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Ansible vs NixOS: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Ansible and NixOS

Introduction

Ansible and NixOS are both powerful tools in the realm of configuration management and infrastructure automation. However, they have several key differences that set them apart. In this article, we will explore and outline these differences.

  1. Architecture: Ansible is agentless and follows a client-server model where the control machine pushes configurations to the target hosts over SSH. On the other hand, NixOS is a declarative Linux distribution where the configuration is described in a single file and applied to the entire system.

  2. Package Management: Ansible relies on existing package managers to install and manage software packages on the target hosts. It can interact with package managers like apt, yum, etc. NixOS, on the other hand, employs its own package manager called Nix, which allows for atomic upgrades and rollbacks and ensures that all dependencies are managed consistently.

  3. Idempotency: Ansible primarily focuses on idempotency, which means that running the same configuration multiple times results in the same outcome without causing any undesired side effects. NixOS takes this even further by enforcing determinism, where its declarative nature ensures that the system state is always consistent and reproducible.

  4. Configuration Language: Ansible uses YAML as its configuration language, which is known for its simplicity and human-readability. In contrast, NixOS leverages the Nix expression language, which is a functional language designed for configuration and package description, allowing for more advanced and expressive configurations.

  5. Community and Ecosystem: Ansible has a vast and thriving community with a wide range of community-developed roles and modules available for various tasks. This extensive ecosystem makes it easier to automate common infrastructure management tasks. NixOS, although gaining popularity, has a smaller community and a more focused ecosystem due to its relatively niche use case as a Linux distribution.

  6. System Updates: Ansible provides facilities to perform rolling updates, where a subset of hosts can be updated while the rest of the infrastructure remains operational. NixOS, being a complete operating system, allows for atomic system upgrades where the entire system is updated as a whole, ensuring that the system remains consistent during the update process.

In Summary, Ansible and NixOS differ in their architecture, package management approach, focus on idempotency and determinism, choice of configuration language, community and ecosystem, and system update capabilities.

Advice on Ansible and NixOS
Needs advice
on
AnsibleAnsibleChefChef
and
Puppet LabsPuppet Labs

I'm just getting started using Vagrant to help automate setting up local VMs to set up a Kubernetes cluster (development and experimentation only). (Yes, I do know about minikube)

I'm looking for a tool to help install software packages, setup users, etc..., on these VMs. I'm also fairly new to Ansible, Chef, and Puppet. What's a good one to start with to learn? I might decide to try all 3 at some point for my own curiosity.

The most important factors for me are simplicity, ease of use, shortest learning curve.

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Replies (2)
Recommends
on
AnsibleAnsible

I have been working with Puppet and Ansible. The reason why I prefer ansible is the distribution of it. Ansible is more lightweight and therefore more popular. This leads to situations, where you can get fully packaged applications for ansible (e.g. confluent) supported by the vendor, but only incomplete packages for Puppet.

The only advantage I would see with Puppet if someone wants to use Foreman. This is still better supported with Puppet.

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Gabriel Pa
Recommends
on
KubernetesKubernetes
at

If you are just starting out, might as well learn Kubernetes There's a lot of tools that come with Kube that make it easier to use and most importantly: you become cloud-agnostic. We use Ansible because it's a lot simpler than Chef or Puppet and if you use Docker Compose for your deployments you can re-use them with Kubernetes later when you migrate

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Pros of Ansible
Pros of NixOS
  • 284
    Agentless
  • 210
    Great configuration
  • 199
    Simple
  • 176
    Powerful
  • 155
    Easy to learn
  • 69
    Flexible
  • 55
    Doesn't get in the way of getting s--- done
  • 35
    Makes sense
  • 30
    Super efficient and flexible
  • 27
    Powerful
  • 11
    Dynamic Inventory
  • 9
    Backed by Red Hat
  • 7
    Works with AWS
  • 6
    Cloud Oriented
  • 6
    Easy to maintain
  • 4
    Vagrant provisioner
  • 4
    Simple and powerful
  • 4
    Multi language
  • 4
    Simple
  • 4
    Because SSH
  • 4
    Procedural or declarative, or both
  • 4
    Easy
  • 3
    Consistency
  • 2
    Well-documented
  • 2
    Masterless
  • 2
    Debugging is simple
  • 2
    Merge hash to get final configuration similar to hiera
  • 2
    Fast as hell
  • 1
    Manage any OS
  • 1
    Work on windows, but difficult to manage
  • 1
    Certified Content
  • 2
    Atomic upgrades
  • 2
    Declarative system configuration
  • 2
    Multi-user package management
  • 2
    Reproducible environment
  • 2
    Rollback for any changes
  • 1
    Cloud Agnostic Deployments

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Cons of Ansible
Cons of NixOS
  • 8
    Dangerous
  • 5
    Hard to install
  • 3
    Doesn't Run on Windows
  • 3
    Bloated
  • 3
    Backward compatibility
  • 2
    No immutable infrastructure
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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Ansible?

    Ansible is an IT automation tool. It can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as continuous deployments or zero downtime rolling updates. Ansible’s goals are foremost those of simplicity and maximum ease of use.

    What is NixOS?

    It is a Linux distribution with a unique approach to package and configuration management. Built on top of the Nix package manager, it is completely declarative, makes upgrading systems reliable, and has many other advantages.

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    What companies use Ansible?
    What companies use NixOS?
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    What tools integrate with Ansible?
    What tools integrate with NixOS?

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