Security is a team sport: why everyone owns it now

Six security takeaways from Docker’s 2025 State of Application Development Report.

In the evolving world of software development, one thing is clear — security is no longer a siloed specialty. It’s a team sport, especially when vulnerabilities strike. That’s one of several key security findings in the 2025 Docker State of Application Development Survey.

Here’s what else we learned about security from our second annual report, which was based on an online survey of over 4,500 industry professionals.

1. Security isn’t someone else’s problem

Forget the myth that only “security people” handle security. Across orgs big and small, roles are blending. If you’re writing code, you’re in the security game. As one respondent put it, “We don’t have dedicated teams — we all do it.” According to the survey, just 1 in 5 organizations outsource security. And it’s top of mind at most others: only 1% of respondents say security is not a concern at their organization.

One exception to this trend: In larger organizations (50 or more employees), software security is more likely to be the exclusive domain of security engineers, with other types of engineers playing less of a role.

2. Everyone thinks they’re in charge of security

Team leads from multiple corners report that they’re the ones focused on security. Seasoned developers are as likely to zero in on it as are mid-career security engineers. And they’re both right. Security has become woven into every function — devs, leads, and ops alike.

3. When vulnerabilities hit, it’s all hands on deck

No turf wars here. When scan alerts go off, everyone pitches in — whether it’s security engineers helping experienced devs to decode scan results, engineering managers overseeing the incident, or DevOps engineers filling in where needed.

Fixing vulnerabilities is also a major time suck. Among security-related tasks that respondents routinely deal with, it was the most selected option across all roles. Worth noting: Last year’s State of Application Development Survey identified security/vulnerability remediation tools as a key area where better tools were needed in the development process.

4. Security isn’t the bottleneck — planning and execution are

Surprisingly, security doesn’t crack the top 10 issues holding teams back. Planning and execution-type activities are bigger sticking points. Translation? Security is better integrated into the workflow than many give it credit for. 

5. Shift-left is yesterday’s news

The once-pervasive mantra of “shift security left” is now only the 9th most important trend. Has the shift left already happened? Is AI and cloud complexity drowning it out? Or is this further evidence that security is, by necessity, shifting everywhere?

Again, perhaps security tools have gotten better, making it easier to shift left. (Our 2024 survey identified the shift-left approach as a possible source of frustration for developers and an area where more effective tools could make a difference.) Or perhaps there’s simply broader acceptance of the shift-left trend.

6. Shifting security left may not be the buzziest trend, but it’s still influential

The impact of shifting security left pales beside more dominant trends such as Generative AI and infrastructure as code. But it’s still a strong influence for developers in leadership roles. 

Bottom line: Security is no longer a roadblock; it’s a reflex. Teams aren’t asking, “Who owns security?” — they’re asking, “How can we all do it better?”

Welcome to the third annual Docker State of Application Development survey!

Please help us better understand and serve the application development  community with just 20-30 minutes of your time. We want to know where you’re focused, what you’re working on, and what is most important to you. Your thoughts and feedback will help us build the best products and experiences for you.

And, we don’t just keep this information for ourselves — we share with you¹! We hope you saw our recent report on the 2023 State of Application Development Survey. The engagement of our community allowed us to better understand where developers are facing challenges, what tools they like, and what they’re excited about. We’ve been using this information to give our community the tools and features they need.

Take the Docker State of Application Development survey now!

By participating in the survey, you can be entered into a raffle for a chance to win² one of the following prizes:

• 1 laptop computer (an Apple M3 Macbook Pro 16″)
• 2 game consoles with VR headsets: Playstation Virtual Reality Headset and a Playstation 5
• 5 $300 Amazon.com gift cards 
• 50 exclusive Docker swag sets 

Additionally, the first 200 respondents to complete the survey will receive an exclusive pair of Docker socks!

The survey is open from September 23rd, 2024 (7AM PST) to November 20, 2024 (11:59PM PST). 

We’ll choose the winners randomly in accordance with the promotion official rules.* Winners will be notified via email by January 10, 2025.

