed 75%,) and benefit from better visibility into database changes (Initial 55%, Managed 57%), followed by improved security and compliance (Initial 66%, Managed 33%).

Read: 5 benefits of Database DevOps observability that help you unlock the future, faster

However, organizations with a more mature Devops approach reported applying CI/CD database deployment automation (Measured 51%, Defined 57%), and benefited more from a reduced manual workload (Measured 54%, Defined 63%), followed by better visibility into database changes (Measured 56%, Defined 49%).

This is a great illustration of DevOps maturation. Early-stage teams are demystifying current processes and adding structure, whereas more mature teams solved those problems a while ago and are realizing more gains by implementing automation, allowing them to move faster, with fewer manual tasks and wait states.

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3. Security and compliance are top priorities for practitioners 

Managing security and compliance was cited as the most pressing challenge for all respondents (48%). The importance of security is reflected in the growing trends respondents are embracing (or planning to embrace) in development and database workflows—43% are adopting enhanced security and compliance automation. Meanwhile, enhanced security and compliance posture is a key business metric teams are aiming to improve through Database DevOps (40%).

Database DevOps can not only increase speed and efficiency, it can also dramatically improve security by integrating it into every part of your development cycle—a worthwhile investment as global organizations start to pay closer attention to the secure software supply chain.

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4. Organizations still suffer from lack of training and support

Respondents reported that their teams do not have enough training and support to effectively enable Database DevOps. At 43%, a lack of skills or training for modern tools was one of the top barriers to adopting, implementing, and/or expanding databases for all respondents. This was most apparent for organizations that fall in the middle ground of DevOps maturity (Managed 61%, Measured 46%). And when it comes to the concerns about automating database change management, lack of team readiness or training for automation overwhelmingly came out as the top concern (30%)

A question remains: as an industry, are we doing enough to empower Database DevOps practices through training and knowledge-sharing, or are we leaving teams to flounder? 

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5. Everyone is aiming for increased productivity (but not at the expense of developer satisfaction)

In the current economic climate, it’s no surprise that respondents are looking to boost productivity. Asked “which business metrics do you aim to improve through Database DevOps?”, 50% aimed to improve developer productivity and team efficiency.

It’s a similar story for technical metrics. Asked “which DevOps metrics do you aim to improve by automating database change management?” overwhelming respondents reported wanting to improve throughput of database changes (47%), followed by deployment frequency (42%), mean time to recovery (MTTR), and developer satisfaction and productivity (both 40%).

Productivity is no longer the sole success metric. The high percentage of organizations seeking to improve developer satisfaction highlights that the developer experience is just as important – it's about creating an environment where developers can thrive, not just maximizing their output.

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Alignment is key for Database DevOps

Many organizations hope DevOps will be a quick and easy solution, but it's actually quite complex and difficult to implement well. It's not just about code and automation; it involves the way teams work together, their level of discipline, and their operational procedures. The most impressive productivity gains are achieved when everyone involved aligns on the desired outcomes and agrees on specific goals and metrics. From that alignment a system should be designed specifically to achieve those measures and goals. This requires investing in training, ensuring everyone understands the processes and tools, and fostering frequent and effective communication and collaboration between teams. To achieve speed, sometimes you need to start by being deliberate in establishing a strong foundation. Organizations new to DevOps should prioritize getting the fundamental practices right.