Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Cloudify VS Cfengine

Compare Cloudify VS Cfengine and see what are their differences

Cloudify logo Cloudify

Accelerating Software Development & Deployment

Cfengine logo Cfengine

CFEngine is a configuration management and automation framework that lets you securely manage your...
  • Cloudify Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-06

Cloudify provides infrastructure automation using โ€˜Environment as a Serviceโ€™ technology to deploy and continuously manage any cloud, private data center, or Kubernetes service from one central point while leveraging existing toolchains; Terraform, Ansible, and more. Use Cloudify to import existing automation templates and scripts and automatically convert them into certified environments. Manage them using the Cloudify console or export these environments to ServiceNow and enable users to deploy, continuously manage and maintain them as part of approval workflows.

Key Values: - Speed up deployments of your Test/Dev/Production environments. - Manage customers' heterogeneous cloud environments. - Enable Continuous Updates (Day-2) for your Production environments. - A clean API to work on top of all your tools that can easily be used within ServiceNow. - Manage Kubernetes clusters at scale.

  • Cfengine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-12

Cloudify

$ Details
freemium
Platforms
SaaS Browser Premium Download
Release Date
2016 January

Cloudify features and specs

  • Application Configuration Management
    Manage application configuration in a scalable and reliable way
  • Infrastructure Orchestration
    Integrate with your existing and future infrastructure
  • Environment Management
    Enable developers to create new environments whenever needed
  • Deployment Management
    Implement a Continuous Delivery or Continuous Deployment (CD) approach
  • Role-Based Access Control
    Manage who can do what in a scalable way
  • Self-service Catalog (via ITSM)
    Enable users to deploy, continuously manage and maintain environments as part of the approval workflow

Cfengine features and specs

  • Scalability
    Cfengine is designed to handle large-scale environments efficiently, making it suitable for managing a vast number of systems.
  • Lightweight Agent
    It employs a lightweight agent that consumes minimal system resources, reducing the overhead on managed systems.
  • Security
    Cfengine has a strong focus on security, using encrypted communication between the nodes and server, ensuring integrity and confidentiality.
  • Model-based Configuration
    The tool uses a model-based approach for configuration management, which makes it easy to understand and predict the outcomes of applied policies.
  • Mature and Stable
    With a long history dating back to the 1990s, Cfengine is mature and known for its stability and reliability in production environments.

Possible disadvantages of Cfengine

  • Steeper Learning Curve
    The learning curve can be relatively steep for new users due to its unique policy language and declarative syntax.
  • Complex Debugging
    Debugging configurations might be complex due to intricate policies and a lack of straightforward error messages.
  • Limited Community Support
    Compared to other configuration management tools, Cfengine has a smaller community, which can limit access to third-party modules and assistance.
  • Less Extensible
    While powerful, Cfengine may not offer as much extensibility as some competitors, potentially limiting custom integrations.
  • UI and Usability
    The user interface and overall usability could be less intuitive compared to other modern configuration management tools.

Analysis of Cloudify

Overall verdict

  • Cloudify is a robust and versatile orchestration platform suitable for organizations needing to manage complex cloud deployments. It is particularly favored by enterprises looking for an open-source and flexible solution for multi-cloud and edge computing needs.

Why this product is good

  • Cloudify is a popular open-source platform known for orchestrating and managing cloud applications and services. It is valued for its ability to manage complex, distributed systems and simplifies deploying applications to the cloud. It supports multiple cloud environments and technologies, providing users with flexibility and scalability. Cloudify's use of TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications) enables users to model services more effectively, promoting service reuse and simplifying the management of infrastructure configurations.

Recommended for

  • Organizations with complex, multi-cloud environments.
  • Enterprises needing orchestration for both cloud-native and legacy applications.
  • Teams using DevOps practices and requiring continuous deployment and integration capabilities.
  • Projects that benefit from TOSCA-based modeling and service orchestration.

Analysis of Cfengine

Overall verdict

  • Cfengine is a good choice for organizations that require a stable, scalable, and efficient configuration management solution. Its long history and proven track record make it a reliable tool for managing diverse and complex IT environments. However, its learning curve can be steep, and it might not have as active a community or as many user-friendly features compared to some of its newer counterparts like Puppet or Ansible.

