December 30, 2023 — 10 min read

2023 A Year in Review

Mark Phelps

As we bid farewell to 2023, it's time to reflect on a year of immense growth, innovation, and community at Flipt. This retrospective dives into the milestones that marked our journey, celebrating the leaps we've made in feature flag management and the vibrant community that's grown alongside us.

Product Innovations: A Timeline of Features

When I look back on the year, I'm filled with pride at the strides we've made in enhancing Flipt's capabilities. We've introduced a host of new features and enhancements. Here's a timeline of our most significant feature releases in 2023:

January: Redefining User Experience and Authentication

  • UI Experience Overhaul: We kicked off the year by revolutionizing our user interface to offer a more dynamic, responsive, and modern experience. This transition wasn't just a facelift; it represented a foundational enhancement to how users interact with Flipt, prioritizing speed, ease of use, and intuitive design. Read more.
  • Advanced Authentication Options: Introduced a suite of new authentication options including OpenID Connect (OIDC), significantly broadening our support for various identity providers. This update allowed seamless integration with popular services like Google, GitLab, Auth0, and Okta, ensuring that Flipt fits effortlessly into diverse security environments and meets the complex needs of modern organizations. New authentication options.

February: Enhancing Security and Integration

  • API Token Authentication: We introduced API token authentication, a vital feature for users needing secure and straightforward access control for their automated systems and integrations. Details on enhanced authentication.
  • Kubernetes Service Account Authentication: Recognizing the importance of Kubernetes in modern infrastructure, we added support for Kubernetes Service Account authentication. Explore Kubernetes integration.

March: Team Growth and SDK Expansion

  • Welcoming New Talent: We expanded our team with the addition of Yoofi Quansah as a Senior Software Engineer. Meet Yoofi.
  • New Go SDK: Released a comprehensive Go SDK designed to support both GRPC and REST, significantly improving the developer experience. Discover the Go SDK.

April: Organizational Enhancements and Language Support

  • Namespaces Support: We introduced the concept of namespaces to Flipt, allowing users to organize and manage their flags, segments, and rules more efficiently. This feature was a significant step towards enhancing the organizational capabilities of our platform. Learn about Namespaces.
  • Python REST SDK: Acknowledging the widespread use of Python among developers, we released our Python REST SDK. This addition made it easier for a broader audience to integrate Flipt into their applications. Explore the Python SDK.

May: Embracing GitOps and Declarative Features

  • GitOps Integration: We revolutionized our approach by introducing support for declarative feature management. This shift allows teams to define and manage their feature flags and configurations as code, embracing a GitOps workflow for superior consistency and control. Discover GitOps with Flipt.
  • Audit Events Enhancement: Bolstered our system with Audit Events, providing detailed logs for changes, enhancing transparency and accountability in feature management. Learn more.

June: User Experience and Operational Efficiency

  • Dark Mode: Introduced Dark Mode to the UI, catering to user preferences for a more comfortable visual experience during different times of the day. Changelog details.
  • CLI Validation Command: Launched a new flipt validate CLI command, allowing users to validate their declarative data before serving it via Flipt. This feature enhances the reliability and accuracy of feature flag deployment, reducing the risk of errors in live environments. Documentation.
  • Introduced Flipt Labs: A dedicated space for demonstrating Flipt's applications in 'real-world' scenarios. This initiative was designed to provide users with tangible, practical examples of how Flipt can be integrated and utilized within various types of projects. Explore Flipt Labs.

July: Advancing Feature Flag Management

  • New Evaluation APIs & UI Experience: We rolled out a new set of Evaluation APIs and a revamped UI experience, focusing on simplifying the creation and management of boolean flags and their rollout strategies. This update was aimed at making the process of gradually rolling out features more intuitive and manageable. More on boolean flags and rollouts.
  • S3 Storage Support: Expanded our storage options by introducing support for storing declarative feature data in S3. This addition provides users with more choices for their storage needs, catering to a wider range of infrastructure preferences and requirements. Documentation.

August: Enhanced Flexibility and Security

  • Advanced Segment Logic: Added support for ANDing/ORing multiple segments when setting up evaluation rules, offering greater flexibility and precision in feature management. This enhancement allows teams to tailor their feature rollouts with complex, multi-condition rules. Changelog.
  • GitHub Authentication & PKCE Enhancement: Introduced GitHub as an authentication option and added PKCE to OIDC authentications, significantly bolstering security and user convenience. These updates ensure a more secure and streamlined login experience. Changelog.

September: Broadening Observability and Engagement

  • Webhooks for Audit Events: Implemented webhook support for audit events, vastly improving the observability of system changes and enhancing integration capabilities with external monitoring tools. This feature allows teams to receive instant notifications and insights, fostering a proactive approach to system management. Improving Observability.
  • Real User Metrics with Datadog: Added support for capturing Real User Metrics (RUM) and sending them to Datadog when using our Node SDK. This integration provides valuable insights into user interactions and system performance, aiding in informed decision-making and enhancing user satisfaction. Changelog.
  • MacOS Local Version: Launched a MacOS version of Flipt for local development and testing. This release simplifies the process for MacOS users to engage with Flipt in their native environment, promoting wider adoption and ease of use. Install via Homebrew.

