Artifactory

A universal repository for build artifacts and packages

Artifactory is the repository manager at the center of the JFrog platform, the product enterprises use to store, version and move the binaries their software builds produce. JFrog describes it as the first universal artifact repository manager, saying it supports packages created in any language or technology, so a team does not need a separate store for each ecosystem. It also calls it the only enterprise-ready repository manager that can run secure, clustered, high-availability Docker registries.

Tracking artifacts from development to production

The vendor says Artifactory integrates with the major CI/CD and DevOps tools and gives an automated way to follow an artifact from the developer's machine through to production. This is the idea behind its wider message that software has to be controlled before it can be secured: if an organization does not know which packages are in use and where they came from, it cannot protect them. The platform it belongs to is described as hybrid and multi-cloud, with updates reaching all the way from code to edge devices.

The products around it

Artifactory is sold alongside other JFrog products that cover neighboring stages of delivery:

• Xray, for software composition analysis, infrastructure-as-code scanning and container security with contextual analysis.
• Pipelines, a CI/CD pipeline for the enterprise.
• Distribution, for releasing software in a trusted way.
• Container Registry, a hybrid Docker and Helm registry.
• Connect, which brings DevOps practice to connected devices.

Use cases and industries

JFrog groups the platform under four use cases: artifact management, described as scalable binary lifecycle management; software supply chain security; pipeline automation; and edge and IoT device management. The industries it names are financial services, automotive, healthcare, technology and software, gaming and government. For customers there are user guides, a knowledge base, an academy, DevOps consulting and certification, webinars and a cloud customer portal.