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

For a medium to large size organization with the possibility to setup a central support team to support the governance, maintenance and implementation of the Sonatype Platform, the product suite from Sonatype is very well suited. Setting up detailed configurations requires quite some effort and deep understanding of the Sonatype Platform. Whenever needed the support teams from Sonatype are available for technical and functional support. As well the Innovate platform of Sonatype offers customers to interact on specific topics and set up customer reference calls.

• 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

• Recommendations for best Energy Consumption options based on existing BOM - e.g. replace component X with component Y to reduce CPU cycles.
• More specific recommendations regarding Open Source Licensing - not just saying "Copyleft" but the next level of analysis (it's difficult - but would save a lot of time)
• Provide specific component replacement options where no "next version" resolves a high severity vulnerability.

Incentivized

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

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

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

• 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.