# 90DaysOfDevOps: A Community Learning Map That Is Not a Course

> MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps is a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 written curriculum covering DevOps, DevSecOps and community sessions. It is a reading and watching resource, not a tool you install, and its licence blocks commercial reuse.

**MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps** — This repository started out as a learning in public project for myself and has now become a structured learning map for many in the community. We have 3 years under our belt covering all things DevOps, including Principles, Processes, Tooling and Use Cases surrounding this vast topic. 

- Repository: https://github.com/MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps
- Website: https://www.90daysofdevops.com/
- Stars: 29,783 · Forks: 6,758
- Language: Shell
- License: NOASSERTION
- Published: 2026-09-11 · Updated: 2026-09-11 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/michaelcade-90daysofdevops

## What 90DaysOfDevOps actually is, and who it is written for

The README describes the origin plainly: it started on 1 January 2022 as a personal learning-in-public project and ran to 31 March 2022, which is the 90 days in the name. What remains in the repository is the written record of that run plus two later editions. The top level holds 2022.md, 2023.md and 2024.md, each paired with a directory of the same name, so the structure is a year-by-year index rather than a single book.

The audience is someone who wants foundational coverage of DevOps principles, processes and tooling without paying a vendor for it. The README states the project is not sponsored by any vendor and that everything is accessible using free, community and open source software. That constraint shapes the content: expect Ansible, Terraform, containers, Kubernetes, networking and backup, the topics listed on the repository, discussed with free tooling rather than a commercial platform.

The README is also honest about scope. It says the material will not cover all things DevOps, only areas that benefit your learning and understanding overall. Treat that as the contract. This is a map, not an encyclopedia.

## Three editions, three different media: DevOps, DevSecOps and the Community Edition

The 2022 edition is the original written run. The README calls it 110k words, which is roughly book length, and attributes the text to the author with corrections and additions from the community. The 2023 edition shifts emphasis to security, described as DevSecOps with perspectives from community subject matter experts, covering topics the 2022 run did not reach. The 2024 edition is different again: the README describes it as a Community Edition with 91 sessions shared on YouTube, and pairs it with the 2024/ directory and a blog/ directory at the top level.

That progression matters when you pick an entry point. If you want to read, start at 2022.md. If you want security material, 2023.md. If you prefer watching sessions, 2024.md is the index and the video is the primary medium. The repository is mostly Markdown, which is consistent with the primary language being Shell only in the sense of scripts and configuration snippets embedded in the prose.

The README also points at the published site at 90daysofdevops.com, and the presence of CNAME, index.html and .nojekyll at the top level indicates the repository is also the source for that site. You can read the same content either way.

## How to get the material and read the first day

There is no package to install and no binary to run. The material is Markdown in a Git repository, so the only setup is Git and a text editor, or a browser pointed at the published site. The repository layout gives the three yearly indexes at the top level, alongside _sidebar.md, which is what drives navigation on the published site. That is a useful hint that the files are meant to be read in a defined order rather than at random.

To read without cloning, open the website named in the README. If you prefer to stay in the terminal, the indexes are plain Markdown, so a pager is enough.

Contributions follow the usual fork-and-pull-request path. The repository carries CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md at the top level, and template_repository/ for scaffolding, so read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request rather than guessing at the format. Nothing in the README documents a build step for local preview, so if you want to see the site rendered you are relying on the published deployment rather than a documented local command.

## The licence is the real constraint, not the content

The README is explicit: the work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. The repository metadata reports the licence as NOASSERTION, which in practice means automated licence detection could not classify it, so take the README's stated licence as the source of truth and read LICENSE.md yourself.

Two clauses carry weight for anyone thinking about reuse. NonCommercial means you cannot fold this material into a paid course or an internal commercial training product. ShareAlike means derivatives carry the same licence, so a translated or adapted version cannot be relicensed under your own terms. Attribution is required. This is not legal advice; if your organisation wants to build on the text, that is a conversation with your legal reviewer, not a decision to make from a README badge.

For an individual learner none of this bites. You can read, quote and adapt for personal study. The friction appears the moment the material becomes part of something you sell or something your employer distributes as a product.

## Where 90DaysOfDevOps is the wrong tool

The repository contains no runnable exercises, no test harness and no check that you actually completed anything. If you learn by doing, you will need to pair it with something that gives you a terminal and a failure to debug. The README's own framing supports this: it encourages you to read and watch the content, be curious, provide feedback and discuss within the community, which is an invitation to conversation rather than a lab environment.

