Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS CloudFormation
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
AWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators a way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in a predictable fashion. Use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run an application. Users don’t need to figure out the order for provisioning AWS services or the subtleties of making those dependencies work.…
$0
ER/Studio
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
ER/Studio is a database development and management tool from Embarcadero Technologies (acquired by Idera) in California.
$2,687
per year per user
Perforce Puppet
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Puppet Enteprise is an IT automation and configuration management solution that enables users to manage and automate infrastructure and complex workflows. The vendor states Puppet Enterprise combines both model‑based and task-based capabilities in a way that enables organizations to scale their multi-cloud infrastructure as their automation footprint grows, with more flexibility from both agent-based and agentless capabilities.N/A
Pricing
AWS CloudFormationER/StudioPerforce Puppet
Editions & Modules
Free Tier - 1,000 Handler Operations per Month per Account
$0.00
Handler Operation
$0.0009
per handler operation
Standard
$2,687
per year per user
Professional
$3,693
per year per user
Enterprise
Custom
per year per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS CloudFormationER/StudioPerforce Puppet
Free Trial
YesNoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThere is no additional charge for using AWS CloudFormation with resource providers in the following namespaces: AWS::*, Alexa::*, and Custom::*. In this case you pay for AWS resources (such as Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancing load balancers, etc.) created using AWS CloudFormation as if you created them manually. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no required upfront commitments. When you use resource providers with AWS CloudFormation outside the namespaces mentioned above, you incur charges per handler operation. Handler operations are create, update, delete, read, or list actions on a resource.Pricing for new customers only, first year maintenance included. Maintenance includes access to technical support and product updates for the defined period of the agreement.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AWS CloudFormationER/StudioPerforce Puppet
Considered Multiple Products
AWS CloudFormation
Chose AWS CloudFormation
As we have our whole infrastructure on AWS, that is why we selected AWS CloudFormation. AWS CloudFormation is better integrated with AWS services than other available products and also provides visibility and tracking on AWS. AWS CloudFormation is free while Terraform
ER/Studio

No answer on this topic

Perforce Puppet

No answer on this topic

Features
AWS CloudFormationER/StudioPerforce Puppet
Configuration Management
Comparison of Configuration Management features of Product A and Product B
AWS CloudFormation
8.2
2 Ratings
2% above category average
ER/Studio
-
Ratings
Perforce Puppet
-
Ratings
Infrastructure Automation8.52 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated Provisioning8.52 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Parallel Execution8.02 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Node Management7.52 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Logging7.52 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Version Control9.02 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AWS CloudFormationER/StudioPerforce Puppet
Small Businesses
HashiCorp Vagrant
HashiCorp Vagrant
Score 10.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

