Software Alternatives & Reviews

Packer VS FAI

Compare Packer VS FAI and see what are their differences

Packer logo Packer

Packer is an open-source software for creating identical machine images from a single source configuration.

FAI logo FAI

FAI is a non-interactive system to install, customize and manage Linux systems
  • Packer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-15
  • FAI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-10

Packer

Categories
  • DevOps Tools
  • Continuous Integration And Delivery
  • Developer Tools
  • Cloud Computing
Website packer.io
Details $

FAI

Categories
  • DevOps Tools
  • SSH
  • Server Configuration And Automation
  • IT Automation
Website fai-project.org
Details $-

Packer videos

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FAI videos

Sunday Paper Review - FAI fallout & IRFU Nucifora report

More videos:

  • Review - Seven Knights - REVIEW MYTH AWAKEN FAI (BEST WAIFU EVER) PASSIVE & SKILL SO HOT!!
  • Review - World Famous Jay Fai Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Packer and FAI)
DevOps Tools
81 81%
19% 19
Continuous Integration And Delivery
IT Automation
0 0%
100% 100
Other Infrastructure Tools

User comments

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Reviews

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

Packer Reviews

Introduction to Top Open Source Virtualization Tools
Packer is notably light, high performing, and operates on every major operating system. It assembles and configures all the necessary components for a virtual machine then creates images that run on multiple platforms. Packer doesn’t replace configuration management tools like Puppet or Chef; as a matter of fact, when creating images, Packer can utilize tools like Puppet or...

FAI Reviews

We have no reviews of FAI yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

FAI might be a bit more popular than Packer. We know about 11 links to it since March 2021 and only 9 links to Packer. 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.

Packer mentions (9)

  • Failed to connect to the host via SSH on Ubuntu 22.04
    If you have just upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04, and you suddenly experience either errors when trying to ssh into hosts, or when running ansible or again when running the ansible provisioner building a packer image, this is probably going to be useful for you. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Create a minimalist OS using Docker Containers and Hashicorp Packer
    I am already using Hashicorp Packer at work and for personal projects and I wanted to test This idea out by wrapping it a single Packer Template file. This reduces the level of maintaining a lot of small scripts, Dockerfiles and configurations and the user can simply trigger a couple of Commands to get a minimalist OS at the end of the process. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel. The oligopoly has won.
    And while it is a slight increase in complexity, it can be an overall net gain in functionality, configurability and reliability. Much like Packer is far more reliable and practical than manually making VM images sitting in front of a terminal, even though making the initial configuration takes some time. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Customized Ubuntu Images using Packer + QEMU + Cloud-Init & UEFI bootloading
    Hashicorp Packer provides a nice wrapper / abstraction over the QEMU in order to boot the image and use it to set it up on first-boot. Instead of writing really long commands in order to boot up the image using QEMU, Packer provided a nice Configuration Template in a more Readable fashion. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • The journey of sharing a wired USB printer over the network
    Packer seemed like the perfect tool for the job. I have never used it before and wanted to get familiar with the tool. It doesn't come with ARM support out of the box, but there are two community projects to fill that niche. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
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FAI mentions (11)

  • How to install Debian on a completely headless machine?
    Take a look at Debian's documentation on automatic installation using FAI or the Debian installer - more details on these and other apporoaches in The Debian Administrator's Handbook. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Deploy Linux Workstations
    Fully Automated Installation, which I literally just found. Source: about 1 year ago
  • The most efficient way to install Ubuntu on 40 Macbook Airs?
    For network-based Ubuntu installs in our environment FAI has been a great solution. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Management of Ubuntu/Debian servers?
    Bare metal install with FAI (after getting used to it, it is really quiet fast and adjustable) after initial reboot config management is handed over to salt with a highstate (i.e. Full config run) on boot-up. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Debian 10 preseed semi-automated install
    Not exactly an answer to your question but I’ve used FAI (https://fai-project.org) to just make dynamic images. The scripting is a bitch and the entire process is annoying, but you have control over every step of the install, the final product is an image you can install even over NetBoot and fully automatic. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Packer and FAI, you can also consider the following products

Terraform - Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.

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

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

Cobbler - Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows for rapid setup of network installation...

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

Mina - Really fast deployer and server automation tool