puppet-enterprise-vs-red-hat-ansible-automation-platform

Ansible and Puppet Enterprise are both open source configuration management tools designed to ensure consistency among physical and logical assets. Both products are used by businesses of all sizes, though mid-sized organizations and large enterprises are most likely to use them.

Features

Ansible and Puppet Enterprise both offer essential configuration management features, including task execution and asset management. Both configuration management tools also have some standout features that set them apart from each other.

Ansible offers simple installation and implementation compared to Puppet Enterprise because it is agentless and written in Python, which makes it quick to install on Linux systems. Additionally, Ansible commands can be written in most programming languages, making Ansible a flexible choice that works for many organizations. Similarly, Ansible also offers easy scalability, which can be important to organizations that anticipate future growth.

Puppet Enterprise provides a complete GUI for simple tasks and management, while a Ruby-based command-line interface handles complex tasks. Additionally, Puppet Enterprise performs scheduled checks every 30 minutes to ensure that all configured nodes are in proper condition. Ansible offers a similar feature, but only in its premium packages, while Puppet Enterprise includes it in all pricing packages. Puppet also enjoys a broader community of contributors, which has resulted in higher availability of tutorials and documentation. These contributors have also built many modules that can be added to Puppet Enterprise, and the best ones are marked as usable by Puppet.

Limitations

Though Ansible and Puppet Enterprise both provide robust features, they also both have a few limitations that are important to consider.

Ansible has a GUI, but it is not fully developed and can sometimes fall out of sync with the command-line interface. An organization should expect to be using the command-line interface for most tasks with Ansible. Documentation and support resources for Ansible are available from vendors, but free resources aren’t as abundant as those available for Puppet Enterprise.

Puppet Enterprise isn’t as flexible as Ansible in that it doesn’t support as many languages and isn’t as easily scalable. Additionally, the installation of Puppet Enterprise can be tricky compared to Ansible as a Puppet Enterprise agent has to be installed on every managed node.

Pricing

Ansible and Puppet Enterprise are both open source technologies, meaning their source code is available for free for organizations that want to host and manage it on their own. Vendors are also available to host or implement either configuration management tool.

Ansible implementation, support, and management are offered depending on the size of the business in question. Ansible offers two pricing tiers. The Standard pricing tier includes 8×5 support and essential configuration management features. The Premium package includes 24×7 support including management and upgrades.

Puppet Enterprise implementation and support are similarly priced depending on the organization in question. Puppet Enterprise also offers a free pricing tier for a maximum of 10 nodes.