How DevCycle Built The World's Fastest Feature-Flag-As-A-Service On Macrometa

Learn how developers deliver flags instantly to anywhere in the world

DevCycle by Taplytics is a developer-first feature management platform that focuses on the full lifecycle of feature development - from code to production, validation, testing, and iterating. They’ve partnered with Macrometa to build Edge Flags - an ultra low-latency global feature flags solution to deploy software faster and reduce release complexity.

What are feature flags?

Feature flags are a powerful tool that act as a toggle to switch features on and off. They are used to control the release of new features and functionality - especially to activate different features/functionality and experiences for different users.

Feature flags give development teams the ability to enable or disable features/functionality remotely without making experimental or embargoed features universally visible to users.

Feature flags decouple deployment from release - so engineers can quickly do their best work while product managers can get features out to users in the best way possible.

What is the DevCycle Edge Flags solution?

Real-time Edge Flags - the newest and fastest way to deliver feature flags using data stored at the edge- are a key differentiator of the DevCycle experience.

Data for feature targeting isn’t always where you need it at the time you need it. With Edge Flags, developers only have to send the information once and DevCycle delivers flags instantly to anywhere in the world.

Developers use Edge Flags to make near-instantaneous flagging decisions using simple User IDs with real-time user data. The data is globally replicated at the edge and this lets them pass data once and deliver the same experience everywhere - across all devices, anywhere in the world. So developers don't have to set up expensive data pipelines to sync data across multiple platforms, applications, or microservices.

Why Edge Flags?

With edge-localized data synchronization, developers ensure that feature flags are updated in real-time, providing a better experience for customers and making it easier to test and iterate on new features. Features are turned on or turned off in core services at the server level (or on the website and mobile app) and that decision is made and implemented immediately across the entire system.

Real-time feature flags provide an additional layer of control by allowing development teams to change the behavior of a feature on the fly, without having to rewrite or redeploy code. This can be useful for things like A/B testing, error handling, or instantly rolling back a feature that isn't performing as expected.

In terms of customer experience, Edge Flags can be used to serve up customized landing pages for different sets of customers. For example, if a retail store knows they have two sets of customers - one that prefers to walk into the store and another that prefers to shop online - they can set this preference as a flag that toggles different landing pages with custom walk-in or delivery options. These preferences can be baked into a simple property such as User ID that - combined with targeting rules - sets up personalized user experiences.

Learn more about Edge Flags in this blog from DevCycle Product Manager Victor Vucicevich.

How are Edge Flags implemented?

DevCycle used the Macrometa Global Data Network to support the near-zero latency that Edge Flags mandates. Macrometa’s flexible, ultra low-latency data layer purpose-built for global, real-time, and event-driven use cases helps them solve the problem of making data instantly available everywhere without passing it around anywhere. 

With Edge DB providing real-time user data, development teams can deliver flags in an instant - without complicated data pipelines or tradeoffs between storage and latency.

Curious what it takes to build a game-changing real-time feature flags solution? Watch Cobi Druxerman (Co-Founder & Head of Product at Taplytics and DevCycle) in conversation with Justin Johnson (Head of Product at Macrometa) as they discuss the practicalities of implementing Edge Flags while also elevating the developer experience.

Interested in digging deeper and seeing Edge Flags in action? Head to the Edge Flags on Macrometa demo.