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Top 11 AI Video Generation Tools: Review and Feature Comparison

Top 11 AI Video Generation Tools: Review and Feature Comparison
Hostman Team
Technical writer
Infrastructure

After OpenAI's successful debut in 2022, AI tools rapidly entered everyday life. 

When we talk about text generation, ChatGPT comes to mind. When it comes to image generation, we think of Midjourney. Then there are Gemini, DALL-E, Claude, Stable Diffusion, and many other leading models in the field.

But what comes to mind when it comes to video generation? Or at least, what should come to mind? That’s exactly what we’ll discuss in this article.

1. Kling

Kling is a Chinese AI video generation tool developed by Kuaishou in 2024.

It is one of the best video generation AI tools on the market, ideal for marketers, bloggers, and large teams who need to produce high-quality videos quickly.

Kling's standout feature is its balanced blend of cinematic aesthetics and flexible settings—you can get hyper-realistic or stylized clips.

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The model processes both text prompts and static images, turning them into dynamic, high-quality videos—up to 10 seconds long, FullHD resolution (1080p), and 30 FPS. Naturally, the best features are available only on paid plans.

The service supports complex camera behavior for expressive angles: panning, tilting, and zooming. You can also set keyframes (start and end) to generate video in between them. There's also an "extension" function to prolong an already generated video up to 3 minutes.

Additionally, the model supports lip-syncing—synchronizing mouth movement with speech.

The interface is intuitive, though slightly overloaded. It’s easy to get the hang of but can occasionally be confusing.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $3/month)

Resolution

up to 720p

up to 1080p

Duration

up to 5 sec

up to 10 sec

Generations

up to 6 per day

from 18 per month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

no

Extension

no

up to 3 minutes

Extra Features

no

yes

Note: On the free plan, Kling allows about 10x more generations per month than the paid plan. However, those videos are shorter and lower quality. The free quota is added on top of the paid quota.

2. Hailuo AI

Hailuo AI is a Chinese AI video generator developed by MiniMax in 2024.

It offers a simple and flexible toolkit for creating content on the go, from marketing clips to social media stories.

In just minutes, it can turn a text or static image into a high-quality, albeit short, video, significantly cutting down the time and resources needed for traditional video production.

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Hailuo AI focuses on quickly generating short videos (up to 6 seconds at 25 FPS) based on text descriptions or static images. The resolution maxes out at 720p.

While these limitations are acceptable for fast marketing tasks, they can be a dealbreaker for serious projects.

You can combine text and image inputs for more control over the video story.

In addition to full camera control (angle, zoom, pan), Hailuo AI reduces random motion noise and maintains character appearance across scenes.

The interface is both simple and flexible, allowing cinematic effects without a steep learning curve. It also offers an API for integration into external apps.

Ideal for quick short-form videos like animated teasers and promo clips. For longer, more complex videos, you’ll need something else.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $14/month)

Resolution

up to 720p

up to 720p

Duration

up to 6 sec

up to 6 sec

Generations

up to 90/month

from 130/month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

no

Extension

no

up to 2 minutes

Extra Features

no

yes

Note: There’s also progressive pricing based on generation volume. From $1 for 70 credits, enough for a couple of generations.

3. Fliki

Fliki is an American AI video generator created by Fliki in 2021.

It’s an all-in-one platform combining various AI modules for generating presentations, audio, and video.

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Fliki specializes in automatically turning any text format (article, script, website URL, PDF/PPT) into a video with realistic voiceovers (2,000+ voices, 100+ dialects) and animated avatars (70+ characters).

You can even clone your voice and dub videos in 80+ languages.

Fliki also gives access to millions of stock images, video clips, stickers, and music for rapid video creation.

Unlike services that render each frame from scratch, Fliki assembles clips, slideshows, presets, and transitions into a cohesive video. Final length can be up to 30 minutes.