The Docker State of Application Development Survey only takes about 20-30 minutes to complete. We appreciate every contribution and opinion. Your voice counts!

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1. Data will be reported publicly only in aggregate and without personally identifying information. ↩︎
2. Docker State of Application Development Promotion Official Rules. ↩︎

Docker launched its 2024 State of Application Development Report, providing a deep-focus snapshot of today’s rapidly evolving world of software development. Based on a wide-ranging survey of more than 1,300 respondents, the report shares a broad array of findings about respondents’ work, including what tools they use, their processes and frustrations, opinions about industry trends, participation in developer communities, Docker usage, and more.

What emerges is an illuminating picture of the current state of application development, along with insights into key trends such as the expanding roles of cloud and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) in software development, the continued rise of microservices, and attitudes toward the shift-left approach to security.

Reflecting the changing state of the industry, the 2024 report drills down into three main areas: 

• The state of application development today 
• AI’s expanding role in application development
• Security in application development

The online survey is a key vector through which Docker product managers, engineers, and designers gather insights from users to continuously develop and improve the company’s suite of tools.

“The findings in this report demonstrate how Docker continuously seeks to address market needs so that we can better empower development teams not just to compete, but to thrive and innovate with the right processes and tools for their workflows,” said Nahid Samsami, Vice President of Developer Experience at Docker.

Read on for key findings from this year’s report and download the full report for more details.

The rise of cloud for software development

A key insight was the growing popularity of developing software in the cloud. When asked about their main development environment, almost 64% of respondents cited their laptop or desktop. But the real story is that more than 36% cited non-local environments, such as ephemeral environments, personal remote dev environments or clusters, and remote development tools such as GitHub Codespaces, Gitpod, and Coder.

These findings appear to underscore the growing popularity of developing software in the cloud — a trend fanned by benefits such as increased efficiency, shorter build times, reduced time to market, and faster innovation. 

Why this apparent increase in reliance on cloud during development? It seems likely that the growing size of applications is a factor, along with the increasing number of dependencies and overall growth in complexity — all of which would render an all-local environment difficult, if not impossible, to maintain in parity with production.

AI/ML goes mainstream in app development

Another key finding was the growing penetration of AI/ML into the software development field. Most respondents (64%) reported already using AI for work — for tasks such as code writing, documentation, and research.

This trend is notably driven by junior/mid-level developers and DevOps/platform engineers, who expressed a higher dependency on AI compared with senior developers surveyed. In terms of AI tools, respondents most often used ChatGPT (46%), GitHub Copilot (30%), and Gemini (formerly Bard) (19%).

This year’s survey showed a growing interest in ML engineering and data science within the Docker community. When asked if they were working on ML in any capacity, almost half of respondents (46%) replied in the affirmative. Within that group, 54% said that they trained and deployed ML models in one or more projects, 43% worked on ML infrastructure, and 39% leveraged pre-trained ML models.

Where developers get stuck

A primary goal of the survey was to gain insights into how Docker can improve the app development experience. When we asked where their team gets stuck in the development process, respondents cited multiple stages, including planning (31%), estimation (24%), and designing (22%). Planning was also one of the most-selected areas in which respondents desired better tools (28% of respondents). 

These findings demonstrate that respondents hit sticking points in project-level tasks before development. However, there are areas identified for improvement within the development process itself, as 20% of respondents reported getting stuck during debugging/troubleshooting or testing phases. Testing was also one of the top areas in which respondents wanted better tools (28%).

Microservices, security, and open source

Other notable trends include the continued rise of microservices, frustration with the shift-left approach to security, and interest in open source. Underscoring the growing popularity of microservices, nearly three times more respondents (29%) said they were transitioning from monolithic to microservices than were moving in the other direction, from microservices to monolithic (11%).

The shift-left approach to security appears to be a source of frustration for developers and an area where more effective tools could make a difference. Security-related tasks topped the list of those deemed difficult/very difficult, with 34% of respondents selecting one of these options. Regarding the need for better tools in the development process, 25% of respondents selected security/vulnerability remediation tools (behind testing, planning, and monitoring/logging/maintenance).

