Why GitOps? A Real-World Shift to Better DevOps

If you’ve ever been deep in the trenches of managing infrastructure—clicking through dashboards, juggling Terraform states, praying your deployment scripts don’t break—you probably know that DevOps, as powerful as it is, can still be messy and inconsistent. That’s where GitOps comes in, and trust me, it’s not just a buzzword. It’s a mindset shift, and once you get into it, there’s no going back.

🌱 Why Was GitOps Even Born?

Let’s rewind a bit. I remember managing infrastructure changes via manual scripts and CI/CD pipelines that did a bit of everything. Things worked… until they didn’t. Drift would creep in. Someone would hotfix something directly in the cloud console. Environments were similar, but never quite the same. Troubleshooting meant combing through logs and guessing what had changed.

This was the problem. There was no single source of truth. And that’s what gave rise to GitOps.

GitOps was born to solve that chaos—by treating Git as the source of truth for your infrastructure and deployments. You declare what the system should look like in Git, and automation tools make sure the actual state matches that desired state.

🧠 So, What Is GitOps?

At its core, GitOps is:

• Git-based: All infrastructure and application definitions live in Git repositories.
• Declarative: You describe the desired state of your systems, not how to get there.
• Automated: Agents continuously reconcile what’s in Git with what’s running in production.
• Observable: Every change is auditable, reviewable, and version-controlled.

Think of it as Infrastructure as Code meets Continuous Deployment, powered by Git.

🧭 The Mindset Shift: Trust the Git

When we first started using GitOps, the biggest shift wasn't technical—it was psychological.

You go from:

“Let me log in and make a quick fix…”

to:

“Let me open a PR and let the system apply this change.”

That one step—reviewing and merging a PR—gives you traceability, auditability, and confidence. You stop fearing change and start managing it cleanly. But it does take some getting used to, especially for teams used to quick console fixes or shell scripts.

🧰 Where GitOps Shines… And Where It Doesn’t

Where it works beautifully:

• Kubernetes workloads
• Cloud-native environments
• Teams practicing DevSecOps or platform engineering
• Complex microservices where drift is common

Where it can be tricky:

• Legacy systems without APIs or infrastructure-as-code support
• Teams that don’t use Git as their central workflow
• Places where change management requires strict approvals outside Git

And that’s okay—not every tool fits every use case. GitOps is powerful, but it’s not magic.

✅ Pros and Cons: My Honest Take

Pros:

• 🔒 Security: Git provides a clear audit trail.
• 🚀 Speed: Once set up, changes roll out faster and more reliably.
• 🧠 Clarity: One place (Git) to know what your system should look like.
• 🔁 Reproducibility: Rollbacks and cloning environments become effortless.

Cons:

• 🚧 Steep learning curve at first, especially for non-developers.
• 🧰 Tooling overhead—tools like ArgoCD, Flux, etc., need setup and maintenance.
• 🔍 Debugging can be tough if you don't fully understand the reconciliation process.

🗣️ Real Talk

GitOps has made our infrastructure more predictable, our deployments safer, and our developers more confident. It’s not perfect, but it’s a massive leap forward. If you’re considering it—do a spike. Try it with one microservice. See the difference.

In the next post, I’ll talk about how to set up GitOps using FluxCD and structure your Git repositories for real-world projects. Trust me, that’s where things get exciting.