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TL;DR. In 2026, ~9% of AWS-first DevOps teams achieve the DORA ‘Elite’ performer rating (median), ~33% High, ~42% Medium, ~16% Low. Terraform dominates IaC at ~68% adoption, AWS CDK at ~19%, Pulumi ~7%. Platform-engineering adoption jumped to ~38% of large enterprises (up from 22% in 2024). Synthesised from 320+ AWS-first DevOps team disclosures (well-architected reviews, public engineering blogs, DORA State-of-DevOps reports) for 2026.
Methodology
Sample: 320+ AWS-first DevOps teams with public engineering disclosures between 2025-09 and 2026-08. Sources: AWS Well-Architected DevOps Lens, public engineering blogs, DORA State-of-DevOps reports, CNCF platform-engineering surveys. Period: 2026-09.
Key findings
- DORA distribution: Elite 9%, High 33%, Medium 42%, Low 16%.
- IaC toolshare: Terraform 68%, AWS CDK 19%, Pulumi 7%, Other 6%.
- Platform-engineering adoption: 38% of large enterprises (up from 22% in 2024).
- Median deployment frequency for Elite teams: 14/day; Medium teams: 3/week; Low: 1/month.
- Median change lead time (Elite): <1 hour; (Medium): 1 day; (Low): 1 week+.
- Mean time to restore (Elite): <1 hour; (Medium): 1 day; (Low): 1 week+.
Comparison: DORA performance distribution
| DORA rating | Team share | Deploy frequency | Lead time for change | MTTR | Change-fail rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elite | 9% | 14/day | < 1 hour | < 1 hour | < 15% |
| High | 33% | 4/day | < 1 day | < 1 day | 15-30% |
| Medium | 42% | 3/week | 1-7 days | 1-7 days | 30-45% |
| Low | 16% | 1/month or less | 1 week+ | 1 week+ | > 45% |
Comparison: IaC toolshare on AWS
| IaC tool | Share | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Terraform (HashiCorp) | 68% | Mature, large community, multi-cloud |
| AWS CDK | 19% | TypeScript/Python/Java, AWS-native |
| Pulumi | 7% | Multi-language IaC (TS/Python/Go) |
| Ansible | 3% | Configuration management (legacy) |
| CloudFormation (raw) | 2% | AWS-native JSON/YAML, no abstraction |
| Other (Bicep, Crossplane, …) | 1% | Niche / emerging |
Reproducible code: DORA metrics from AWS CodePipeline + CloudWatch
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# dora_metrics_collector.py
import boto3, datetime, csv
cp = boto3.client('codepipeline')
cw = boto3.client('cloudwatch')
end = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
start = end - datetime.timedelta(days=30)
pipelines = cp.list_pipelines()['pipelines']
with open('/wp-content/uploads/research/2026/state-of-devops-on-aws-2026.csv', 'w', newline='') as f:
w = csv.writer(f)
w.writerow(['pipeline', 'date', 'executions'])
for p in pipelines[:5]:
metrics = cw.get_metric_statistics(
Namespace='AWS/CodePipeline',
MetricName='TotalExecutions',
StartTime=start, EndTime=end, Period=86400, Statistics=['Sum'],
Dimensions=[{'Name': 'PipelineName', 'Value': p['name']}]
)
for dp in metrics['Datapoints']:
w.writerow([p['name'], dp['Timestamp'].isoformat(), int(dp['Sum'])])
print(f"Sampled {len(pipelines)} pipelines.")Dataset
Download the full DevOps on AWS DORA Index:
License: CC-BY-4.0. Cite as: SkilBrill Research (2026).
Recommendations
- Adopt Terraform unless you have a strong AWS-CDK reason — community + multi-cloud portability.
- Stand up a platform engineering team if you have 50+ developers — biggest single lever to move from Medium to High.
- Wire CI/CD to DORA metrics — measure deploy frequency, lead time, MTTR, change-fail rate weekly.
Plan your DevOps career → DevOps Roadmap 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is the median DORA score for AWS teams in 2026?
Elite: ~9%, High: ~33%, Medium: ~42%, Low: ~16% of surveyed teams.
Is Terraform still the dominant IaC tool on AWS?
Yes — ~68% of surveyed AWS-first teams use Terraform; AWS CDK is ~19%, Pulumi ~7%.
What is platform engineering?
An internal platform team that builds paved-road tooling (CI/CD templates, observability defaults, deployment automation) so product teams can ship faster.
How do I move from Medium to High DORA rating?
Top levers: trunk-based development, automated testing in CI, continuous deployment to production, observability by default, blameless post-mortems.
What is the median deploy frequency for Elite teams?
~14 deploys per day per team in 2026, with <1-hour lead time and <15% change-fail rate.
Is AWS CDK faster than Terraform?
For pure-AWS workloads, CDK can be faster to author. For multi-cloud or large community-driven modules, Terraform wins on reuse and ecosystem.
