YAML vs Classic Azure Pipelines
An honest comparison based on experience.
Classic pipelines are set up using a UI and clicking around, moving through tabs, and choosing between the options the UI shows you. The same definition applies to release pipelines, the difference is that the former are used generally to build applications and the latter to deploy them.
On the other hand, YAML pipelines are set up using code on, you guessed it, a YAML file. Azure DevOps has a task assistant that helps you find the tasks you need and add them to the YAML file.
You can build and deploy an application using classic pipelines. However, release pipelines have more features to manage deployments for different environments, triggers, pre, and post-deployment conditions, etc.
With YAML pipelines you can build and deploy an application as well. They have something called “deployment jobs” and “environments” that can be used to deploy to different environments, similar to what the release pipelines do.
Pros and Cons
YAML Pipelines
✅ Collaboration is easier since it is code and it can be treated as such (code reviews, pull requests, formatting tools, in-code comments).
