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
A feature flag can be described as...
A conditional statement that toggles specific functionality on or off based on a configuration.
Daylight
Wind
Disguise
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:
Activate or deactivate specific application functionality
Control the visibility of certain features
Conditionally change feature behavior in real‑time
Feature flags make it easy to implement these development strategies
Canary Releases & Dark Launches
Safely deploy a new feature to a small group of users for early feedback.
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Kill Switches
If a feature isn't working right, turn it off and fix it for your users.
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Product Experimentation
Run experiments and A/B tests to determine the impact of your changes.
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Progressive Delivery
Employ safety measures and control mechanisms that reduce the risks associated with deploying new code to prod.
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Infrastructure Migration
Safely move from on-prem to a cloud provider using feature flags to avoid downtime.
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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.
Types of Feature Flags
Feature flag categories were initially coined by Pete Hodgson in this iconic blog post.
Releases
Release feature flags are used to separate a feature from deployment and allow for a true continuous delivery cycle.
Experiments
Experiment feature flags can be used to run A/B and multivariate experiments to monitor the impacts of different code paths or provide different variations of a single feature.
Permissions
Permission feature flags are used to manage different product features that are gated based on user properties.
Ops
Ops feature flags are intended to live in your code long-term, allowing you to disable or degrade features that are having a negative impact on performance and stability.
10 Real-Life Use Cases for Feature Flags
Publishers use DevCycle to add Google SSO to their authentication system
Sports fan Apps use DevCycle to push real-time updates to their users
Marketing firms use DevCycle to experiment with new features across multiple domains
SaaS companies use DevCycle to customize their new user experience based on their interests
Mobile app companies use DevCycle to experiment with different landing pages
Marketplaces use DevCycle to show real-time recommendations to their power users
Banks use DevCycle to launch new browser extensions
Fintech companies use DevCycle to show their users different features based on their plan
Devtool companies use DevCycle to migrate from one database to another without downtime
eCommerce companies use DevCycle to rapidly launch new products to targeted user groups
DevCycle (👋) uses DevCycle to keep this list fresh and relevant without deploying new code!
Publishers use DevCycle to add Google SSO to their authentication system
Sports fan Apps use DevCycle to push real-time updates to their users
Marketing firms use DevCycle to experiment with new features across multiple domains
SaaS companies use DevCycle to customize their new user experience based on their interests
Mobile app companies use DevCycle to experiment with different landing pages
Marketplaces use DevCycle to show real-time recommendations to their power users
Banks use DevCycle to launch new browser extensions
Fintech companies use DevCycle to show their users different features based on their plan
Devtool companies use DevCycle to migrate from one database to another without downtime
eCommerce companies use DevCycle to rapidly launch new products to targeted user groups
DevCycle (👋) uses DevCycle to keep this list fresh and relevant without deploying new code!
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.
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.