October: Streamlining Configuration and Enhancing Customization

  • CLI Config Enhancements: Introduced new CLI commands under flipt config to initialize and edit Flipt configurations directly from the command line. This update streamlines the setup and management process, making it quicker and more intuitive for users to adjust their Flipt environment to their needs. Changelog.
  • Webhook Templates for Audit Events: Added support for Webhook templates, allowing users to configure the payload of audit events that get sent to their webhooks. This feature provides greater control over the information received, ensuring that teams get the precise data they need for monitoring and analysis. Documentation.
  • Typesafe Code Generation for TypeScript: Experimented with generating typesafe code for feature flag evaluations in TypeScript, offering a more robust and error-resistant development experience for users working in TypeScript environments. Feature Flags as Types.
  • Edge Database Experimentation: Explored support for edge databases like Turso and LibSQL, pushing the boundaries of where and how Flipt can be used and paving the way for future innovations in distributed environments. Experimenting on the Edge.

November: Enhancing Granular Control and Supporting OCI

  • Namespaced Auth Tokens: Introduced namespaced authentication tokens, providing users with more granular control over access and permissions. This feature enhances security and flexibility, allowing for precise scoping of resources and actions. Documentation.
  • OCI Image Support for Feature Data: Rolled out the ability to store and serve declarative feature data via OCI images, providing a modern, scalable solution for managing and distributing feature configuration. Features, Flags, and OCI.

December: Revolutionizing Performance with Client-Side Evaluation SDKs

  • Client-Side Evaluation SDKs: Unveiled new Client-Side evaluation SDKs, marking a major milestone in Flipt's evolution. These SDKs dramatically improve evaluation performance by up to 1000x, offering an unprecedented speed and efficiency boost. This innovation allows for near-instantaneous feature flag evaluations directly within the client environment, significantly enhancing the user experience and system responsiveness. The SDKs are designed with modern applications in mind, ensuring that Flipt can meet the needs of highly dynamic and interactive client-side applications where performance is critical. New Client-Side Evaluation.
  • Azure Blob Store Support: Expanded our storage options by introducing support for storing declarative feature data in Azure Blob Store. This addition provides users with more choices for their storage needs, catering to a wider range of infrastructure preferences and requirements. Changelog.

Community Growth: The Heart of Flipt

2023 was a landmark year not just for our product's capabilities but also for the vibrant community that surrounds Flipt. As we reflect on the past year, it's the growth and engagement of our community that stands out as a true measure of our success. Many of the features above were inspired by the feedback and insights of our users and some even fully developed by our community.

We're proud to have built a community that's not just passionate about our product but also committed to our vision of empowering developers and teams to build better software.

GitHub Surge: Close to 3.1k GitHub stars, our GitHub community nearly doubled!

Discord Growth: Our Discord family expanded to 212 members, buzzing with ideas and support.

Contributor Onboarding: An influx of active contributors on GitHub, bringing fresh perspectives and enthusiasm.

KubeCon Connections: Attended KubeCon in Amsterdam, getting to meet the OpenFeature team and other enthusiasts.

NYC Retreat: A December gathering in NYC for roadmap planning and user feedback, strengthening our resolve and vision.

Empowering Open Source Participation: We're committed to growing the open-source community, actively engaging and sharing our insights on platforms like Dev.to.

Collaborating with Other Amazing Organizations

  • Ensuring Quality Leveraging Dagger: Our journey to enhance our build, test, and release processes brought us into alignment with technology leaders like Dagger. Integrating with Dagger's cutting-edge tools is a step forward in not just evolving Flipt but also in contributing to a richer, more collaborative open-source ecosystem.

  • Engaging with Turso: As we ventured into supporting edge databases, we engaged with innovative platforms like Turso. This interaction is part of our commitment to embracing forward-thinking technologies that push the boundaries of what's possible with Flipt. We are dedicated to continued exploration and integration with technologies that offer our users enhanced capabilities and performance.

Forward into 2024 and Beyond

Reflecting on the strides we've made in 2023, I'm filled with gratitude for the vibrant community that has been integral to our journey. Our commitment to open-source remains unwavering. We understand that it's not just about building software but nurturing an ecosystem where everyone contributes, learns, and grows together. We're dedicated to ensuring Flipt remains a collaborative, transparent, and community-driven project.

Looking ahead, our vision is clear: to continue evolving Flipt into the most developer-loved feature management solution. We're not just creating tools; we're crafting experiences that resonate with the needs of high-functioning engineering organizations and platform teams.

We believe that the best is yet to come. As we step into the new year, we're more committed than ever to empowering teams, simplifying complexities, and setting new benchmarks in feature management.

Happy New Year! 🎉

Interested in onboarding to our Managed Services? Sign up for early access. We're excited to partner with you on your feature management journey.

Scarf