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Puppet Labs vs Salt: What are the differences?
Key Differences Between Puppet Labs and Salt
Puppet Labs and Salt are both configuration management tools used for managing and automating IT infrastructure. However, there are key differences between the two:
1. Scalability: Puppet Labs is known for its scalability, with the ability to manage thousands of nodes efficiently. On the other hand, Salt is designed to be highly scalable, supporting a much larger number of nodes compared to Puppet Labs.
2. Masterless vs Master/Minion Architecture: Puppet Labs follows a master/agent architecture, where the master controls and manages the agents. In contrast, Salt can be used in both master/agent mode and masterless mode, allowing for more flexibility and decentralized management.
3. Configuration Language: Puppet Labs uses Puppet Language, a declarative language that defines the desired state of config files. In contrast, Salt uses YAML or Pillar files to define configuration states. YAML is known for its simplicity and readability, while Puppet Language offers more advanced features and capabilities.
4. Remote Execution: Salt is known for its powerful remote execution capabilities, providing the ability to run commands on multiple nodes simultaneously. Puppet Labs, on the other hand, does not have built-in remote execution capabilities and relies on external tools for remote execution.
5. Integration with Cloud Services: Puppet Labs offers native integration with popular cloud platforms such as AWS and Azure, allowing for seamless management of cloud-based infrastructure. Salt also provides integration with cloud services, but its support may be more limited compared to Puppet Labs.
6. Community and Ecosystem: Puppet Labs has a larger community and ecosystem compared to Salt, with a wide range of modules and resources available for automation. While Salt also has an active community, it may have fewer available modules and resources compared to Puppet Labs.
In summary, Puppet Labs excels in scalability, native integration with cloud services, and a larger community and ecosystem, while Salt offers more flexibility in its architecture, powerful remote execution capabilities, and a simpler configuration language.
Personal Dotfiles management
Given that they are all “configuration management” tools - meaning they are designed to deploy, configure and manage servers - what would be the simplest - and yet robust - solution to manage personal dotfiles - for n00bs.
Ideally, I reckon, it should:
- be containerized (Docker?)
- be versionable (Git)
- ensure idempotency
- allow full automation (tests, CI/CD, etc.)
- be fully recoverable (Linux/ macOS)
- be easier to setup/manage (as much as possible)
Does it make sense?
I recommend whatever you are most comfortable with/whatever might already be installed in the system. Note that, for personal dotfiles, it does not need to be containerized or have full automation/testing. It just needs to handle multiple OS and platform and be idempotent. Git will handle the heavy lifting. Note that you'll have to separate out certain files like the private SSH keys and write your CM so that it will pull it from another store or assist in manually importing them.
I personally use Ansible since it is a serverless design and is in Python, which I prefer to Ruby. Saltstack was too new when I started to port my dotfile management scripts from shell into a configuration management tool. I think any of the above is fine.
You should check out SaltStack. It's a lot more powerful than Puppet, Chef, & Ansible. If not Salt, then I would go Ansible. But stay away from Puppet & Chef. 10+ year user of Puppet, and 2+ year user of Chef.
Chef is a definite no-go for me. I learned it the hard way (ie. got a few tasks in a prod system) and it took quite a lot to grasp it on an acceptable level. Ansible in turn is much more straightforward and much easier to test.
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.
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.
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
Pros of Puppet Labs
- Devops52
- Automate it44
- Reusable components26
- Dynamic and idempotent server configuration21
- Great community18
- Very scalable12
- Cloud management12
- Easy to maintain10
- Free tier9
- Works with Amazon EC26
- Declarative4
- Ruby4
- Works with Azure3
- Works with OpenStack3
- Nginx2
- Ease of use1
Pros of Salt
- Flexible46
- Easy30
- Remote execution27
- Enormously flexible24
- Great plugin API12
- Python10
- Extensible5
- Scalable3
- nginx2
- Vagrant provisioner1
- HipChat1
- Best IaaC1
- Automatisation1
- Parallel Execution1
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Cons of Puppet Labs
- Steep learning curve3
- Customs types idempotence1
Cons of Salt
- Bloated1
- Dangerous1
- No immutable infrastructure1
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