Runs in-browser with no downloads needed. Just enter your text, select a voice, add media, and you’ll get a professional video with voiceover and subtitles in minutes.

Its broad feature set in a simple package makes it suitable for small teams and large enterprises alike. Paired with classic editing tools, Fliki’s potential is immense.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $28/month)

Resolution

up to 720p

up to 1080p

Duration

up to 5 min (8 sec scenes)

up to 30 min (8 sec scenes)

Generations

up to 5 min/month

from 180 min/month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

no

Extension

no

no

Extra Features

no

yes

Paid plans also unlock thousands of voices and dialects, millions of premium images, videos, sounds, and access to Fliki’s API.

4. Dream Machine

Dream Machine is an American AI video generator created by Luma AI in 2024.

It specializes in generating short videos from text prompts or static images, making it easy to produce dynamic clips with natural movement and cinematic composition—no editing expertise needed.

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Users can describe or show what they want, and Dream Machine generates fluid, natural videos.

Default output is 5–10 seconds at 1080p and 24 FPS. You can adjust aspect ratio, animation style, motion intensity, and transition smoothness.

Dream Machine supports keyframe-based generation (start and end image), has an intuitive minimalist interface, and offers an API for integration.

It’s not suitable for long, complex videos. But for fast marketing and ad content, it’s a top pick.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $9/month)

Resolution

up to 720p

up to 1080p

Duration

up to 10 sec

up to 10 sec

Generations

up to 30/month

from 120/month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

up to 4K

Extension

no

up to 30 sec

Extra Features

no

yes

5. Runway

Runway is an American AI video platform developed by Runway AI in 2018.

It's a full-fledged cloud platform for generating and storing high-quality cinematic media.

Runway is both powerful and easy to use. It excels at quickly creating short clips, experimenting with visual styles, and automating parts of the creative process.

It can generate videos with outstanding photorealism and character motion consistency. It's one of the most advanced commercial tools for video generation.

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You can create clips from text or images, restyle existing footage, or edit content.

By default, videos are 720p, 24 FPS, and 5 or 10 seconds long. However, you can upscale to 4K and extend to 40 seconds.

Runway offers several models: Gen-2, Gen-3 Alpha, Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, Gen-4. The latest (Gen-4) allows for deep control over generation: aspect ratio, camera behavior, style prompts, and more.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $9/month)

Resolution

up to 720p

up to 720p (4K upscale)

Duration

5 or 10 sec

5 or 10 sec

Generations

up to 5/month

from 25/month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

up to 4K

Extension

no

up to 20 sec

Extra Features

no

yes

Note: Paid plans include up to 100 GB of cloud storage, while free users get only 5 GB.

6. PixVerse

PixVerse is a Chinese AI video generation model developed by AISphere in 2023. Thanks to a wide range of tools, PixVerse can transform text descriptions, images, and video clips into short but vivid videos — from anime and comics to 3D animation and hyperrealism.

PixVerse wraps numerous generation parameters in an extremely user-friendly interface: source photos and videos, aspect ratio, camera movement, styling, transitions, sound effects, voiceover, and more.

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The output videos are 5 to 8 seconds long, with resolutions up to 1080p at 20 frames per second. Naturally, videos can be upscaled and extended.

You can also upload an already finished video and additionally stylize it using the neural network — add visual effects, voiceover, or extend the duration.

As expected in such a powerful service, an API is also available—any external app can perform automatic video generation.

On the PixVerse homepage, you’ll find numerous examples of generated videos along with their original prompts. Anyone can use them as a base for their own projects or simply see the model’s capabilities in action.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $10/month)

Resolution

up to 540p

up to 720p

Duration

5 or 8 seconds

5 or 8 seconds

Generations

up to 20 per month

from 40 per month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

up to 4K

up to 4K

Extension

no

no

Extra Features

no

yes

7. Genmo

Genmo is another AI model for video, launched in 2022.

