Best Configuration Management Tools in 2026

Puppet

Puppet Enterprise is intended for medium and large organizations managing complex hybrid environments that need centralized automation, security, and compliance controls.

Landscape suits teams administering large or growing Ubuntu estates across desktops, servers, cloud systems, and embedded devices.

Google Cloud VM Manager

It suits teams maintaining Compute Engine VM fleets that need patch scheduling, inventory and centralized software policies.

cdist suits administrators managing Linux, BSD, macOS, or XenServer hosts with shell and SSH access.

Chef Infra

Chef Infra suits teams managing mixed operating-system fleets that want to define, test, and enforce configuration policies as code.

config.XO

It suits teams managing Windows and Linux configurations across on-premises and public-cloud systems.

Salt

Salt suits teams managing configuration and operations across multiple systems, including those needing agentless or stand-alone modes.

LCFG suits administrators managing varied, frequently changing Unix installations who can operate a central server and client agents.

Uyuni

Uyuni suits teams managing Linux estates across on-premises or cloud environments.

AWS Systems Manager State Manager

State Manager suits AWS customers seeking to manage configuration across nodes and other AWS resources.

It is aimed at Linux administrators managing automated, policy-driven infrastructure across many systems.

OpenVox

OpenVox suits teams managing system configuration who can host the software themselves.

pyinfra

It suits infrastructure operators who want to automate server tasks through Python deploys and inventories without installing agents on target hosts.

It suits Python users automating shell commands, Python tasks, and SSH administration across one or many hosts.

OpenDSC suits teams managing configurations across infrastructure nodes, including centralized deployments and disconnected environments.

Rex

Rex suits teams needing self-hosted, agentless automation across local and SSH-accessed systems.