Spacelift

My main use case for Spacelift  is to automate and provision infrastructure as code, specifically by integrating our IaC  Terraform  with Spacelift .

A quick, specific example of how I use Spacelift with Terraform  in my setup is that we write Terraform templates and integrate our Terraform code with Spacelift, using Spacelift to provision the infrastructure as a CI/CD tool, which helps us detect drift and assists with remediation.

I have more to add about my main use case with Spacelift, mainly on drift detection, as we are handling around 900 to 1,000 servers for Linux, so we use Terraform templates with Spacelift to manage our large-scale infrastructure operations.

The best features Spacelift offers include drift detection, multi-IaC support, and an open policy as code with Open Policy Agent.

The major impact that Spacelift has had on our organization is mainly related to detecting drift, especially as we maintain around a thousand servers. Additionally, Spacelift facilitates faster infrastructure delivery, allowing us to deploy our infrastructure with one click. Governance  and compliance have improved, significantly reducing the majority of our security risks and enhancing the security of our current server strategies.

I mention the need for improvement of Spacelift.

I specifically wish to see improvements in Spacelift's user interface, making it more useful and easier for the team to understand. Additionally, enhancing the remediation capabilities on a broader scale would benefit our teams.

Another improvement I suggest is enhancing the templates for Terraform that can be integrated with Spacelift, allowing Spacelift to maintain default templates for these IaCs. If the team could integrate AI-assisted infrastructure operations, that would also be helpful.

I have been using Spacelift for around eight months, which is between eight to one year.

Spacelift is stable.

Spacelift can handle increased workloads well, managing more servers as our organization grows, and it is indeed scalable.

The customer support experience involves sending an email, but I have never requested customer support so far to resolve any issues.

I did not previously use a different solution.

My experience with pricing shows that the setup cost is reasonable, and the licensing also seems reasonable. The setup takes very little time since it integrates with our SVN or source code repository, and then we are good to go.

We have seen a return on investment, as the time saved for our DevOps team is significant. In terms of costs, identifying drift detection helps us remove unused servers, benefitting our application management.

My experience with pricing shows that the setup cost is reasonable, and the licensing also seems reasonable.

We have not evaluated any other options before choosing Spacelift.

After using Spacelift, I noticed a 90% reduction in time saved for repetitive infrastructure tasks, as the cloud configuration speed has doubled. For instance, if we previously deployed a server in ten minutes, we now do it in three to four minutes, along with increased deployment frequency for both Kubernetes  and cloud deployments, greatly enhancing our metrics.

I have mentioned the improvements needed for Spacelift.

My advice for others looking into using Spacelift is that if there is a possibility of exploring more tools, they can consider alternatives, but from our experience, we are satisfied with what we are currently using. I would rate this product a 9 out of 10.

I used Spacelift  for one project with a duration of around six months.

Spacelift  was used mainly for automating client infrastructure using Terraform  and applying OPA policies to automate Terraform  as an integrating tool that controls the whole infrastructure-as-code part.

In the project, we used a single GitHub  repository for storing the infrastructure code and Terraform for the infrastructure-as-code. Terraform commands such as plan and apply were automated using Spacelift, which was integrated with OPA policies to check authorization, authentication, and whether the developer had permission to perform actions such as creating a virtual machine in the correct region. All this process was monitored using Spacelift.

We also integrated monitoring tools such as Grafana  and Prometheus with Spacelift, but it was not completed unfortunately because the project duration ended. In summary, we used Spacelift for automating the infrastructure side and for role-based access control level user access to clients and applying the policies that they need in the organization.

Spacelift impacted our organization positively in several areas. Time-saving was achieved by eliminating the need for coordination runs. Before Spacelift, engineers had to coordinate via Slack to ensure no conflicting Terraform applies were running, saving each engineer roughly 30 to 45 minutes per deployment cycle just in coordination overhead.

Error reduction was another clear benefit, as the mandatory plan review step before any apply and OPA policies blocking non-compliant changes meant that a whole category of human errors simply could not happen. For team collaboration, Spacelift was transformative, allowing the whole team to safely propose, review, and apply changes, improving knowledge sharing across the team.

Before Spacelift, we averaged around two to three infrastructure-related incidents per month, such as state conflicts or unreviewed manual changes causing unexpected behavior. After adopting Spacelift, that dropped to roughly one every six to eight weeks, representing a 60 to 70% reduction in incidents. On time savings, our team of four engineers was collectively spending around six to eight hours per week on deployment coordination and managing run order manually, which came down to roughly two hours per week after Spacelift, freeing up meaningful time for actual feature work and improvements.

One thing that stood out unexpectedly was how well Spacelift handles drift detection in Terraform workflows, catching discrepancies early, which saved us significant troubleshooting time. The best features in my opinion are policies-as-code using OPA policies, stack dependencies, and Git-driven workflows. Overall, Spacelift bridges the gap between raw Terraform and enterprise-grade infrastructure management in a way that tools such as Jenkins  or Cloud Build could not match natively.

