This year’s Companies to Watch in 2020 really highlights the seismic shifts that have been occurring in our industry. While the seminal development steps of project management, code notation and debugging are represented, so are serverless management, containerization and APIs. These companies are making products that set them apart in a crowded landscape, and are the ones that we’re keeping our eyes on. You should too.

Clubhouse
What they do: Software project management
Why we are watching: Clubhouse offers an alternative to Jira that gives developers a traditional view of work in progress as well as providing the ability to pull back from the weeds to take a strategic look at development efforts.

Cockroach Labs
What they do: Database management
Why we are watching: The company’s flagship product CockroachDB is a open-source, cloud-native SQL database that scales horizontally without reconfiguration of massive architectural overhauls. 

CodeStream
What they do: Code notation
Why we are watching: The company offers a Google Docs-like system of commenting and making suggestions in codebases. This tool allows development teams to share and retain knowledge about their codebase in an intuitive way. 

Codice Software
What they do: Software configuration management 
Why we are watching; Codice has been around  since 2005, but this year the company caught our eye with its latest product Plastic SCM. The solution uses mergebots to automate DevOps through version control. 

Harness
What they do: Continuous Delivery as a service
Why we are watching: With executives who founded AppDynamics and pioneered Continuous Delivery at Apple, this company is automating the entire CD process. Also, big-money backers. 

Hyscale
What they do: Containerized delivery platform
Why we are watching: Hyscale automates and auto-generates the artifacts required for application delivery in containers, helping organization bring workloads into Kubernetes.

OzCode
What they do: Debugging
Why we are watching: OzCode wants to reduce the time it takes to debug a service from days to hours and even minutes. The company recently released a debugging as a service solution that provides “pre-bugging” capabilities, enabling developers to find and fix bugs before they happen. 

ProdPerfect
What they do: Automated testing
Why we are watching: Their platform offers hands-off automated QA testing for web applications, understanding that the customer experience is critical for engagement and to drive sales.

Snyk
What they do: Open-source security
Why we are watching: The use of open-source software is only continuing to rise. Snyk aims to provide solutions that automatically find and fix open-source vulnerabilities. 

Solo.io
What they do: API Gateway 
Why we are watching: Solo.io allows companies to transform legacy applications into microservices. As microservices continue becoming the new normal, it will be crucial for companies to find ways to efficiently update their old monolithic applications. 

Tidelift
What they do: Managed open source 
Why we are watching: This company is turning open source upside down, paying developers to maintain open-source code for Tidelift’s customers, so they know they’re getting the latest updates and most secure versions.

TriggerMesh
What they do: Serverless management
Why we are watching: The use of microservices, cloud and now functions can cause a lot of complexity for developers. TriggerMesh takes over the mundane and time-consuming tasks by automating the deployment of functions into the cloud and integrating with popular serverless frameworks. The company recently partnered with GitLab to bring serverless capabilities to DevOps.