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Puppet Bolt vs Puppet Labs: What are the differences?
Introduction
Puppet Bolt and Puppet Labs are both tools used for configuration management and orchestration. However, there are key differences between the two that set them apart in terms of use cases and functionalities.
Deployment Flexibility: Puppet Bolt is designed for ad-hoc tasks and can be used for executing commands and scripts remotely across a variety of systems, including agents and agentless nodes. In contrast, Puppet Labs provides a more comprehensive solution for enterprise-level configuration management, enabling administrators to define desired system states and apply changes across a fleet of managed nodes.
Ease of Use: Puppet Bolt focuses on simplicity and ease of use for quick automation tasks. It is a lightweight tool that does not require a Puppet server for configuration management. On the other hand, Puppet Labs offers a more robust and feature-rich platform with a steeper learning curve, as it involves the setup and maintenance of a Puppet server infrastructure.
Resource Abstraction: Puppet Bolt primarily leverages existing operating system resources and tools, making it easier to interact with systems without having to define custom resources. Puppet Labs, on the other hand, allows the creation of custom resources using Puppet's Domain Specific Language (DSL), providing greater flexibility and control over system configurations.
Scalability: Puppet Bolt is designed for smaller-scale tasks and is generally suited for managing a few dozen to a few hundred nodes. It utilizes a task-based approach rather than maintaining a persistent connection to the managed nodes. In comparison, Puppet Labs is built for large-scale deployments and can scale to manage thousands of nodes efficiently with its client-server architecture.
Backup and Storage: Puppet Bolt does not provide any built-in backup or storage functionality. It focuses on executing tasks and scripts across systems rather than managing state or data persistence. In contrast, Puppet Labs includes built-in data storage capabilities, allowing for the tracking and retrieval of past configurations and system states.
Third-Party Integrations: Puppet Bolt has limited support for integrations with external tools and services. While it can be used in conjunction with other DevOps tools, its primary focus is on task automation. Puppet Labs, on the other hand, offers a wide range of plugins and integrations for seamless collaboration with popular third-party tools, enabling more comprehensive and streamlined configuration management workflows.
In summary, Puppet Bolt is a lightweight, flexible tool for ad-hoc automation tasks, while Puppet Labs provides a more comprehensive and scalable solution for enterprise-level configuration management with advanced features and integrations.
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 Puppet Bolt
- Simple3
- Easy to Install2
- Powerful2
- Agentless2
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Cons of Puppet Labs
- Steep learning curve3
- Customs types idempotence1
Cons of Puppet Bolt
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What is Puppet Labs?
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