StackStorm is a free, open-source automation engine for DevOps, security, and ChatOps workflows. See features, history, and use cases.
StackStorm is a free, open-source, event-driven automation engine that connects applications, infrastructure, and monitoring systems so teams can automate remediation, deployments, and operational workflows. It was founded in 2013 by Evan Powell and Dmitri Zimine, with early backing from XSeed Capital, and launched out of stealth in 2014 as a company headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
StackStorm's ownership changed hands twice: Brocade Communications Systems acquired the company in 2016, and Brocade's data center networking assets, including StackStorm, moved to Extreme Networks in 2017. In October 2019, Extreme Networks transitioned the open-source project to the Linux Foundation, giving it neutral, community-based governance that continues today with no single commercial vendor behind the core software.
StackStorm centers on an automation rules engine that reacts to events from connected systems, ranging from simple if-this-then-that triggers to complex, multi-step workflows defined in YAML. It integrates with infrastructure tools, monitoring systems, and chat platforms to support ChatOps-style automation, where teams trigger and observe automation directly from a chat interface. StackStorm also supports automated remediation, where it detects an issue through an event trigger and runs a predefined recovery workflow without human intervention, a pattern popularized by Netflix's internally built Winston platform on top of StackStorm.
StackStorm is completely free and open source, distributed under an open-source license and governed as a Linux Foundation project with no company selling paid tiers of the core software. There is no official enterprise edition or vendor-provided SLA; organizations that want commercial support typically work with third-party partners such as Encore Technologies, Bitovi, Ammeon, or Orchestral rather than paying StackStorm itself.
Yes, StackStorm is completely free and open source, governed as a Linux Foundation project.
StackStorm was founded in 2013 by Evan Powell and Dmitri Zimine.
Yes, StackStorm continues to be maintained as an open-source project under Linux Foundation governance, though development pace has slowed since its earlier commercially backed years.
StackStorm was acquired by Brocade Communications Systems in 2016, transitioned to Extreme Networks in 2017, and moved to the Linux Foundation in 2019.
StackStorm is used for event-driven DevOps automation, ChatOps, automated incident remediation, and security orchestration and response.
Not directly from StackStorm itself; commercial support is available through third-party partners such as Encore Technologies and Bitovi.
Notable users have included Netflix, which built its Winston remediation platform on StackStorm, along with Pearson and Target.
StackStorm workflows and automation packs are typically defined in YAML.