In essence, Genmo is the simplest possible service for turning text descriptions into short video clips with minimal configuration options. As simple as you can imagine—which is both good and bad.

On one hand, Genmo’s entry barrier is extremely low—even someone with no experience can create a video. On the other hand, the service is hardly suitable for complex projects due to the lack of control over generation.

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The neural network is based on the open-source Mochi model and has many limitations: it only uses text descriptions, and video resolution is capped at 480p with a fixed duration of 5 seconds at 30 fps.

Although generated videos contain visual artifacts (flickering or shifting geometry and colors) that reveal the use of AI, they still look coherent and interesting — good enough for visualizing ideas and concepts.

The user interface is extremely minimalistic—a prompt input field on the homepage followed by the best generations from the past day with their corresponding prompts.

It's important to understand that AI models that don't use images or video as input require more specificity in prompts—clear descriptions of visuals, environments, and details.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $10/month)

Resolution

up to 480p

up to 480p

Duration

5 seconds

5 seconds

Generations

up to 30 per month

from 80 per month

Faster Generation

up to 2 per day

from 8 per day

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

no

Extension

no

up to 12 seconds

Extra Features

no

yes

8. Sora

Sora is a neural network created by OpenAI in 2024.

Based on detailed text descriptions, Sora can generate images and videos with the highest level of detail. It’s a model whose output can easily be mistaken for real photos or videos.

It’s significant that Sora was developed by OpenAI, a global leader in generative AI and the company behind ChatGPT and DALL·E.

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Sora’s interface follows the design system used across OpenAI products—sleek black theme and minimal elements. A small sidebar is on the left, a grid of popular user-generated content in the center, and a prompt field with configuration options at the bottom.

Sora-generated videos have photo-realistic detail, whether hyperrealistic or animated, almost nothing gives away the AI origin. The quality and imagination in the visuals are astounding.

The videos can be up to 20 seconds long, 1080p resolution, and 30 fps—significantly more than most competitors.

Sora unifies all video configuration into the prompt itself—the real power of the model lies in the quality of your description. The better the prompt, the better the result.

Thus, generating video with Sora becomes a constant game of tweaking prompts, words, and phrasing.

Sora can definitely be considered one of the most advanced AI models for generating images and video.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $20/month)

Resolution

up to 1080p

Duration

up to 20 seconds

Generations

from 50 per month

Faster Generation

yes

Watermarks

no

Upscaling

no

Extension

no

Extra Features

yes

The free plan in Sora does not allow video generation at all—only image generation, limited to 3 per day.

9. Pika

Pika is another AI-powered video creation service, launched in 2023.

The platform is easy to use and designed for everyday users who are not experts in video editing or neural networks.

Its primary use case is modifying existing video footage: adding transitions, virtual characters, changing a person’s appearance, and more. Still, Pika can also generate videos from scratch.

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Pika’s features are standard for AI video services: generation from text, from images, or between two frames (start and end).

Maximum resolution is 1080p. Frame rate is 24 fps. Video duration is up to 10 seconds. Styles can vary—from cartoony to cinematic.

In short, Pika is a simple and convenient tool for quickly creating videos from text or images without powerful hardware. It’s especially useful for prototyping, social media, marketing, and advertising.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $10/month)

Resolution

up to 1080p

up to 1080p

Duration

up to 10 seconds

up to 10 seconds

Generations

up to 16 per month

from 70 per month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

no

Extension

no

no

Extra Features

no

yes

Pika’s free plan has generation limits—you can create videos, but in small quantities.

The standard paid plan increases your generation limits and unlocks newer model versions, but does not remove watermarks.

The professional plan removes all limitations, provides access to advanced tools, speeds up generation, and removes watermarks from final videos.

10. Veo

Veo is a video generation model developed in 2024 by DeepMind, a Google-owned company.

There are several ways to access the model:

Veo can be considered a full-fledged tool for creating high-quality, hyperrealistic clips indistinguishable from real footage. Of course, it also supports animation.

