Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Puppet Enterprise VS Cfengine

Compare Puppet Enterprise VS Cfengine and see what are their differences

Puppet Enterprise logo Puppet Enterprise

Get started with Puppet Enterprise, or upgrade or expand.

Cfengine logo Cfengine

CFEngine is a configuration management and automation framework that lets you securely manage your...
  • Puppet Enterprise Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-24
  • Cfengine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-12

Puppet Enterprise features and specs

  • Scalability
    Puppet Enterprise is designed to manage thousands of nodes efficiently, making it a good fit for large-scale IT environments.
  • Automation
    It offers powerful automation capabilities, which help streamline repetitive tasks and reduce human error.
  • Compliance
    Puppet Enterprise includes strong compliance features, ensuring that the IT infrastructure adheres to various regulatory standards.
  • Pre-built Modules
    A wide array of pre-built modules is available, which can be used to quickly deploy and configure applications and services.
  • Reporting and Visibility
    Provides detailed reporting and dashboards, which offer insights into the status and performance of your infrastructure.
  • Integrations
    Seamless integration with various third-party tools and platforms, enhancing its functionality and adaptability to different environments.
  • Enhanced Security
    Supports role-based access control (RBAC) and other security features to protect sensitive infrastructure configurations.
  • Expert Support
    Access to professional support and services from the Puppet team, ensuring that issues can be resolved quickly and efficiently.

Possible disadvantages of Puppet Enterprise

  • Cost
    Puppet Enterprise can be expensive, especially for smaller organizations or startups with limited budgets.
  • Complexity
    The platform can be complex to set up and manage, requiring a learning curve for new users or administrators.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running Puppet Enterprise can consume significant system resources, which might impact the performance of smaller infrastructure.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Once you have integrated Puppet into your infrastructure, migrating to another tool can be difficult and time-consuming.
  • Customization
    While there are many pre-built modules, creating custom modules can be complex and time-consuming, requiring extensive knowledge of Puppet's DSL.
  • Initial Setup
    The initial setup of Puppet Enterprise can be time-consuming and may require expert knowledge to configure correctly.
  • Documentation
    While there is extensive documentation available, it can sometimes be overwhelming or unclear for new users.

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.

Puppet Enterprise videos

Sml merch Jeffy puppet review and more

More videos:

  • Review - Muppet Whatnot Workshop Puppet Review...(Kinda)
  • Demo - How Puppet works

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 Puppet Enterprise and Cfengine)
DevOps Tools
84 84%
16% 16
Continuous Integration And Delivery
Product Deployment
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 Puppet Enterprise and Cfengine

Puppet Enterprise Reviews

5 Best DevSecOps Tools in 2023
There are multiple providers for Infrastructure as Code such as AWS CloudFormation, RedHat Ansible, HashiCorp Terraform, Puppet, Chef, and others. It is advised to research each to determine what is best for any given situation since each has pros and cons. Some of these also are not completely free while others are. There are also some that are specific to a particular...
What Are The Best Alternatives To Ansible? | Attune, Jenkins &, etc.
Puppet is a DevOps configuration management tool that is available for both open-source and enterprise versions. Puppet is an application developed by Puppet Labs and used to centralize and automate the procedure of configuration management.
Top 5 Ansible Alternatives in 2022: Server Automation Solutions by Alexander Fashakin on the 19th Aug 2021 facebook Linked In Twitter
Puppet uses a server/client architecture, requiring a longer installation process than Ansible, as an agentless system that only needs installation on the master node. In addition, Ansible uses YAML for configuration management while Puppet uses PuppetDSL with YAML datastore. The configuration management language style in Ansible is procedural, and that of Puppet is...
35+ Of The Best CI/CD Tools: Organized By Category
For those who are unfamiliar, Puppet Enterprise is the commercial version of Puppet, an open-source software management tool. It specializes in the automation of not just the configuration process but can also be used for patching, provisioning, and deployment.
Chef vs Puppet vs Ansible
Puppet follows a master-agent or master-slave architecture. In the case of Puppet’s architecture, the master machine serves as the platform for running the Puppet server. The client machines provide the platforms for running Puppet clients as agents. In addition, the requirement of signing a certificate between the master machine and the agent adds complexity. Therefore,...

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 Puppet Enterprise. 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.

Puppet Enterprise mentions (1)

  • Installing Puppet Enterprise 2021
    Now that the system requirements have been verified we need to download the Puppet Enterprise installer. To download the installer, go to the Puppet website to access the free 10 node trial (https://puppet.com/try-puppet/puppet-enterprise). - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago

Cfengine mentions (5)

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Puppet Enterprise and Cfengine, 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

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

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

Rudder - Rudder is an easy to use, web-driven, role-based solution for Continuous Automation and Compliance.

RunDeck - RunDeck is an open source automation service with a web console, command line tools and a WebAPI.