One specific situation where drift detection really saved us was when a team member manually adjusted a security group rule directly in the AWS  console during an incident, intending to revert it later but never did. Without Spacelift's drift detection, it would have silently remained out of sync with our Terraform state indefinitely. Spacelift flagged it within the next scheduled detection cycle, allowing us to review and reconcile the state before it caused compliance issues.

On stack dependencies, we had a layered setup where our networking stack had to be fully applied before the compute stack, and the compute stack before the application stack. Previously, we managed this manually, but with Spacelift's stack dependencies, we defined those relationships once, and it handled the trigger chain automatically, preventing partial deployment failures we used to deal with regularly.

The UI is one of Spacelift's stronger points, as the run view is clean and gives a clear timeline of what happened at each stage with easy-to-navigate logs. For team members who were not deeply technical on the Terraform side, the interface was approachable. The GitHub  integration was seamless, as pull request comments with plan output worked out of the box, making code reviews much more collaborative. We also integrated it with Slack for notifications, so the team got alerts on failed runs or drift detection events without having to actively monitor the dashboard. That kind of passive visibility is underrated; it keeps everyone aware without adding overhead, and the integration ecosystem felt mature, not something bolted on as an afterthought.

Spacelift's documentation is quite thorough compared to some other tools in this space, with well-explained concepts and practical examples that cover edge cases. The documentation had enough working examples for us to adapt OPA policies without needing to dig through community forums or raise support tickets. The API support is also solid, exposing a GraphQL API that gives a lot of flexibility for automation, along with a Terraform provider for managing Spacelift itself as code, allowing version control of configurations such as stacks, policies, and contexts.

There are a few areas where there is room for improvement, particularly the initial setup and onboarding experience, which has a learning curve around understanding the concept of contexts. Better onboarding wizards would help new users get productive faster. The OPA policy writing is not very beginner-friendly either, and the error messages when a policy fails are not always clear. Pricing transparency is another area that could improve, as smaller teams or startups would benefit from clear tier breakdowns rather than having to go through a sales conversation.

I have been working in my current field for around three years.

My main advice would be to start with a clear understanding of your Terraform structure before onboarding Spacelift, as it works best when the infrastructure is reasonably modular. Spacelift fills a real gap in the infrastructure-as-code tooling landscape, providing a layer of workflow management that Terraform alone does not scale well without. For any team that has grown beyond a single engineer running Terraform locally, it is worth evaluating seriously, as the investment in setup pays off quickly in reduced incidents and improved confidence around infrastructure changes. I would rate this product an 8.

My main use case for Spacelift  is for configuration management, and I used it for automation using Ansible  playbooks.

A quick specific example of how I used Spacelift  for configuration management and automation with Ansible  playbooks is that we previously used Ansible for Linux-based tasks such as the creation of users, patching of the servers, and installation of agents. If a server is built new, we need to install multiple tools and security tools, and for the installation of those agents on the endpoint servers, we used Spacelift.

Regarding my use case with Spacelift, one more use case I have used is that we previously saved the Ansible playbook scripts locally or in a shared drive, then we used a GitLab  repo which was integrated with Spacelift. This was helpful for us to manage the codes through GitLab  repos and integrating that with Spacelift.

Spacelift offers compatibility with multiple clouds, which I have seen used for the implementation.

I have used Spacelift with AWS  and Oracle Cloud , and that flexibility helped my team.

Regarding features, we integrated Spacelift with the GitLab repo, which is one important integration, and along with that, you can use webhooks. I have not used it much because my scope was very small, but I have seen in the Spacelift GUI that many capabilities, such as using it as a CI/CD pipeline, exist.

Spacelift has positively impacted my organization by reducing manpower, as it reduced the efforts of resources in the team, where previously a job done by two or three engineers can now be easily managed by one engineer using Spacelift.

Regarding how Spacelift can be improved, I do not have much idea since my scope of usage was very minimal. I do not have much to add about needed improvements or anything I found confusing.

I have used Spacelift for a period of six to twelve months.

About measuring that impact, I have seen a basic observation, but I do not remember the real calculations done as I have used this around two or three years back. The calculations were done and given by the management, not by me.

I chose a rating of six out of ten because I think multiple other tools similar to Spacelift exist, for example, many automation tools such as Jenkins  or other cloud-native tools that perform efficiently compared to Spacelift.

My advice to others looking into using Spacelift is that it would be a good, user-friendly tool. If you are more aware of the concepts from the basics, you will understand it better. If you directly use Spacelift through the graphic user interface without that knowledge, you might not get the basics, for example, regarding Ansible.

Spacelift is an easy to use tool that makes life easy by not burdening you with configuring a configuration management tool, as it comes ready-made.