What’s the Difference Between Waterfall and Agile Methodology?

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At its core, Waterfall has three checkboxes: milestones, well-defined deliverables, and documentation. Its functionality and strict structure make it perfect for any project that has:

Concrete requirements that are tied to a deadline.
A clear roadmap, including milestones and expectations for everyone involved in the project.
Clear goals set by upper management or the client—they won’t do a 180 on deliverables.
As one programmer mused on Reddit, Waterfall models are perfect for organizations with processes in place like budget tracking and stakeholder management. As long as the project will swim (and not sink) under clear constraints—Waterfall is a good choice.

Here's a quick example. A Tesla Model Y takes around 2 ½ hours—start to finish—to get down the production line. But this production rate can only happen if a strict manufacturing model is followed: the seats must be in before the doors are installed, and the engine is lowered into the front of the car before the hood is attached.

But there's also a downside to this structured approach to projects.

Remember when the U.S. government launched HealthCare.gov?

It was a new platform (built from scratch) where kazakhstan telegram data Americans could buy insurance. But to put it bluntly, the launch of the website was a total shitshow. It's believed developers used Waterfall to build the project, and when late-stage testing was carried out before it went live, multiple errors were found.

Who Should Use the Waterfall Model - HealthCare launch
The website crashed, and it took months to fix the coding problems. But the biggest kicker was the price tag: the initial $93.7M project budget ended up cashing in at $1.7 billion!

This is why so many industries (especially developers) are constantly asking what's best: Waterfall or Agile?

The major difference between Waterfall and Agile methodologies is how much planning is done before the project kicks off.

The heavy lifting of any project using Waterfall will have concrete deliverables, deadlines, and a clear roadmap ready before a single hour is spent on client work. Agile projects start working on a project and then hash out the finer details like client demands and final deliverables. For larger corporations, the Agile approach can be tricky and lead to a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen situation…