Open source software is important to developer ecosystems and communities, with 59% of respondents saying they contributed to open source in the past year, compared with 41% saying they did not. Of the 41% who did not contribute, a large majority (72%) expressed interest in contributing to open source, while less than 25% did not. 

Get the full report

The 2024 Docker State of Application Development Report is based on an online, 20-minute survey conducted by Docker’s User Research Team in the fall of 2023. Survey respondents ranged from home hobbyists to professionals at companies with more than 5,000 employees. The findings are based on 885 completed responses from the roughly 1,300 respondents surveyed. 

The survey was developed to inform Docker’s product strategy. Given the fascinating information we discovered, we wanted to share the findings with the community. This was the second annual Docker State of Application Development survey; the third will take place in the fall of 2024. 

Download the full report now. 

Learn more

• Read the AI Trends Report 2024: AI’s Growing Role in Software Development.
• Subscribe to the Docker Newsletter.
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.

Docker’s User Research Team — Olga Diachkova, Julia Wilson, and Rebecca Floyd — conducted this survey, analyzed the results, and provided insights.

For a complete methodology, contact uxresearch@docker.com.

The landscape of application development is rapidly evolving, propelled by the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the development process. Results in the Docker AI Trends Report 2024, a precursor to the upcoming State of Application Development Report, show interesting AI trends among developers, highlighted in this report.

The most recent Docker State of Application Development Survey results offer insights into how developers are adopting and utilizing AI, reflecting a shift toward more intelligent, efficient, and adaptable development methodologies. This transformation is part of a larger trend observed across the tech industry as AI becomes increasingly central to software development.

The annual Docker State of Application Development survey, conducted by our User Research Team, is one way Docker product managers, engineers, and designers gather insights from Docker users to continuously develop and improve the suite of tools the company offers. For example, in Docker’s 2022 State of Application Development Survey, we found that the task for which Docker users most often refer to support/documentation was creating a Dockerfile (reported by 60% of respondents). This finding helped spur the innovation of Docker AI.

More than 1,300 developers participated in the latest Docker State of Application Development survey, conducted in late 2023. The online survey asked respondents about what tools they use, their application development processes and frustrations, feelings about industry trends, Docker usage, and participation in developer communities. We wanted to know where developers are focused, what they’re working on, and what is most important to them.

Of the approximately 1,300 respondents to the survey, 885 completed it. The findings in this report are based on the 885 completed responses.

Who responded to the Docker survey?

Respondents who took our survey ranged from home hobbyists to professionals at companies with more than 5,000 employees. Forty-two percent of respondents are working for a small company (up to 100 employees), 28% of participants say they work for mid-sized companies (between 100 and 1,000 employees), and 25% work for large companies (more than 1,000 employees). 

Well over half of the respondents were in engineering roles — for example, 36% of respondents identified as back-end or full-stack developers; 21% were DevOps, infrastructure managers, or platform engineers; and 4% were front-end developers. Other roles of respondents included dev/engineering managers, company leadership, product managers, security roles, and AI/ML roles. There was nearly an even split between respondents with more experience (6+ years, 54%) and less experienced (0-5 years, 46%). 

Our survey underscored a marked growth in roles focused on machine learning (ML) engineering and data science within the Docker ecosystem. In our 2022 survey, approximately 1% of respondents represented this demographic, whereas they made up 8% in the most recent survey. ML engineers and data scientists represent a rapidly expanding user base. This signals the growing relevance of AI to the software development field, and the blurring of the lines between tools used by developers and tools used by AI/ML scientists. 

More than 34% of respondents said they work in the computing or IT/SaaS industry, but we also saw responses from individuals working in accounting, banking, or finance (8%); business, consultancy, or management (7%); engineering or manufacturing (6%), and education (5%). Other responses came in from professionals in a wide range of fields, including media; academic research; transport or logistics; retail; marketing, advertising, or PR; charity or volunteer work; healthcare; construction; creative arts or design; and environment or agriculture.

Docker users made up 87% of our respondents, whereas 13% reported that they do not use Docker.  