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Veo generates videos at 720p resolution, 24 fps, and up to 8 seconds long.

In private developer previews, 1080p resolution and 4K upscaling are available—but not yet public.

It accepts both text prompts and still images as input. For the latter, the neural network preserves the original composition and color palette.

Most importantly, Veo supports various cinematic effects: time-lapse, panorama, slow-mo, and many more—with flexible parameter control.

Veo ensures excellent consistency, stability, and smooth motion.

Every video generated includes a SynthID digital watermark, invisible to the human eye or ear—a tool developed by Google to help detect AI-generated media.

Thus, any image, video, or audio can be scanned using SynthID to verify AI generation.

Veo also pays attention to small details—hair movement, fabric fluttering, atmospheric behavior, and more. As they say, the devil is in the details.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans

Resolution

up to 720p

up to 720p

Duration

up to 8 seconds

up to 8 seconds

Generations

up to 30 per month

from 50 per month

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

no

Extension

no

no

Extra Features

no

yes

Like most Google cloud services, Veo uses pay-as-you-go pricing—$0.50 per second or $30 per minute of generated video.

So, a standard 10-second clip will cost $5—cheap for professionals, pricey for casual users.

11. Vidu

Vidu is a Chinese AI model developed in 2024 by ShengShu AI in collaboration with Tsinghua University. 

Vidu generates smooth, dynamic, and cohesive video clips, both realistic and animated. It can also add AI-generated audio tracks to videos.

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Vidu can accurately simulate the physical world, creating videos with developed characters, seamless transitions, and logical event chronology.

The platform offers three main tools: generation from text, from images, and from videos.

Additional tools include an AI voiceover generator and a collection of templates.

Maximum video resolution is 1080p. Max duration is 8 seconds. Frame rate is up to 24 fps.

The model is based on a "Universal Vision Transformer" (U-ViT) architecture, which processes text, image, and video inputs simultaneously to create coherent video sequences.

This ensures object consistency throughout the video.

For professionals and studios, Vidu is a powerful tool with great potential; for beginners, it’s an easy gateway into generative video.

 

Free Plan

Paid Plans (from $8/month)

Resolution

up to 1080p

up to 1080p

Duration

up to 8 seconds

up to 8 seconds

Generations

up to 40 per month

unlimited

Faster Generation

no

yes

Watermarks

yes

no

Upscaling

no

no

Extension

no

up to 16 seconds

Extra Features

no

yes

Which AI to choose?

The vast majority of AI video generation services have similar video parameters: resolution from 720p to 1080p, durations of 5 to 10 seconds, and frame rates around 24 fps.

Almost all can generate video based on text prompts, images, or video inputs.

Differences in output results are usually minor—video styles and presence of visual artifacts revealing the AI. 

The choice largely depends on your input and goals: text descriptions, images, or existing video.

Some AI models offer higher detail than others.

Always check the sample videos shown on service homepages.

And keep in mind: video is a much more complex data format than text. Unlike LLMs, completely free AI video generation tools don’t exist as training the models and powering generation requires significant resources.

That said, most services offer a low-tier paid plan that removes major limitations.

