Salesforce DevOps Center is Salesforce's own tool for moving changes from development to production with source control, tracked work items and a pipeline of environments. In 2026 it was rebuilt into the platform as next-generation DevOps Center, which Salesforce is renaming Lifecycle Center from October 2026. New installs of the old managed package stopped in April 2026, so new teams should start with Lifecycle Center.
This guide was first published in 2024. It has been rewritten for 2026 to cover the move to Lifecycle Center, and it now also covers two older posts of ours: what DevOps means, and how Copado and Jenkins compare.
What is DevOps, and what does it mean on Salesforce?
DevOps on Salesforce means tracking metadata changes in source control and moving them through sandboxes to production in a repeatable way. Salesforce describes DevOps as a combination of development and operations whose goal is to speed up the software lifecycle through automation and integration. Its lifecycle has five phases: plan, build, test, release and observe.
On Salesforce, DevOps has a particular shape. Much of the "code" is metadata created with clicks: fields, flows, page layouts, permission sets. Admins and developers change the same org. And environments are sandboxes, each a copy of production (our sandbox guide explains the types). Salesforce DevOps is the practice of tracking all of that in source control and moving it through the sandboxes in a controlled, repeatable way, instead of making changes directly in production or rebuilding them by hand.
What changed in 2026: from DevOps Center to Lifecycle Center
As of November 2026, DevOps Center is built into the platform and is being renamed Lifecycle Center, and the old managed package can no longer be newly installed.
| DevOps Center (managed package) | Lifecycle Center (next-generation DevOps Center) | |
|---|---|---|
| How you get it | Install a managed package | Open from the App Launcher; no package to install |
| New installs | Not supported from April 2026 | Available now |
| Name | DevOps Center | Renamed Lifecycle Center from October 2026 |
| Scope | Change and release management | Change and release management, governance, analytics and agentic development |
Salesforce Help's Lifecycle Center overview describes it as bringing change and release management, governance, analytics and agentic development together in one place, and the Lifecycle Center page confirms the rename. The managed package documentation now points readers to Lifecycle Center and notes that new downloads and installations of the package are no longer supported from April 2026. Existing installations keep running, but they are the past, not the future.
Availability: Salesforce Help lists Lightning Experience in Professional (API access required), Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer editions, and says it is not available in Government Cloud Plus or the EU Operating Zone.
How Lifecycle Center works
Lifecycle Center tracks each change as a work item, stores it in a Git repository and promotes it through a pipeline of environments. Trailhead's Introduction to Lifecycle Center calls it a "unified, AI-powered experience" for change and release management.
- Projects group the work for one org and its repository.
- Work items describe each change, are assigned to team members, and track it from development to release.
- Source control holds every change. Salesforce Help documents GitHub (GitHub.com cloud plans, including GitHub Enterprise Cloud) and Bitbucket Cloud. Lifecycle Center creates feature branches and change requests, and commits and merges changes at each stage.
- Pipelines are the ordered environments a change moves through. A pipeline needs at least one development environment and a release environment, usually production.
- The work item flow. A builder starts a work item, makes the change in a development environment, commits it, sends it for review (a pull request in the repository behind the scenes) and, once approved, it is promoted to the next stage. Release managers promote changes from the Lifecycle Center screens or the Salesforce CLI.
- Conflicts. Trailhead says Lifecycle Center identifies work items that conflict with others in the pipeline, and that you can use natural-language prompts with Agentforce to help resolve them.
- Clicks and code together. Because Lifecycle Center handles the branches and commits, admins can work without Git commands; developers can work with the same repository from the Salesforce CLI.
How to set up Salesforce DevOps Center (Lifecycle Center)
Turn it on in Setup, connect GitHub or Bitbucket Cloud, create a project and build a pipeline. Salesforce Help's getting-started steps, in order:
- Turn on Lifecycle Center from Setup (enter Lifecycle Center in Quick Find) in the org that will host it, which Trailhead calls the Lifecycle Center Hub org, usually production; there is nothing to install. Then open it from the App Launcher.
- Add team members and assign permissions. Whoever sets it up needs the Lifecycle Center Admin permission.
- Set up source control. Connect your GitHub or Bitbucket Cloud account and repository.
- Optionally add a .forceignore file to keep metadata you don't want tracked out of source control.
- Create a project for the org and repository.
- Build the pipeline: add your development sandboxes, any integration or UAT stages, and production as the release environment.
- Run one small change end to end before you move the whole team across.