AI as an up-and-coming trend

We asked participants what they felt were the most important trends currently in the industry. GenAI (40% of respondents) and AI assistants for software engineering (38% of respondents) were the top-selected options identified as important industry trends in software development. More senior developers (back-end, front-end, and full-stack developers with over 5 years of experience) tended to view GenAI as most important, whereas more junior developers (less than 5 years of experience) view AI assistants for software engineering as most important. This difference may signal varied and unique uses of AI throughout a career in software development.

It’s clearly trendy, but how do developers really feel about AI? The majority (65%) agree that AI is a positive option, it makes their jobs easier (61%), and it allows them to focus on more important tasks (55%). A much smaller number of respondents see AI as a threat to their jobs (23%) or say it makes their jobs more difficult (19%). 

Interestingly, despite high usage and generally positive feelings towards AI, 45% of respondents also reported that they feel AI is over-hyped. Why might this be? It’s not fully clear, but when this finding is considered alongside responses to perception of job threat, one possible answer could be entertained: respondents may be viewing AI as a critical and useful tool for their work, but they’re not too worried about the hype of it replacing them anytime soon.  

How AI is used in the developer’s world

We asked users what they use AI for, how dependent they feel on AI, and what AI tools they use most often. A majority of developers (64%) already report using AI for work, underscoring AI’s penetration into the software development field. Developers leverage AI at work mainly for coding (33% of respondents), writing documentation (29%), research (28%), writing tests (23%), troubleshooting/debugging (21%), and CLI commands (20%). 

For the 568 respondents who indicated they use AI for work, we also asked how dependent they felt on AI to get their job done on a scale of 0 (not at all dependent) to 10 (completely dependent). Responses ranged substantially and varied by role and years of experience, but the overall average reported dependence was about 4 out of 10, indicating relatively low dependence.

In the developer toolkit, respondents indicate that AI tools like ChatGPT (46% of respondents), GitHub Copilot (30%), and Bard (19%) stand out as most frequently used. 

Conclusion

Concluding our 2024 Docker AI Trends Report, Artificial Intelligence is already shifting the way software development is approached. The insights from more than 800 respondents in our latest survey illuminate a path toward a future where AI is seamlessly integrated into every aspect of application development. From coding and documentation to debugging and writing tests, AI tools are becoming indispensable in enhancing efficiency and problem-solving capabilities, allowing developers to focus on more creative and important work.

The uptake of AI tools such as ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and Bard among developers is a testament to AI’s value in the development process. Moreover, the growing interest in machine learning engineering and data science within the Docker community signals a broader acceptance and integration of AI technologies.

As Docker continues to innovate and support developers in navigating these changes, the evolving landscape of AI in software development presents both opportunities and challenges. Embracing AI as a positive force that can augment human capabilities rather than replace them is crucial. Docker is committed to facilitating this transition by providing tools and resources that empower developers to leverage AI effectively, ensuring they can remain at the forefront of technological innovation.

Looking ahead, Docker will continue to monitor these trends, adapt our offerings accordingly, and support our user community in harnessing the full potential of AI in software development. As the industry evolves, so too will Docker’s role in shaping the future of application development, ensuring our users are equipped to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead in this exciting era of AI-driven development.

Learn more

• Introducing a New GenAI Stack: Streamlined AI/ML Integration Made Easy
• Get started with the GenAI Stack: Langchain + Docker + Neo4j + Ollama
• Building a Video Analysis and Transcription Chatbot with the GenAI Stack
• Docker Partners with NVIDIA to Support Building and Running AI/ML Applications
• Build Multimodal GenAI Apps with OctoAI and Docker
• How IKEA Retail Standardizes Docker Images for Efficient Machine Learning Model Deployment
• Case Study: How Docker Accelerates ZEISS Microscopy’s AI Journey
• Docker AI: From Prototype to CI/CD Pipeline solutions brief
• Containerize a GenAI app (use case guide)

Docker’s User Research Team — Olga Diachkova, Julia Wilson, and Rebecca Floyd — conducted this survey, analyzed the results, and provided insights.

For a complete methodology, contact uxresearch@docker.com.