What are Feature Flags?

Development teams use feature flags to manage releases, measure user impact, and reduce deployment risk.

Feature flags are a development strategy that helps teams…

  • Introduce updates in controlled phases

  • Seamlessly control application behavior

  • Personalize user interactions

  • Adapt content to regional regulations

  • Rapidly address bugs and performance glitches

  • Implement effective A/B testing

  • Rollback a problematic release

graphic illustration of the benefits of feature flags

A feature flag can be described as...

A conditional statement that toggles specific functionality on or off based on a configuration.

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But what is "Feature Flagging"?

Feature flagging is a software development technique that allows teams to modify system or application behavior without changing any source code. It supports teams looking to:

toggles

Activate or deactivate specific application functionality

control

Control the visibility of certain features

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Conditionally change feature behavior in real‑time

What is Feature Management?

Feature management refers to a modern toolset for managing feature flags at scale that provides a framework for feature flag-driven development practices. It includes features that help you streamline flag implementation across teams, platforms, and applications.

features rolling out across dev, staging, and production environments

Types of Feature Flags

Feature flag categories were initially coined by Pete Hodgson in this iconic blog post.

a graphic depiction of feature flag categories

10 Real-Life Use Cases for Feature Flags

01

Publishers use DevCycle to add Google SSO to their authentication system

02

Sports fan Apps use DevCycle to push real-time updates to their users

03

Marketing firms use DevCycle to experiment with new features across multiple domains

04

SaaS companies use DevCycle to customize their new user experience based on their interests

05

Mobile app companies use DevCycle to experiment with different landing pages

06

Marketplaces use DevCycle to show real-time recommendations to their power users

07

Banks use DevCycle to launch new browser extensions

08

Fintech companies use DevCycle to show their users different features based on their plan

09

Devtool companies use DevCycle to migrate from one database to another without downtime

10

eCommerce companies use DevCycle to rapidly launch new products to targeted user groups

11

DevCycle (👋) uses DevCycle to keep this list fresh and relevant without deploying new code!

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What is OpenFeature and how does it work with feature flags?

OpenFeature is an open specification that provides a vendor-agnostic, community-driven API for feature flagging that works with your favorite feature flag management tool.

  • Developed by industry experts

  • Avoid vendor lock-in at the code level

  • Ultimate flexibility with standardized SDKs

DevCycle SDKs are built from the ground up to support the OpenFeature standard, making it a great choice for future proofing your product.

Learn About OpenFeature

Ready to start experimenting with Feature Flags?

DevCycle’s generous free plan lets you explore all the tools of feature management with features that help everyone in your organization.

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