Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Add tool
Ansible vs Scalr: What are the differences?
# Introduction
This comparison will highlight the key differences between Ansible and Scalr in terms of their features and functionality.
1. **Configuration Management**: Ansible is more focused on configuration management by using YAML files to define tasks and playbooks, while Scalr is a cloud management platform that provides governance and policies for multi-cloud environments.
2. **Agentless vs Agent-based**: Ansible is agentless, relying on SSH for communication with remote servers, whereas Scalr uses agents for deployment and management of resources on different cloud providers.
3. **Open Source vs Enterprise Solution**: Ansible is an open-source tool maintained by the community, providing flexibility and customization options, while Scalr is an enterprise solution that offers enterprise-grade support and features for managing cloud infrastructure.
4. **Orchestration vs Governance**: Ansible focuses on orchestration and automation of tasks across servers and cloud instances, while Scalr focuses on governance, compliance, and cost management in multi-cloud environments.
5. **Community Support vs Enterprise Support**: Ansible has a large community of users and contributors who provide support and resources, whereas Scalr offers dedicated enterprise support and assistance for its customers.
6. **Scalability and Flexibility**: Ansible can be easily scaled and integrated with various tools and technologies, providing flexibility in managing infrastructure, whereas Scalr offers scalability by providing a centralized platform for managing resources across multiple cloud environments.
In Summary, Ansible is more focused on configuration management and automation, while Scalr is designed for governance and policy enforcement in multi-cloud environments, catering to different needs in managing cloud infrastructure.
Advice on Ansible and Scalr
moonlight16
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.
Replies (2)
Stefan Papp
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.
Gabriel Pa
CEO at NaoLogic Inc · | 2 upvotes · 323.4K views
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
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn MorePros of Ansible
Pros of Scalr
Pros of Ansible
- Agentless284
- Great configuration210
- Simple199
- Powerful176
- Easy to learn155
- Flexible69
- Doesn't get in the way of getting s--- done55
- Makes sense35
- Super efficient and flexible30
- Powerful27
- Dynamic Inventory11
- Backed by Red Hat9
- Works with AWS7
- Cloud Oriented6
- Easy to maintain6
- Vagrant provisioner4
- Simple and powerful4
- Multi language4
- Simple4
- Because SSH4
- Procedural or declarative, or both4
- Easy4
- Consistency3
- Well-documented2
- Masterless2
- Debugging is simple2
- Merge hash to get final configuration similar to hiera2
- Fast as hell2
- Manage any OS1
- Work on windows, but difficult to manage1
- Certified Content1
Pros of Scalr
- Image Builder5
- Open Source3
- Auto Scaling3
- Orchestration2
- Multi-Cloud Support2
- Cost Analytics2
- Chef Integration2
- Hybrid Cloud Management2
- User Friendly2
- Terraform CLI Integration1
- Open Policy Agent1
- Cost1
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Ansible
Cons of Scalr
Cons of Ansible
- Dangerous8
- Hard to install5
- Doesn't Run on Windows3
- Bloated3
- Backward compatibility3
- No immutable infrastructure2
Cons of Scalr
Be the first to leave a con
Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions
- 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 Scalr?
Scalr is a remote state & operations backend for Terraform with access controls, policy as code, and many quality of life features.
Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Jobs that mention Ansible and Scalr as a desired skillset
What companies use Ansible?
What companies use Scalr?
What companies use Ansible?
What companies use Scalr?
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn MoreSign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions
What tools integrate with Ansible?
What tools integrate with Scalr?
What tools integrate with Ansible?
What tools integrate with Scalr?
Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions
Blog Posts
+14 12
2691
+13 14
10398
+30 27
18900
+33 20
2179
+23 12
6689
+42 53
22330
+37 122
38281
+26 27
10895
What are some alternatives to Ansible and Scalr?
Puppet Labs
Puppet is an automated administrative engine for your Linux, Unix, and Windows systems and performs administrative tasks (such as adding users, installing packages, and updating server configurations) based on a centralized specification.
Chef
Chef enables you to manage and scale cloud infrastructure with no downtime or interruptions. Freely move applications and configurations from one cloud to another. Chef is integrated with all major cloud providers including Amazon EC2, VMWare, IBM Smartcloud, Rackspace, OpenStack, Windows Azure, HP Cloud, Google Compute Engine, Joyent Cloud and others.
Salt
Salt is a new approach to infrastructure management. Easy enough to get running in minutes, scalable enough to manage tens of thousands of servers, and fast enough to communicate with them in seconds.
Salt delivers a dynamic communication bus for infrastructures that can be used for orchestration, remote execution, configuration management and much more.
Terraform
With Terraform, you describe your complete infrastructure as code, even as it spans multiple service providers. Your servers may come from AWS, your DNS may come from CloudFlare, and your database may come from Heroku. Terraform will build all these resources across all these providers in parallel.
Jenkins
In a nutshell Jenkins CI is the leading open-source continuous integration server. Built with Java, it provides over 300 plugins to support building and testing virtually any project.