Name

Max Duration

Max Resolution

Max FPS

Starting Price

Kling

10 seconds

1080p

30 fps

$3/month

Hailuo AI

6 seconds

720p

25 fps

$14/month

Fliki

30 minutes

1080p

30 fps

$28/month

Dream Machine

10 seconds

1080p

24 fps

$9/month

Runway

10 seconds

720p

24 fps

$15/month

PixVerse

8 seconds

1080p

20 fps

$10/month

Genmo

5 seconds

480p

30 fps

$10/month

Sora

20 seconds

1080p

30 fps

$20/month

Pika

10 seconds

1080p

24 fps

$10/month

Veo

8 seconds

720p

24 fps

$0.50/sec

Vidu

8 seconds

1080p

24 fps

$8/month

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Faster progression: Gather resources, craft tools, and level up faster in cooperation with friends. Social connection: It's more fun to build, battle, and explore. PvP opportunities: Challenge others in combat or form alliances. Knowledge sharing: Let the new players learn quickly from experienced survivors. Multiplayer isn't just about more people—it's about better gameplay, deeper strategy, and shared stories that keep you coming back. Why Do You Need an ARK Dedicated Server? It’s not always useful to rely on public servers since they can lead to a traumatizing experience in ARK: Survival Evolved. A lot of external factors can ruin your game session, among them—lags, cheaters, trolls, server wipes. If you choose to run your own ARK server you become more worry-free of these problems if you have a desire to play peacefully. You can set your own rules, choose who gets access, and configure performance settings based on your needs. Want to tame dinos faster? Adjust the multipliers. Prefer PvE over PvP? You decide. Plus, your game world will stay active even when you’re not logged in. Hosting your own server (especially with Hostman’s VPS Server) helps you to stop relying on your own (or someone elses) hardware, which is often the case in peer-hosted multiplayer games. It can be frustrating when the host logs out or their machine crashes, meaning that session ends for everyone. A dedicated setup avoids this entirely. An example of how to setup your own rule on Ark dedicated server How To Setup an ARK Game Server: Detailed Guide Setting up an ARK dedicated server is pretty simple. Let’s show you some useful steps. Step 1: Prepare Your Server Before anything else, make sure your system meets the recommended ark server requirements: CPU: Quad-core, 3.5 GHz or higher RAM: At least 16 GB (more if using mods) Storage: 50 GB SSD minimum Upload Bandwidth: 20 Mbps+ You can use Windows or Linux, but many prefer Linux for its stability and lower resource consumption. Make sure your OS is 64-bit and kept up to date. Step 2: Install SteamCMD SteamCMD is the command-line tool used to install game server files. To install SteamCMD on Linux: sudo apt update && sudo apt install steamcmd On Windows: Download SteamCMD from the official site. Extract it to C:\steamcmd. Run steamcmd.exe. Step 3: Install ARK Server Files Create a folder for the ARK server installation: mkdir ark-server && cd ark-server Launch SteamCMD and download the ARK server using the anonymous login: steamcmd +login anonymous +force_install_dir ./ark-server +app_update 376030 validate +quit Use 2430930 if you want to install ARK: Survival Ascended instead of the classic version. Step 4: Configure the Server Once installed, navigate to: cd ark-server/ShooterGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/ Or on Windows: C:\ark-server\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsServer\ Create and edit these two files: GameUserSettings.ini Game.ini Basic settings to add: [ServerSettings] ServerAdminPassword=YourAdminPass ServerPassword=OptionalPlayerPass SessionName=HostmanARKServer Add any gameplay tweaks here as needed (e.g., dino taming speed, resource multipliers). Step 5: Open Required Ports Make sure your firewall and hosting provider allow traffic through these ports: UDP 7777 – Game port UDP 27015 – Query port UDP 27020 – RCON port (optional) On Linux: sudo ufw allow 7777/udp sudo ufw allow 27015/udp sudo ufw allow 27020/udp Step 6: Start the ARK Server You can launch the server using a startup script.  For Linux: ./ShooterGame/Binaries/Linux/ShooterGameServer TheIsland?SessionName=HostmanARKServer?ServerPassword=MyPass?ServerAdminPassword=MyAdminPass?listen -server -log For Windows, create a batch file like this: start ShooterGameServer.exe TheIsland?SessionName=HostmanARKServer?ServerPassword=MyPass?ServerAdminPassword=MyAdminPass?QueryPort=27015?Port=7777?listen Double-click the .bat file to start your server. Step 7: Join Your ARK Server To connect: Launch ARK: Survival Evolved Click Join ARK Set filter to Unofficial Search your server name or IP address If your server doesn’t appear, go to Steam → View → Servers → Favorites and manually add: your.server.ip:27015 Now you’re ready to enter your world! Conclusion Running your own ark dedicated server gives you full control over your ARK: Survival Evolved experience. This is way better if you want to dedicate your precious time to your beloved game, where you want to build a small and warm community of players. If you're just getting started, consider launching your ARK server on a reliable cloud provider. A VPS from Hostman, for example, allows you to scale resources as your community grows, while enjoying a simplified deployment process and responsive support. FAQ What are the minimum ARK server requirements? For smooth gameplay, your server should have at least a quad-core CPU (3.5 GHz or higher), 16 GB of RAM, and an SSD with 50 GB or more of free space. A stable internet connection with at least 20 Mbps upload speed is also essential. Can I host an ARK server on my own PC? Yes, you can self-host an ARK server from your own machine, but this works best for small groups and limited sessions.  How many players can join my ARK dedicated server? The player limit depends on your hardware and internet bandwidth. With proper specs (16 GB RAM and above), you can comfortably support 10–30 players. Is hosting an ARK server free? You can host it for free on your own hardware, but you’ll cover electricity, bandwidth, and maintenance costs.
31 July 2025 · 6 min to read
Infrastructure

