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Open Source Puppet vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Open Source Puppet

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AOpen source Puppet provides tools to automate the configuration and management of IT infrastructure. It is supported by a community of users and contributors. Users can get involved by fixing bugs, influencing new feature direction, publishing modules, and engage with the community to share knowledge and expertise.N/A

    Ansible

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AThe Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (acquired by Red Hat in 2015) is a foundation for building and operating automation across an organization. The platform includes tools needed to implement enterprise-wide automation, and can automate resource provisioning, and IT environments and configuration of systems and devices. It can be used in a CI/CD process to provision the target environment and to then deploy the application on it.

    $5,000

    per year

    Pricing
    Open Source PuppetAnsible
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Basic Tower
    5,000
    per year
    Enterprise Tower
    10,000
    per year
    Premium Tower
    14,000
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Open Source PuppetAnsible
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Open Source PuppetAnsible
    Considered Both Products
    Perforce Software
    No answer on this topic
    Red Hat
    Chose Ansible
    Since Terraform is an infrastructure provisioning tool it does not have that much compatibility for configuration management tool. Also, Chef and salt stack are configuration management tool but does not have infrastructure provisioning capabilities good as compared to Red Hat …
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    We prefer Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's scalability and human friendly coding to the more developer heavy platforms.
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    Our org was using puppet and burning too many people-hours just touching the scripts, troubleshooting, and maintaining why changes were made. Chose Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform as it was much easier to code and follow.
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    As I said earlier, Red Hat Ansible remains a top choice because it is a perfect combination of multiple capabilities. Terraform is good in IAC but not in config automation. Puppet is well-suited for developers, but not for system administrators and infrastructure integrators. …
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    I've evaluated Puppet and Chef and they're not as good as Ansible.
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    Easier to use and adapt
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    Puppet is more constant state management for us than Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a more one off configuration then we transfer over to a pupper configuration for steady state.
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    I used puppet prior to moving to open source Ansible and eventually to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. I appreciate the agentless approach of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and feel that its deterministic approach to applying code is superior to puppet
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    There's 0 comparison. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform leaves them in the dust. It is easier to configure and wipe playbooks for, and has way more community support and documentation making it a no brainer.
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    It's agentless. Not needing to deploy and maintain an agent on a system I want to maintain is invaluable.
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    Ease of use, once you understand how to configure the tool, everything is a piece of cake. It runs pretty fast also, can use GITLab to manage our playbooks. Security options is great, can setup granular security depending on each team using Red Hat Ansible Automation …
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform requires little to no configuration on the nodes to manage the systems. However, this means that the inventory source of Truth must come from somewhere else. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is able to manage things beyond typical nodes …
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    Much easier to use and understand.
    Incentivized
    Chose Ansible
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is much easier to setup than Puppet, because it is agentless.
    The Ansible community seems to be more active than Puppet's in the recent years.
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform does not require learning a programming language where Puppet …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Would buy again
    265 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    210 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    263 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    166 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    201 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Open Source PuppetAnsible
    Small Businesses
    Salt
    Score6.2 out of 10
    Salt
    Score6.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Perforce Puppet
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Perforce Puppet
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Salt
    Score6.2 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    Open Source PuppetAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.8
    (292 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (184 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Open Source PuppetAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    I think it's the best defacto orchestrator for automation because it's so easy to integrate in other tools to it (dynatrace, cyberark, terraform, etc). It is a lot for a new or smaller team to use so I wouldn't recommend it to a new team using Ansible, in that case using Ansible navigator is a better start to understanding playbooks/inventories before diving into the complexity of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. EDA also takes a lot of connectivity between Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and target systems to get working which can be difficult in very locked down envs unless you have approval from many other teams like networking and security.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    • Standardize controls and visibility for automation.
    • Provide RBAC and Vault for improved automation security and support.
    • Job Scheduling is much more effective than Cron or other home-grown solutions.
    • The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform API is one of the best features as it makes automation accessible from any other platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    • Ansible is still not truly declarative like Terraform.
    • Simple automation is fine, but creating complex, scalable automation scripts is very difficult to learn.
    • For a higher number of nodes, Ansible consumes a lot of resources. It needs the paid version of AAP, which requires a cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    We are extremely happy with the use of AAP. It's better than expected, There is almost no limit when thinking of automation. The only problem is that the day to day is consuming a big part of our time. Patching and checking vulnerabilities are virtually killing us. But we can only improve with AAP.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Everything has room for improvement, but Ansible is the best tool out there for what it does and what it can do. There are plenty of features and capabilities that can be added, but it's just a matter of time before it happens.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    I spoke on this topic today!
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    AAP compares favorably with Terraform and Power Automate. I don't have much experience with Terraform, but I find AAP and Ansible easier to use as well as having more capabilities. Power Platform is also an excellent automation tool that is user friendly but I feel that Ansible has more compatibility with a variety of technologies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    • First, it keeps our entire server infrastructure aligned with our standards and reduces the time and effort needed to maintain our systems.
    • Automate routine IT tasks to save time, reduce errors, and ensure every server is configured and updated consistently.
    • Tasks that used to take our teams weeks to complete manually now run automatically and reliably, with full visibility, making our infrastructure management more effective and our compliance tracking much easier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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