HashiCorp Packer vs. Sonatype Platform

We use packer to generate new machine images for multiple platforms on every change to our Configuration Management tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible It's act single tool for Image building for Multi-provider like AWS/Azure/GCP Helps to achieve Dev/Prod Parity Packer itself doesn't have a state like Terraform. You can't do packer output AMI ID. If you have a scenario where you want to maintain the state for images it would be tough to manage via Packer.

Incentivized

- Guidance on remediation is very good - Vulnerability detection is very good - Support is very good - Ability to ask PMs/POs open questions at Office Hours every month is very good - Support for languages is lacking (TIOBE Index Top20) - Some features are un-neededly hidden and make the usage more complex then it needs to be

• Multi-provider portability
• Greater testability
• Super fast infrastructure deployment

Incentivized

• Nexus firewall is a great feature enabled for all our proxy repositories which are used to download the third-party opensource packages.
• Nexus IQ is integrated with build stage to analyze the component against evaluation policy. This helps to figure out the application security standards.
• Nexus IQ is also having a feature to scan container images before it uploads to our private repository. This is great feature for container platforms.

• Manageability
• Manageability
• Manageability

Incentivized

• Support on the end of life lifecycle of known open source components that are going end of life, or already went end of life
• Support for emerging infrastructure as code frameworks
• Support for native/ default retention, archiving and clean up policies for hosted repositories

We are happy with the use of Packer in our organization. Apart from manageability, I don't find any other drawback with Packer.

Incentivized

Sonatype supports more than 200 dev(s). It proves with the repository to store the artifacts. Allows for governance of open source software used by the different teams. It is used by security teams to scan for vulnerabilities in software(s) and in the deployed containers. It helps ensure code quality.

Incentivized

It's best for building Image with many features and benefits.

Incentivized

Overall experience is great with the Platform; however, I see some opportunity with upgrading the platform as it is missing with data of historical scans to allow reviewer to get view of trend how the application/product development team is considering fixing the issues.

Incentivized

Extremely good

Sonatype products are great value as I said but a few areas like how products use underlying resources in order to make it further lightweight, is something I would like them to consider.

I only once required support and it was very smooth.

Incentivized

Monthly touchpoints with Sinisa has been very valuable.

Incentivized

I haven't found any issue in Implementation that itself describes how well this tool is built.

Incentivized

easy to implement and performing the scans via automations as well

Incentivized

There are lot of tools in market which does the job for Image creation but all of them are not complete Machine/Image as a code. All other alternatives can create Image partially. Main reason for selecting Packer are Packer is lightweight, portable, and command-line driven Packer helps keep development, staging, and production as similar as possible. Packer automates the creation of any type of machine image Multi-provider portability is the feature to die for

Incentivized

Out of other products we evaluated before choosing Sonatype, the later looked far more user friendly, easy to understand and work with. This was key for us, as the tool needs to be used by many engineers that don't have security as their main focus. Having a tool that is easy to understand and work with, makes the process of evaluating open source dependencies much easier and appealing for developers.

Incentivized

Great value for money

Everything is very good except a little concern regarding large scale docker usage.

Very good

• Super fast infrastructure deployment
• Quick turnaround of infrastructure in multiple cloud using single tool.
• Increase productivity by reducing time in infrastructure building.

Incentivized

• Sonatype's centralized management of artifacts have made it very easy for developers to share code in an efficient manner.
• Sonatype's low false positive rate has made it easier to convince developers to remediate vulnerabilities
• Sonatype's archaic architecture has made it more expensive to manage than it could be.