Free Ansible Alternatives

The best free alternative to Ansible is Nix Package Manager, which is also Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Ansible and many of them is free so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free alternatives to Ansible are Puppet, Salt, pyinfra and Terraform.

Ansible alternatives are mainly Server Management Tools but may also be Package Managers or Software Installers. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Ansible.

Ansible alternatives page was last updated

Ansible

Freemium • Open Source

Ansible is a radically simple IT automation engine that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, application...

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Nix Package Manager
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Package Manager
Software Installer
Mac
Linux
BSD
33 Nix Package Manager alternatives
Nix is a powerful package manager for macOS, Linux and other Unix systems that makes package management reliable and reproducible. It provides atomic upgrades and rollbacks, side-by-side installation of multiple versions of a package, multi-user package management and easy setup...
- - Nix Package Manager is the most popular Mac & Linux alternative to Ansible.
- - Nix Package Manager is the most popular Open Source & free alternative to Ansible.
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Nix Package Manager Features
1. Command line interfaceNix Package Manager either have CLI support or is a CLI-only app.
2. PortableNix Package Manager can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
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Puppet
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Freemium • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
Online
47 Puppet alternatives
Puppet Data Center Automation Solution helps you save time, gain visibility into your server environment, and ensure consistency across your IT infrastructure.
- - Puppet is the most popular Web-based & Windows alternative to Ansible.
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Puppet Features
Ruby
Opinions about Puppet as a Alternative to Ansible
Almost everyone thinks Puppet is a great Ansible alternative.
Salt
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
39 Salt alternatives
Salt is a powerful remote execution manager that can be used to administer and provision servers in a fast and efficient way.
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Salt Features
Configuration Management
Comments about Salt as a Alternative to Ansible
Almost everyone thinks Salt is a great Ansible alternative.
psi4ick
Saltstack is stateful and supports features allowing to manage thousands of systems simulataneously
Positive comment•
0
pyinfra
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Virtualization Tool
Linux
BSD
9 pyinfra alternatives
pyinfra automates infrastructure super fast at massive scale. It can be used for ad-hoc command execution, service deployment, configuration management and more.
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pyinfra Features
1. Command line interfacepyinfra either have CLI support or is a CLI-only app.
Configuration Management
Python-based
Optimal performance
SSH
Comments about pyinfra as a Alternative to Ansible
Almost everyone thinks pyinfra is a great Ansible alternative.
Guest
Usable without a PhD in a couple of minutes.
Positive comment•
0

Ben Pro
KISS spirit, very powerful and easy to learn.
Positive comment•
0

Fizzadar
More powerful (Python configured), faster, better debugging.
Positive comment•
0
Terraform
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
16 Terraform alternatives
Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions.
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Terraform Features
Multi-cloud management
Comments about Terraform as a Alternative to Ansible
pros, cons and recent comments
Nathaniel Waisbrot
Terraform is primarilly for creating infrastructure and Ansible is primarilly for configuring machines. Both offer tools in the other's domain and both offerings are disappointing there.

I've been fairly happy using Terraform to create VMs and then trigger Ansible to configure them.
Positive comment•
1

Guest
Terraform is for provisioning cloud devices, and Ansible is for bare-metal automation.
Negative comment•
-3
Chef
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Server Management Tool
Mac
Windows
Linux
BSD
42 Chef alternatives
Chef is an open source systems integration framework built to bring the benefits of configuration management to your entire infrastructure. You write source code to describe how you want each part of your infrastructure to be built, then apply those descriptions to your servers.
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Chef Features
Configuration Management
Ruby
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Comments about Chef as a Alternative to Ansible
Almost everyone thinks Chef is a great Ansible alternative.
Guest
Jenkins and the other platforms listed are more build tools rather than a server configuration tool.
Positive comment•
0
chezmoi
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Windows
Linux
BSD
FreeBSD
OpenBSD
7 chezmoi alternatives
Dotfiles manager through a version control system.
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chezmoi Features
1. Git Supportchezmoi supports Git, a free and open source distributed version control system.
Git integration
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Cobbler
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Linux
22 Cobbler alternatives
Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows for rapid setup of network installation environments. It glues together and automates many associated Linux tasks so you do not have to hop between lots of various commands and applications when rolling out new systems, and, in...
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Cobbler Features
Auto-installer
PXE
Server Monitoring
cdist
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Mac
Linux
BSD
19 cdist alternatives
cdist is an alternative to other configuration management systems like cfengine, bcfg2, chef and puppet. But cdist ticks differently.
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cdist Features
SSH
Fabric
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Server Management Tool
Linux
BSD
26 Fabric alternatives
Fabric is a Python library and command-line tool for streamlining the use of SSH for application deployment or systems administration tasks.
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Fabric Features
Configuration
Configuration Management
SSH
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Comments about Fabric as a Alternative to Ansible
Most users think Fabric is a great Ansible alternative.
2xM
Only requires SSH and if you're familiar to Python and the command line, you know everything to start automation of administrative tasks on remote hosts.
Positive comment•
1