Comparison of open-source configuration management software

This is a comparison of free (libre) and open source configuration management software.

Basic properties

	Programming language	Software license	First public release date	Latest stable version
Arusha	Python	BSD	July 21, 2001 [1]	20050419 (April 19, 2005)
Bcfg2	Python	2-clause BSD-style	October 6, 2004 [2]	0.9.2 (February 19, 2007)
Cfengine	C	GPL	1993	2.1.22 (January 27, 2007)
ISconf	Python	GPL [3]	1998	4.2.8.222 (August 13, 2006)
LCFG	Perl	GPL	?	2007021901c (February 19, 2007)
PCfengine	Python	GPL [4]	No public release yet	No public release yet
PIKT	C	GPL [5]	Before 2000? [6]	1.18.2 (November 5, 2006)
Puppet	Ruby	GPL	August 30, 2005 [7]	0.22.1 (February 1, 2007)
Quattor	Perl	Open Source EU Data Grid software license	1.0 on April 1st, 2005 [8]	1.2 (February 7, 2007)
Radmind	C	BSD-Style license	March 26, 2002	1.7.1 (November 29, 2006)

Short description

Not all tools have the same goal and the same feature set. To help distinguish between all of these software, here is a short description of each one.

Bcfg2

Software to manage the configuration of a large number of computers using a central configuration model and the client-server paradigm. Client can be run in a dry-run mode, showing the changes that would be done if executed for real. Detailed reports provide a way to identify unmanaged configuration on hosts. Generators enable code or template based generation of configuration files from a central data repository.

ISconf

Tool to execute commands and replicate files on all nodes. Unlike ClusterSSH, the nodes need not to be up; the commands will be executed when they boot. The system has no central server so commands can be launched from any node and they will replicate to all nodes.

Features

	High-level model of the infrastructure	Configuration generation	Reports
Arusha	?	?	?
Bcfg2	?	Yes	Yes
Cfengine	No	No	No
ISconf	No	No	No
LCFG	?	?	?
PCfengine	?	?	?
PIKT	?	?	?
Puppet	?	?	?
Quattor	?	?	?
Radmind	?	?	?