Introduction

When you’re managing deployments across multiple environments, the search for the perfect GitOps platform is difficult. Recently, I dove into Kargo.io, a deployment orchestration platform that caught my attention with its elegant approach to GitOps workflows.

After some testing and evaluation, here’s my take: Kargo.io is a platform with a great vision and the right architecture. For enterprise adoption, observability would need to be added.

What Makes Kargo.io Special?

Kargo.io positions itself as a GitOps-native deployment orchestration platform. Think of it as the conductor of your deployment orchestra - it doesn’t replace your existing tools like ArgoCD or Argo Rollouts, but rather orchestrates them in beautiful harmony.

The platform’s core promise is simple: promote applications between environments and orchestrate pre, post activities required in each environment (integration tests, performance tests, smoke tests, releases, etc.).

The Good: Where Kargo.io Shines

🏗️ One Continuous Deployment Platform to Rule Them All

Kargo.io can scale to handle thousands of applications and promotion pipelines through its helm subchart architecture. During my testing, I created a base helm chart that could be reused by other teams implementing the deployment workflow. This way, promotions between environments can be defined by the platform team and product teams simply use the standard that is defined globally in the company.

🎯 ArgoCD Integration Done Right

Here’s where Kargo.io truly impressed me. The integration with ArgoCD isn’t just “compatible” - it’s elegant. Each tool has its set of responsibilities and does it well:

  • ArgoCD deploys applications
  • Argo Rollouts creates and manages rollouts
  • Kargo creates and manages promotion workflows

The Concerning: Where Kargo.io Falls Short

Now for the reality check. While Kargo.io excels in core functionality, there are some significant gaps that prevented me from giving it an unreserved recommendation.

📊 Observability: The Elephant in the Room

This is Kargo’s biggest weakness. The platform currently offers no observability capabilities:

  • No prometheus metrics
  • No pre-built dashboards
  • No alerting capabilities
  • Etc.

For a platform managing critical deployment workflows, this is a red flag. You’re essentially flying blind when things go wrong, which they inevitably will in complex deployment scenarios.

My Recommendations

Keep an Eye on Kargo.io

For platform teams: Keep Kargo.io on your radar. The technical foundation is solid, and if the team can address the observability and maturity issues, this could become a compelling platform.

For enterprise production use: I’d recommend waiting. The observability gaps and maturity concerns make it risky for environments where deployment failures have serious business impact.

How Kargo.io Works: A Practical Example

Let’s discuss how Kargo works and how it manages environments, especially when a new image version is available.

The Kargo Promotion Flow

Here’s how Kargo orchestrates deployments across environments:

┌─────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────┐
│   CI Pipeline   │    │  Container       │    │   Kargo         │
│                 │    │  Registry        │    │   Warehouse     │
│  ┌───────────┐  │    │                  │    │                 │
│  │Build Image│──┼────┤ myapp:v1.2.3     │◄───┤ 👁️  Watches     │
│  └───────────┘  │    │                  │    │    Registry     │
└─────────────────┘    └──────────────────┘    └─────────────────┘
                                                        │
                                                        ▼
                              ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
                              │         PROMOTION PIPELINE          │
                              └─────────────────────────────────────┘
                                                │
                                                ▼
┌─────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────┐
│   🏗️ DEV        │    │   🧪 STAGING     │    │   🚀 PROD       │
│   Environment   │    │   Environment    │    │   Environment   │
│                 │    │                  │    │                 │
│ ┌─────────────┐ │    │ ┌─────────────┐  │    │ ┌─────────────┐ │
│ │ArgoCD Sync  │ │    │ │ArgoCD Sync  │  │    │ │ArgoCD Sync  │ │
│ │myapp:v1.2.3 │ │    │ │myapp:v1.1.0 │  │    │ │myapp:v1.0.5 │ │
│ └─────────────┘ │    │ └─────────────┘  │    │ └─────────────┘ │
│                 │    │                  │    │                 │
│ ✅ Auto Tests   │    │ 🔍 Manual Review │    │ 📊 Monitoring   │
│ ✅ Health Check │    │ ✅ Load Tests    │    │ ✅ Rollback     │
└─────────────────┘    └──────────────────┘    └─────────────────┘
         │                        ▲                       ▲
         └────── Promote ─────────┘           Promote ────┘
              (if tests pass)              (if staging OK)

Step-by-Step Process

1. Image Creation & Detection

CI Pipeline → Container Registry → Kargo Warehouse (detects new image)

2. Environment Promotion Flow

DEV Environment:
├── Kargo clones the GitOps repo
├── Updates K8s manifests/Helm charts
├── Pushes changes to Git
├── ArgoCD detects Git changes
├── ArgoCD syncs to Kubernetes cluster
├── Kargo monitors deployment status
└── Runs automated tests

STAGING Environment (if DEV succeeds):
├── Manual approval trigger
├── Kargo updates staging manifests
├── ArgoCD syncs staging cluster
├── Integration & load tests
└── Ready for production approval

PRODUCTION Environment (if STAGING succeeds):
├── Final manual approval
├── Kargo updates production manifests
├── Kargo opens a PR on the GitOps repo
|__ PR merged after the review process
├── ArgoCD syncs production cluster
├── Monitoring & rollback capabilities
└── Deployment complete

Have you tried Kargo.io in your environment? I’d love to hear about your experiences, especially if you’ve tackled some of the challenges I’ve outlined here. The GitOps space is evolving rapidly, and real-world feedback helps us all make better decisions.