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What are Feature Flags?

Development teams use feature flags to manage releases, measure user impact, and reduce deployment risk.

Feature flags are a development strategy that helps teams…

  • Introduce updates in controlled phases
  • Seamlessly control application behavior
  • Personalize user interactions
  • Adapt content to regional regulations
  • Rapidly address bugs and performance glitches
  • Implement effective A/B testing
  • Rollback a problematic release

A feature flag can be described as...

A conditional statement that toggles specific functionality on or off based on a configuration.

But what is "Feature Flagging"?

Feature flagging is a software development technique that allows teams to modify system or application behavior without changing any source code. It supports teams looking to:

Activate or deactivate specific application functionality

Control the visibility of certain features

Conditionally change feature behavior in real-time

Feature flags make it easy to implement these development strategies

[Canary Releases & Dark Launches

Safely deploy a new feature to a small group of users for early feedback.

LEARN MORE](https://blog.devcycle.com/canary-releases-explained/) [Kill Switches

If a feature isn't working right, turn it off and fix it for your users.

LEARN MORE](https://blog.devcycle.com/code-kill-switches-explained/)

[Product Experimentation

Run experiments and A/B tests to determine the impact of your changes.

LEARN MORE](/content/blog/announcing-ab-testing-experimentation-platform-for-feature-flags/index.html)
[Progressive Delivery

Employ safety measures and control mechanisms that reduce the risks associated with deploying new code to prod.

LEARN MORE](https://blog.devcycle.com/progressive-delivery-explained/)
[Infrastructure Migration

Safely move from on-prem to a cloud provider using feature flags to avoid downtime.

LEARN MORE](https://blog.devcycle.com/infrastructure-migrations-explained/)

What is Feature Management?

Feature management refers to a modern toolset for managing feature flags at scale that provides a framework for feature flag-driven development practices. It includes features that help you streamline flag implementation across teams, platforms, and applications.

Types of Feature Flags

Feature flag categories were initially coined by Pete Hodgson in this iconic blog post.

Releases

Release feature flags are used to separate a feature from deployment and allow for a true continuous delivery cycle.

Experiments

Experiment feature flags can be used to run A/B and multivariate experiments to monitor the impacts of different code paths or provide different variations of a single feature.

Permissions

Permission feature flags are used to manage different product features that are gated based on user properties.

Ops

Ops feature flags are intended to live in your code long-term, allowing you to disable or degrade features that are having a negative impact on performance and stability.

10 Real-Life Use Cases for Feature Flags

01
Publishers use DevCycle to add Google SSO to their authentication system

02
Sports fan Apps use DevCycle to push real-time updates to their users

03
Marketing firms use DevCycle to experiment with new features across multiple domains

04
SaaS companies use DevCycle to customize their new user experience based on their interests

05
Mobile app companies use DevCycle to experiment with different landing pages

06
Marketplaces use DevCycle to show real-time recommendations to their power users

07
Banks use DevCycle to launch new browser extensions

08
Fintech companies use DevCycle to show their users different features based on their plan

09
Devtool companies use DevCycle to migrate from one database to another without downtime

10
eCommerce companies use DevCycle to rapidly launch new products to targeted user groups

11
DevCycle (👋) uses DevCycle to keep this list fresh and relevant without deploying new code!

What is OpenFeature and how does it work with feature flags?

OpenFeature is an open specification that provides a vendor-agnostic, community-driven API for feature flagging that works with your favorite feature flag management tool.

  • Developed by industry experts
  • Avoid vendor lock-in at the code level
  • Ultimate flexibility with standardized SDKs

DevCycle SDKs are built from the ground up to support the OpenFeature standard, making it a great choice for future proofing your product.

Feature Flag FAQs

Everything you need to know about feature flags, their benefits, risks, and best practices.

  • What is a feature flag?+
  • Why do teams use feature flags?+
  • What are the main types of feature flags?+
  • How do feature flags work in practice?+
  • What are best practices for managing feature flags?+
  • How do feature flags support experimentation?+
  • How do feature flags differ from configuration flags?+
  • How do I implement feature flags in my application?+
  • What is the OpenFeature standard?+
  • How do feature flags help with continuous delivery?+
  • How should I test code that uses feature flags?+
  • What is progressive delivery and how do feature flags enable it?+