What is GitOps and How to Use it?

GitOps is a new way of managing cloud infrastructure and deploying applications. Built on some familiar and recognizable developer workflows, GitOps helps you automate infrastructure changes, improve system reliability, and simplify continuous delivery. In this tutorial, you’ll learn what GitOps is, how it works, the tools behind it, and how to implement a GitOps pipeline using Kubernetes and Hostman-compatible workflows. GitOps working scheme Key Takeaways GitOps uses Git as the single source of truth for infrastructure and deployment. It relies on declarative configurations and automatic reconciliation. GitOps enables auditability, rollback, and faster deployments. It works particularly well with Kubernetes and cloud-native environments. Tools like Argo CD, Flux, and Helm are commonly used in GitOps pipelines. What Is GitOps? GitOps is a set of practices that uses Git repositories to manage both application code and infrastructure configurations. With its help, developers can get rid of using traditional manual revisions or ad hoc scripts, GitOps relies on Git as the authoritative source for your system’s desired state. This means your cluster configuration, deployment manifests, Helm charts, and more are stored and managed within a single Git repo. So, when you need to update infrastructure or release a new application version, you simply commit a change to Git. GitOps controllers then detect the change and automatically update the live environment to match. This shift brings the principles of software development—such as version control, collaboration, and CI/CD—to operations teams. GitOps is especially valuable in cloud-native environments, where teams work with Kubernetes or similar orchestration tools. GitOps Definition GitOps is a kind of workflow where infrastructure is treated as code (not as a full app or environment), stored in Git. It also reconciles with the actual running environment. This ensures consistency, traceability, and security throughout the deployment lifecycle. How Does GitOps Work? GitOps was created as the main tool to control your apps and infrastructure like the unified entity, which you control from a single Git repository. But how does it work? It’s simple - continuous reconciliation. A GitOps controller constantly checks for differences between the actual state of your infrastructure and the desired state stored in Git. If the live state drifts (due to unnecessary or planned changes) the controller detects the inconsistency and automatically reverts the environment back to the last known perfect state as defined in Git. This is something that makes GitOps a very useful tool. What Are the Main GitOps Tools? GitOps relies on several open-source tools that integrate with your existing CI/CD stack. Here's a quick overview of the most popular options: Argo CD Argo CD is a declarative continuous delivery tool built for Kubernetes. It syncs your manifests from Git to your clusters and helps you visualize deployment status. Flux Flux automates Kubernetes deployments using Git as the source of truth. It's lightweight and integrates well with Helm charts. Helm Helm is a Kubernetes package manager. It makes application definitions simpler and is often used in GitOps to manage complex deployments. Terraform Let’s not forget that Terraform is not GitOps-native, It’s mainly used in GitOps pipelines for managing infrastructure outside Kubernetes, for example DNS. Quick Overview of the GitOps Workflow A typical GitOps workflow involves several tightly integrated steps that form a reliable deployment pipeline. Let’s walk through the process from code commit to live deployment. A developer writes code and pushes it to a Git repository. A CI pipeline builds the code, creates a container image, and pushes it to a container registry. A change is made to a Kubernetes manifest or Helm chart in the Git repository. A GitOps controller (e.g., Argo CD or Flux) detects the change and applies it to the cluster. The cluster state is now aligned with the desired state declared