Capistrano vs. Mina vs. Pallet

Capistrano is a remote server automation tool. It supports the scripting and execution of arbitrary tasks, and includes a set of sane-default deployment workflows.

Mina works really fast because it's a deploy Bash script generator. It generates an entire procedure as a Bash script and runs it remotely in the server. Compare this to the likes of Vlad or Capistrano, where each command is run separately on their own SSH sessions. Mina only creates one SSH session per deploy, minimizing the SSH connection overhead.

The machines being managed require no special dependencies to be installed. As long as they have bash and ssh running, they can be used with pallet. Pallet has no central server to set up and maintain - it simply runs on demand. You can run it from anywhere, even over a remote REPL connection.