
LaunchDarkly
Feature flags have enabled cautious rollouts and have supported fast, coordinated launches
What is our primary use case?
Regarding my use cases, I am cautious about breaking customers in production, so I generally put LaunchDarkly flags on pretty much any feature that is going to be rolled out to production to slowly roll things out and ensure nothing is broken. Additionally, it is valuable for developing a new feature and then launching it all at once when it is ready to go, so I do both of those.
I am not using LaunchDarkly to manage any AI in production, as other teams may be doing that. At the moment, my use of AI is limited to coding assistance, while other teams are integrating AI into the product.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate most about LaunchDarkly is that it is very easy to use. I estimate I have around 30 flags, though I have not counted them recently. Finding the flags is straightforward; I search for the flag I need and then proceed with the setup for whatever I need to do. One useful aspect for my workflow is that whenever I set a flag or change something, I ask my coding LLM to confirm that everything is working as it should, whether it is to catch a typo or ensure I did not add the wrong merchant ID.
What needs improvement?
What I dislike about LaunchDarkly is the inability to quickly find all the flags I have currently running and their statuses. I want to know if they are rolled out partially, but I have to check externally by asking my coding agent about all my LaunchDarkly flags and their statuses. Recently, I forgot about a flag I rolled out to a couple of merchants, and I noticed I was not alone; several people had flags running for months with only one or two merchants enabled. A feature to alert me if a flag is underutilized or needs attention after a week of being rolled out would be beneficial.
For how long have I used the solution?
Overall, I have been working with LaunchDarkly for a couple of years, having used it at Instacart and currently at Thanks, but it was not utilized at Thomson Reuters. I have a couple of years of experience with it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not encountered any scalability issues with LaunchDarkly. I work for a mid-sized company with hundreds or thousands of users, and I have not run into scalability issues here. While my experience at Instacart might have been different, I was not using it as in-depth as I do now. I currently use LaunchDarkly on a daily basis.
What other advice do I have?
I have not integrated any other tools with LaunchDarkly; it stands by itself in my usage.
Other than the server that checks the status whenever I request it, which saves me from going directly to LaunchDarkly, I do not have additional tools integrated.
I would give LaunchDarkly a rating of nine out of ten because I never give out tens, as that implies no room for improvement, and everybody can improve. Overall, LaunchDarkly is good; it is easy to use, and I can see what is happening relatively quickly.
Useful Audit Trail and Reliable Performance
Instant Feature Toggles, Blazing Performance, and Clear Change Reviews
The UI/UX is very easy to understand, and I like that you can clearly review exactly what we’re changing with every request—what goes out and what comes in, whether we’re renaming something, and so on.
Feature Flags That Make Releases Safer, Faster, and More Controlled
Gradual rollouts also help us introduce features to a small group first, gather feedback, and build confidence before moving to a wider release.
Being able to switch a feature off quickly is particularly useful if something goes wrong, since it reduces the pressure to rush out another deployment just to undo a change.
Finally, having feature flags in one place makes it easier to see what’s enabled and to manage changes consistently across environments.