There is also a currency problem inherent to the format. The 2022 material was written in early 2022 and the repository's releases are both from 11 January 2022, version 0.2 and 0.1. Tooling covered in a written curriculum ages, and a curriculum that spans three years will contain sections of different vintage. The last push to the repository was on 2026-06-24, so the project is not dormant, but a recent push does not mean every page in the 2022 directory reflects current tool behaviour.

Finally, the README states the material will not cover all things DevOps. If you need depth on a specific platform's internals, a vendor's own documentation will beat a general curriculum. Use this for orientation, then leave.

## How it compares with a structured video course or certification path

The closest alternative in kind is a paid video course or a certification track, and the difference is not quality but structure and obligation. A certification path gives you an exam, a syllabus tied to that exam, and a deadline. 90DaysOfDevOps gives you a reading order and a community, and the only deadline is the one the original author set for himself in 2022.

That difference cuts both ways. A course tells you when you are done. This repository does not, and the README does not claim otherwise. What it offers instead is breadth across principles, processes and tooling without a vendor's product placement, because the README states the project is not a sponsored operation and everything is accessible using free, community and open source software. If your goal is a certificate, this is preparation material at best. If your goal is to understand the shape of the field before choosing a specialisation, the absence of a vendor agenda is the point.

The Community Edition is the closest thing here to a course format: 91 sessions on YouTube, indexed from 2024.md. If you want the video experience without paying for it, that is the section to open first.

## Maintenance, contribution cost and what the repository does not promise

The repository is not archived and the last push was on 2026-06-24, so changes do arrive. The two releases on record are 0.2 and 0.1, both dated 2022-01-11, which tells you the project does not version its content in any meaningful way. There is no changelog-driven upgrade path, no deprecation policy and no migration guide, because there is nothing to migrate: you read Markdown, and a newer commit simply replaces older prose.

That makes upgrade cost close to zero for a reader and non-trivial for a contributor. Contributing means writing or correcting prose across a large corpus, matching the existing structure, and passing review against CONTRIBUTING.md. The repository carries a Contributors.md file, so the project tracks its contributors explicitly, and the README invites readers to contribute resources they have found useful. If you maintain an internal fork, your ongoing cost is re-reading upstream changes rather than resolving merge conflicts in code.

The README does not document a release process, a review SLA, or how the three yearly editions are kept consistent with each other. Those silences are worth knowing before you promise a team that the material will stay current.

## Conclusion

Adopt 90DaysOfDevOps if you are a self-directed learner or a mentor who wants a free, vendor-neutral reading path through DevOps, DevSecOps and community sessions, and you accept that it is prose and video rather than runnable code. Do not adopt it as an internal training product: the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence restricts commercial use, and the repository ships no build system, no CLI and no test suite. Before committing a team, verify three things in the repository itself: that the 2024/ directory holds the sessions you actually need, that CONTRIBUTING.md matches the workflow your contributors will follow, and that your legal reviewer accepts a NonCommercial clause on derivative training material.

## FAQ

### Is 90DaysOfDevOps free?

Yes. The README states the project is not sponsored by any vendor and that everything is accessible using free, community and open source software, and the published site is at 90daysofdevops.com. The licence is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, so it is free to read and adapt for non-commercial use.

### What exactly is DevOps, according to 90DaysOfDevOps?

The repository does not reduce DevOps to a single definition. It presents a structured map of DevOps principles, processes and tooling, split across a 2022 written edition, a 2023 DevSecOps edition and a 2024 Community Edition of sessions, with topics such as Ansible, Terraform, containers, Kubernetes, networking and backup.

### Is 3 months enough to learn DevOps with 90DaysOfDevOps?

The name comes from the original run, which the README dates from 1 January 2022 to 31 March 2022, so the format was designed around 90 days. The repository has since grown to three yearly editions, so three months covers one edition rather than the whole collection.

### How many days do you need to work through 90DaysOfDevOps?

The original written run was 90 days, and the README describes the 2022 edition as 110k words. Later editions add a DevSecOps year and a Community Edition with 91 YouTube sessions, so the total is longer than 90 days if you read all three.

## Sources

- [Issues](https://github.com/MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps/issues)
- [MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps on GitHub](https://github.com/MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps)
- [Project website](https://www.90daysofdevops.com/)
- [README](https://github.com/MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps/blob/main/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/MichaelCade/90DaysOfDevOps/releases)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/michaelcade-90daysofdevops