Skip to content
Starlite Docs

What are DORA and Engineering metrics?

If you’re here, you’re probably wondering, “What are DORA metrics, and why should I care?” Great question!

The DORA metrics (short for DevOps Research and Assessment) are the gold standard for measuring software delivery performance. They focus on two key areas: Throughput (how fast you’re delivering) and Stability (how reliable your deliveries are).

Here’s a quick breakdown:

Throughput Metrics

Throughput metrics track how quickly your team is shipping valuable changes to your users. These include:

  • Change Lead Time: How long does it take for a code change to go from commit to deployment? The shorter the lead time, the smoother your delivery pipeline is humming along.
  • Deployment Frequency: How often are you deploying changes? Frequent deployments mean you’re iterating quickly and keeping users happy with updates.

Stability Metrics

Stability metrics tell you how reliable and resilient your delivery process is. These include:

  • Change Failure Rate: What percentage of deployments result in failures (like rollbacks or hotfixes)? Lower is better here—fewer failures mean happier users and less midnight firefighting for your team.
  • Time to Restore Service: When things go wrong (and they will), how fast can you fix it? The faster you can recover, the more resilient your system is.

Why Do DORA Metrics Matter?

Tracking these metrics isn’t just about bragging rights (although being a “high-performing team” does sound nice). They give you actionable insights into how you’re doing and where you can improve.

And when paired with engineering metrics from our platform you get a full picture of how your processes stack up and where you can optimize. Let’s ship better software together!