Why this product is good

  • Cfengine is a powerful configuration management tool that's been around for a long time, providing stability and maturity to its users. It excels in automating infrastructure management and is known for its scalability, efficiency, and security features. Its lightweight agent and fast execution make it suitable for managing a large number of nodes without a significant performance impact. Additionally, Cfengine has a policy-based approach which ensures that system configurations are enforced consistently, and its declarative language makes it easier to define desired system states.

Recommended for

  • Large enterprises managing thousands of servers
  • Organizations needing a lightweight and fast performance solution
  • IT teams with a focus on security and consistent policy enforcement
  • Users comfortable with a steeper learning curve in exchange for stability and scalability benefits

Cloudify videos

Cloudify | Initial Deployment

More videos:

  • Demo - Cloudify | Day 02 application updates
  • Demo - Cloudify | Day 2 Infrastructure Updates
  • Demo - Cloudify | Initial Deployment with ServiceNow approvals
  • Demo - Complex Terraform Deployment

Cfengine videos

Webinar: Presenting the new CFEngine Community 3.4.0

More videos:

  • Review - WEBINAR - Infrastructure Automation with CFEngine at LinkedIn
  • Review - Webinar - Unveiling CFEngine Enterprise 3.0

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Cloudify and Cfengine)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
DevOps Tools
40 40%
60% 60
Cloud Computing
100 100%
0% 0
Product Deployment
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Cloudify and Cfengine

Cloudify Reviews

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Cfengine Reviews

Best 8 Ansible Alternatives & equivalent in 2022
CFEngine is a DevOps tool for IT automation. It is an ideal tool for configuration management. It is one of the best Ansible competitors that helps teams to automate large-scale complex infrastructure.
Source: www.guru99.com
35+ Of The Best CI/CD Tools: Organized By Category
CFEngine is the most cut and dry configuration management software on this list. It was originally released in 1993 and has managed to keep up with software development trends. CFEngine features full CI/CD integration. You can automate infrastructure configurations and manage your patches. It also features compliance reporting and infrastructure hardening.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Cfengine should be more popular than Cloudify. It has been mentiond 5 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Cloudify mentions (2)

  • Best IaC platforms
    Cloudify looks interesting if you can stand the price, depends how badly you need the features it offers. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Hey Cloud Peoples!
    Cloudify is a platform that automates and manages entire lifecycles of an application or network service. Source: over 4 years ago

Cfengine mentions (5)

  • German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
    Your admin uses cfengine for example https://cfengine.com/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Replacement for Chef?
    Another oldie but goodie is cfengine: https://cfengine.com/. Source: over 3 years ago
  • What does everyone use for automating setting up a new VPS?
    I'm using rudder (https://www.rudder.io/), it's based on cfengine (https://cfengine.com/). But this is more enterprise ready, you'll be fine with lightweight ansible. Nice thing is, that rudder ensures compliance by periodically executing all defined rules on all endpoints. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Understanding Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in less than 10 minutes
    CFEngine Ansible Chef Puppet Saltstack. - Source: dev.to / over 5 years ago
  • Immutability & loose coupling: a match made in heaven
    Automating mutable systems is often referred to as Configuration Management, and leverages tools such as Cfengine, Puppet, Chef, or Ansible. This tooling uses principles based on the concepts of target state, idempotence, and somewhat related to Mark Burgessโ€™ Promise Theory. Configuration Management aims to make the system convergent, by running a tool on a regular basis, in order to resynchronize the system with... - Source: dev.to / over 5 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Cloudify and Cfengine, you can also consider the following products

OpenShift - OpenShift gives you all the tools you need to develop, host and scale your apps in the public or private cloud. Get started today.

Ansible - Radically simple configuration-management, application deployment, task-execution, and multi-node orchestration engine

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

Puppet Enterprise - Get started with Puppet Enterprise, or upgrade or expand.

Heroku - Agile deployment platform for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, and Scala. Setup takes only minutes and deploys are instant through git. Leave tedious server maintenance to Heroku and focus on your code.

Chef - Automation for all of your technology. Overcome the complexity and rapidly ship your infrastructure and apps anywhere with automation.