If you still run the managed package, plan the move: set up Lifecycle Center alongside it, run a pilot project, then retire the package once the team has released through the new pipeline.
Salesforce DevOps tools compared
Use Lifecycle Center for a native, click-based pipeline, the Salesforce CLI for scripted work, and Copado or Jenkins when you need a commercial platform or your own CI/CD.
| Tool | What it is | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Change sets | Salesforce's built-in way to send metadata between connected orgs | Occasional small deployments | No source control, no history, components picked by hand |
| Lifecycle Center (DevOps Center) | Salesforce's native, click-based pipeline with source control | Admin-heavy teams moving off change sets | Documented source control is GitHub and Bitbucket Cloud only |
| Salesforce CLI | Command-line tool for metadata, data and automation | Developers and scripted pipelines | Needs technical skills |
| Copado | Commercial DevOps platform built for Salesforce | Larger teams needing testing, compliance and AI features | Licence cost; enterprise pricing on request |
| Jenkins | General open-source automation server | Engineering teams building their own CI/CD with the CLI | You build and maintain the pipeline yourself |
Salesforce's own DevOps overview points teams to DevOps Center to build a pipeline and to the Salesforce CLI to automate work. Backup, data masking and code scanning tools sit alongside any of these; they don't replace the pipeline.
Copado vs Jenkins for Salesforce
Copado is a commercial platform built for Salesforce; Jenkins is a general open-source automation server you configure yourself. Our 2024 comparison of these two tools is folded in here, updated for 2026:
- Copado describes itself as an "Intelligent DevOps Platform for Salesforce" and the "#1 native, end-to-end DevOps solution for Salesforce", with Salesforce-native CI/CD, low-code robotic testing and AI agents across delivery stages (copado.com). Copado Essentials is free to start; enterprise pricing is not published.
- Jenkins calls itself "the leading open source automation server", with more than 2,300 community-contributed plugins (jenkins.io). It knows nothing about Salesforce out of the box: you script deployments and tests with the Salesforce CLI and host and maintain Jenkins yourself.
Choose Copado when you want a Salesforce-specific platform with testing and governance included and have the budget. Choose Jenkins when you already run it for other systems and have engineers to maintain Salesforce jobs in it. Choose Lifecycle Center first if your team is mostly admins and you are moving off change sets; you can add other tools later because the work lives in your own Git repository.
Common Salesforce DevOps mistakes
The usual mistakes are changing production directly, tracking too much, sharing one sandbox and testing too late.
- Changing production directly. Every hotfix made in production is a change your repository doesn't know about.
- Tracking everything. Use a .forceignore file so profiles and noisy metadata don't flood every change request.
- One shared sandbox for everyone. Give each builder a Developer sandbox and merge through the pipeline.
- Skipping tests until release day. Run Apex tests and user acceptance testing at the stage before production, not after. Watch for automation that reacts differently once deployed; our order of execution guide explains why.
- Waiting on the old package. With new installs of the managed package unsupported since April 2026, plan your move to Lifecycle Center now.
Getting help
Techila is a Salesforce Summit Partner. Our Salesforce development team sets up release pipelines in Lifecycle Center, the Salesforce CLI or third-party tools, and our managed services team can run releases for you. Talk to us about moving off change sets or the old DevOps Center package.
Frequently asked questions
What is Salesforce DevOps Center?
DevOps Center is Salesforce's own tool for moving changes from development to production with source control, work items and a pipeline of environments. Its next-generation version is built into the platform and is being renamed Lifecycle Center from October 2026.
Is Salesforce DevOps Center being replaced?
The managed package is. Salesforce Help says new downloads and installations of the DevOps Center managed package are no longer supported from April 2026, and recommends Lifecycle Center, the next-generation version, which opens from the App Launcher with no package to install.
Which source control does DevOps Center support?
Salesforce Help documents GitHub, limited to GitHub.com cloud plans including GitHub Enterprise Cloud, and Bitbucket Cloud. GitLab and Azure DevOps are not documented as supported, so teams on those tools usually use the Salesforce CLI or a third-party DevOps platform.
Which Salesforce editions include Lifecycle Center?
Salesforce Help lists Professional (with API access), Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer editions in Lightning Experience. It is not available in Government Cloud Plus or the EU Operating Zone.
Should we use DevOps Center, Copado or Jenkins?
Lifecycle Center suits admin-heavy teams that want a native, click-based pipeline. Copado is a commercial DevOps platform built for Salesforce with testing and AI features. Jenkins is a general open-source automation server that needs Salesforce CLI scripting and suits teams with engineering skills.