HashiCorp Vagrant
HashiCorp Vagrant
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Ansible
Ansible
Score 9.2 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Ansible
Ansible
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Ansible
Ansible
Score 9.2 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Ansible
Ansible
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS CloudFormationER/StudioPerforce Puppet
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(7 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
7.0
(12 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS CloudFormationER/StudioPerforce Puppet
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
I still give it an 8 because it's one of those tools that just quietly does the heavy lifting for you but it can really test your patience when it breaks esp with deep nested stacks. It's perfect for projects where we need clean consistent environments every time. It's less ideal for quick experimental setups like new EC2 configs or Lambda permission tweaks.
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Idera, Inc.
Data Architect is well suited at organizations of all sizes. It is never too early or unnecessary to enforce proper modelling and design standards on data solutions, and this tool will help that greatly by providing an industry leading data modelling tool, ability to import ETL mappings for data lineage, enforcing and managing naming conventions through the naming convention tool, and publishing of data dictionaries through the report publisher. I was successfully able to build models, provide traceability, and document source to target with lineage throughout for both the business (by providing business definitions in the descriptions), and technical teams (by documenting ETL instructions in text fields) along with field level mapping (by creating "Attachments" representing data sources, tables, and fields) providing easy search capabilities using business friendly terms
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Perforce Software
Puppet is good enough to get the job done, you can use it to automate deployments and maintain files and configurations, if this is all you're looking for it's great. If you're looking for more control over your systems as a whole without having to write your own scripts or install multiple configuration management systems then Puppet is not what you're looking for.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • All resources can segregated based on stacks which provides greater visibility
  • A complete audit trail of what went wrong while deploying a particular resource
  • Automatically rollbacks if any service as part of CloudFormation results in an error
  • The UI tool is useful
Read full review
Idera, Inc.
  • ER/Studio has the ability to provide consistent field names and data types through domains, which are templates. This provides a way to have consistent naming of common fields, like CreatedBy and the data types for the fields. They also have the ability to change all the fields that use that domain to a different data type.
  • ER/Studio provides the ability to create custom macros. These macros can be used to apply everything from standard fields based on domains to naming all constraints and indexes. I've also used a macro that comes with ER/Studio to spell check field and table names.
  • My favorite feature is the ability to compare your data model to databases for deployments of changes, and to other data models.
Read full review
Perforce Software
  • Provides a clear map of how a system is configured
  • Eases the creation of a system in a specific cluster as it is scripted in code
  • Simplifies configuration changes to a cluster or to every system such as rolling out vhost configurations, updating ldap roles, NFS mounts, etc
  • The syntax is very easy to read and carries a lot of fluidity once the language is learned.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Error Description upon Failure Needs to be Improved.
  • Slow to create, delete or update.
  • Need to delete resources manually. It can ask before starting deletion whether to skip those resources or delete them.
Read full review
Idera, Inc.
  • ER\Studio licensing can be cumbersome and upgrading from one version to another usually takes several phone calls and emails to the licensing group to get the update installed and running.
  • The repository can be slow when the model count gets larger. By large I mean 20 to 30 models.
  • A nice feature that I would like to see is table comments be displayed on the model along with the attributes. Currently you have to choose between the two.
Read full review
Perforce Software
  • The setup of Puppet is a nightmare compared to ansible. Anyone watching a youtube video can easily set up ansible with minimal IT knowledge. All one needs is the source IP addresses and we are good to go. Setting up Puppet is a more hands-on task and pushing the puppet agents to all the boxes is another issue. If the installation and setup were simplified like ansible that would attract a lot of people to this platform
  • The syntax of the code for Puppet is not as easy as ansible. Ansible simply follows a YAML format and it's like typing in normal English. Even complicated tasks can be written by just understanding YAML syntax. Perhaps Puppet needs to revisit the lanugage used and try to come up with a much simpler lanugage for writing code. This will make day-to-day usage easier.
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Usability
Amazon AWS
It's easy enough to get a shared template & apply it. You don't even have to download-then-upload or copy-and-paste, a publicly-accessible url works.
Diving deeper, it has enough powerful capabilities to make the life of a platform / DevOps engineer bearable.
However, you need equally deep knowledge to troubleshoot issues, when they inevitably pop up. This is the same for all IaC technologies, as they are additional abstraction layers on top of the native API provided by the cloud providers.
Read full review
Idera, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Perforce Software
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Idera, Inc.
I can call or email support and both get quick turn around. The only issue is they are on the west coast (US) and have a west coast work schedule and I'm on the East coast.
Read full review
Perforce Software
Puppet has top class support. You can simply mail them with their query and they will respond to your query in a timely manner. We do have enterprise license for puppet. Also there is a vibrant community for puppet out there. So even if you dont purchase a premium support option you can simply google your queries and get answers
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information. Management guide.For information copy of the original. The new virtual Cloning virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information
Read full review
Idera, Inc.
ER/Studio is the most mature, reach in features and quality and therefore useful. Unfortunately, it lacks compatibility with AWS Redshift.
Read full review
Perforce Software
HPSA is a licensed product and incurs significant upfront investment costs due to COTS licensing. Puppet Data Center Automation has a significantly lower upfront investment and product documentation is more readily available. Chef is a very similar offering, however, at the time our decision was considered, the adoption of Chef vs. Puppet was significantly less in the community.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • + We can standup a VPC in minutes
  • - It took a lot of inital time to set up
  • + With logging/rollback, made testing much easier.
Read full review
Idera, Inc.
  • ER/Studio has had a positive impact on my project as we can develop the data model and have a clear understanding of business needs before we continue with the development phase.
Read full review
Perforce Software
  • Cut deployment times down to around 1 hour from 4-5 hours.
  • Allows us to get a fully running system up from scratch in around 30 minutes.
  • Allows for a more clear view of what is required to get a host running.
Read full review
ScreenShots

AWS CloudFormation Screenshots

Screenshot of CloudFormation - How it works overviewScreenshot of CloudFormation - High level how it worksScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template exampleScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template inputs overview

ER/Studio Screenshots

Screenshot of logical data models in ER/Studio Data Architect.Screenshot of data catalog in ER/Studio Data Architect.Screenshot of data glossaries in ER/Studio Data Architect.