in Git. The separation between CI and CD in this model ensures that your team remains focused on writing and testing code, while deployment and environment reconciliation are fully automated. This reduces risk, accelerates delivery, and improves infrastructure transparency. Benefits of GitOps GitOps offers several advantages for modern DevOps teams: Developer productivity: If you are already familiar with Git, you can easily apply your knowledge. Auditability: You can track and backup every change that was made during the development. Rollback support: You can easily revert changes at any moment if you need to.. Security: You can control access of your repositories all by yourself, without someone crushing into your code. Faster recovery: Everything is "on the air live”, so if you need to backup your file faster. How to Set Up a GitOps Pipeline Here’s a basic example of setting up a GitOps pipeline using Argo CD on a Kubernetes cluster. For Hostman, you can adapt these steps using custom infrastructure. Step 1: Install Argo CD Create a namespace for Argo CD: kubectl create namespace argocd Install Argo CD: kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml Step 2: Access the Argo CD UI Forward the Argo CD API server port: kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 8080:443 Visit https://localhost:8080 in your browser. Login with the default admin user and password (retrieved from the secret). How to Use GitOps with Kubernetes Now let’s connect your Git repository to Argo CD to start syncing Kubernetes manifests. Step 1: Define Your App Configuration In your Git repo, create a Kubernetes manifest, for example deployment.yaml: apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: hostman-web spec: replicas: 2 selector: matchLabels: app: hostman-web template: metadata: labels: app: hostman-web spec: containers: - name: web image: hostman/web-app:latest Commit and push the file to Git. Step 2: Create the Argo CD Application Use the Argo CD CLI or web UI to create a new application: argocd app create hostman-web \ --repo https://github.com/your-user/your-repo.git \ --path ./k8s \ --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \ --dest-namespace default Synchronize the app: argocd app sync hostman-web Argo CD will now monitor your repo and update the deployment automatically. Are There Disadvantages of GitOps? While GitOps offers many benefits, there are some challenges to consider: Git conflicts: When multiple teams edit code it can lead to some troubleshooting. Secret management: Git is a more “social” tool, when it comes to storing your secrets, so it’s better to use something else. Complexity at scale: Managing many environments and repositories sometimes becomes chaotic without proper management. Planning ahead and using a modular approach (e.g., mono or multi-repo strategies) can help mitigate these issues. Summary GitOps the bringer of power of Git to your infrastructures. GitOps is seeing your infrastructure as code and automates reconciliation, also let’s not forget that this instrument can enhance visibility, consistency, and deployment speed of your state of art work. FAQ What exactly is GitOps? GitOps is a tool to manage infrastructure and deployments using Git as the single source of truth. Is GitOps only for Kubernetes? While GitOps is a perfect fit for Kubernetes (because of its declarative nature), it’s not limited to it. You can apply GitOps principles to other infrastructure types too. What tools do I need to start with GitOps? Popular GitOps tools include Argo CD, Flux, and Jenkins X. If you're using Hostman, you can easily integrate Git-based workflows with Kubernetes and start automating deployments right away. Do I need to change how I write code? Not really. GitOps works with the Git workflows you're already using — like branches, pull requests, and commits. What changes is how those commits impact your infrastructure: once merged, your environment syncs with your repo automatically.  
30 July 2025 · 7 min to read

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