Based on two decades of deploying and rolling back software and seven years of helping customers achieve their CD goals, this session debunks myths about canary deployments. While they are viewed as essential to progressive delivery, they are far from a universal solution.

Canary deployments rarely uncover last-minute issues in strong CI/CD pipelines. They demand significant investment in deployment processes, database compatibility, and rollback strategies—often outweighing the benefits. Most importantly, they lack precision, requiring workarounds for targeting subsets of users.

This session shows that OpenFeature meets progressive delivery goals without overhauling your build and deployment processes. It allows you to separate deploying new versions from releasing functionality. Rollbacks require a simple toggle instead of redirecting to an old version. With segmentation, OpenFeature enables targeted rollouts to specific users or groups, gathering feedback over time.