Dark Launching vs Rolling Deployment

Developers should use dark launching when deploying high-risk features, conducting A/B testing, or gradually rolling out updates to minimize user impact meets developers should use rolling deployment in production environments where high availability is critical, such as for web applications, apis, or microservices that cannot afford extended outages. Here's our take.

Dark Launching

Nice Pick

Developers should use dark launching when deploying high-risk features, conducting A/B testing, or gradually rolling out updates to minimize user impact

Pros

• It's particularly valuable in large-scale applications where failures could affect many users, enabling safe experimentation and data collection
• Related to: feature-flags, continuous-deployment

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Rolling Deployment

Developers should use rolling deployment in production environments where high availability is critical, such as for web applications, APIs, or microservices that cannot afford extended outages

Pros

• It is particularly useful in cloud-based or containerized setups (e
• Related to: continuous-deployment, blue-green-deployment

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

Use Dark Launching if: You want it's particularly valuable in large-scale applications where failures could affect many users, enabling safe experimentation and data collection and can live with specific tradeoffs depend on your use case.

Use Rolling Deployment if: You prioritize it is particularly useful in cloud-based or containerized setups (e over what Dark Launching offers.

The Bottom Line

Dark Launching wins

Developers should use dark launching when deploying high-risk features, conducting A/B testing, or gradually rolling out updates to minimize user impact