Ansible
Ansible is an open source, command-line IT automation software application written in Python. It can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate advanced workflows to support application deployment, system updates, networking configuration and operation, and more. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a subscription product built on the foundations of Ansible with numerous enterprise features.
Ansible’s strengths come from its
community
. Its main
GitHub repository
draws thousands of contributors, and has tens of thousands of repositories that depend on it, as of fall 2022. Its popular user conference, AnsibleFest, is integrated into the annual
Red Hat Summit
, and Ansible Meetups happen on a frequent basis around the world. This enthusiastic user community reflects a large pool of Ansible expertise, with contributors who keep Ansible robustly integrated with other popular software projects. Ansible users can access hundreds of modules and plugins that help extend its capabilities.
Ansible is designed with a focus on simplicity and ease-of-use. It also emphasizes security and reliability, featuring minimal moving parts. It uses OpenSSH for transport (with other transports and pull modes as alternatives), and uses a human-readable language that helps users get started quickly without a lot of training.
Ansible uses the concepts of a control node (where Ansible is executed from) and managed nodes (the devices being automated—often a
Linux®
or Windows machine). Since Ansible is agentless, it can communicate with devices without requiring an application or service to be installed on the managed node. Ansible Automation Platform can spread automation jobs out across execution nodes using a technology called
automation mesh
.
Ansible users can finely orchestrate different parts of their infrastructure using
Ansible Playbooks,
which are files written in human-readable
YAML
. Ansible uses a procedural (or imperative) programming approach, which tries to preserve the configuration of an IT infrastructure by defining the steps to reach a desired state.
Chef
Chef is an open source IT automation platform written in Ruby DSL that transforms infrastructure into code. Similar to Ansible Playbooks, Chef uses reusable definitions known as cookbooks and recipes (thus the product name) to automate how infrastructure is configured, deployed, and managed across networks—whether on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment.
In contrast to Ansible, Chef uses an agent-based architecture. Here, the Chef server runs on the main machine and the Chef client runs as an agent on each client machine. In addition, there is an extra component called the workstation, which contains all the configurations that are tested and then pulled from the main Chef server to the client machines without any commands. Since managing these pull configurations requires programmer expertise, Chef is more complicated to use than other automation tools—even for seasoned DevOps professionals.