Salesforce Deployment Tools 2025

In this post, we will cover deployment tools for Salesforce. In 2025, Salesforce deployment continues to evolve, offering a range of tools and strategies to enhance the deployment process. Here are some key tools and methods expected to be essential for Salesforce deployments:

Salesforce Deployment Tools

Several tools are currently available to manage Salesforce deployments; here is a list of them.

1. Salesforce Change Sets
2. Salesforce ANT Migration Tool
3. Salesforce CLI (Command Line Interface)
4. Salesforce DevOps Center
5. Metadata API
6. Salesforce Package
7. Deployment using workbench

1. Salesforce Change Sets

A change set is a means by which one organization can send customizations to another organization. Change sets in Salesforce are groupings of components that can be deployed from one Salesforce org to another Salesforce org. This is an out-of-the-box deployment user interface tool provided by Salesforce. Change sets contain information about the org. They don’t contain data such as records.

Learn about the Salesforce Change set.

2. Ant Migration Tool

This tool, based on Apache Ant, is designed for developers who need to deploy metadata in bulk. It’s ideal for complex deployments and automation.

The Salesforce Ant Migration Tool is retired with Spring ’24. The tool continues to function for future API versions but isn’t updated with new functionality and isn’t supported. To manage metadata changes, switch to Salesforce CLI for a modern, supported developer experience.

3. Salesforce CLI (Command Line Interface)

A powerful tool that enables developers to manage Salesforce applications and automate deployment processes using command-line commands.

Check Salesforce DX Useful CLI Commands.

An integrated set of tools that streamlines the development process and enables better collaboration. It also offers a more modern way to manage version control and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD).

4. Salesforce DevOps Center

A tool that provides a user-friendly interface for managing development workflows and deployments. It integrates with version control systems and promotes best practices in DevOps.

Learn more.

5. Metadata API

For developers looking to manage and deploy metadata programmatically, the Metadata API remains a core component for integrating custom deployment solutions.

6. Salesforce Package

A package is a container for something as small as an individual component or as large as a set of related apps. After creating a package, you can distribute it to other Salesforce users and organizations, including those outside your company. An organization can create a single managed package that can be downloaded and installed by many organizations.

Learn more.

Difference between unmanaged packages, managed packaged, and unlocked packages.

Unmanaged Package	Managed Package	Unlocked Package
Not upgradable	Upgradable, and one can namespace them or choose not to	Upgradable and one can namespace them or choose not to
Metadata elements are not IP Protected	Metadata elements are IP Protected	Metadata elements are not locked and can be changed by system admins
Allows for the creation of extension packages	Can be created in salesforce UI and distributed via appexchange	Requires Salesforce CLI to generate them
Unmanaged package containers automatically pull dependency	Components are locked and one cannot modify them directly in production or sandbox	Allows you to build your applications in a modular way
	It is easier to manage when codebase is modularized	It is easier to manage when the codebase is modularized

7. Deployment using workbench

You can also deploy using the workbench Migration option. You need to create on zip folder with metadata and package.xml which you can upload to start the deployment. Please check this post to learn about how to do deployments using the workbench.

Third-party Salesforce deployment tools

Here is a list of third-party tools for deployment in Salesforce.

• Copado
• Flosum
• AutoRabit
• Gearset

Salesforce DevOps Tools

There are different DevOps Tools available, which can be divided into the below category. Learn more.

Salesforce deployment best practices

Here are some Salesforce deployment best practices.

1. Develop Environment Strategy: Design Sandbox Strategies for your deployment. Learn more about Sandbox Design Strategies for Enterprise Implementations.
2. Define your Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
3. Create Release release management Strategy and deployment calendar.

Summary

As organizations continue to move toward DevOps practices, the combination of these tools will be crucial in ensuring efficient and successful Salesforce deployments in 2025. Proper training and adherence to best practices will be essential to leverage these tools effectively. Salesforce DevOps and Salesforce DevOps Center is future of Salesforce deployment. Learn about Salesforce DevOps.