AuroraBoot vs Canonical MAAS
AuroraBoot
github.com
Canonical MAAS
canonical.comSide by side
| Figure | AuroraBoot | Canonical MAAS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $2.50/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 8 |
| Spec score · Bare Metal Provisioning Software | 8.3 (#6) | 9.3 (#1) |
| API | A REST API and Go client mirror the UI, with Swagger UI available at /api/docs. | MAAS exposes a REST API with GET, POST, PUT and DELETE methods; version 2.0 is the documented supported API version. |
| Integrations | AuroraBoot documents Redfish BMC deployment, Canonical MaaS image generation, Docker or OCI images and Pixiecore netboot serving. | Canonical documentation names Juju, Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Terraform, OpenStack and Kubernetes as MAAS automation or orchestration integrations. |
| Purpose | AuroraBoot is the official Kairos bootstrapper for building images, provisioning machines and managing fleets. | MAAS is an open source platform for centrally managing and provisioning physical servers as cloud resources. |
Plans
Canonical MAAS
- FreeFree
- Self-supportFree
- Essential$30 a year
- Essential$30 a year
- Standard$50 a year
- Standard$50 a year
- Advanced$100 a year
- Advanced$100 a year
In their own words
AuroraBoot
AuroraBoot is Kairos’s bootstrapper for creating machine images, provisioning systems, and managing fleets. It builds ISO, UKI, raw disk, and system-extension images from Kairos flavors or container images, then supports provisioning by PXE/netboot, Redfish, or USB. Its fleet server pairs a browser dashboard for artifact building, deployment, and node management with a REST API and Go client; API documentation is available through Swagger UI at /api/docs. Registered nodes can receive upgrades, reboots, resets, cloud-config, and shell commands, with command output captured. The guided Artifact Builder offers templates for Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, openSUSE, Alpine, Rocky, and Hadron. A SecureBoot key store handles PK, KEK, db, and TPM PCR policy keys, with signed export and import. Documented architectures are amd64, arm64, and riscv64. The self-hosted software is free under Apache License 2.0; its fleet server uses SQLite by default and can use PostgreSQL. Docker or a container engine is required. One security consideration: netboot serves files over unauthenticated plain HTTP to reachable clients.
Canonical MAAS
Canonical MAAS is an open source platform for provisioning physical servers as centrally managed cloud resources. It automates server discovery, inventory, commissioning, deployment, and decommissioning, and lets operators manage nodes through a web interface, command line, or API. Hardware discovery uses PXE boot and supports IPMI-enabled machines, as well as subnets, VLANs, and switch fabrics. MAAS integrates with Terraform, Juju, and Ansible for infrastructure automation. It can configure networking and storage, run hardware tests, and manage LXD and KVM virtual machines. Listed images include Ubuntu, CentOS, Windows, and RHEL; images can be synchronized or served from an onsite mirror for offline use. Canonical describes MAAS for private cloud with OpenStack, server automation, and bare-metal Kubernetes. A free self-support plan covers all machines but excludes HA support, RBAC, Knowledge Base, a Sev 1 response SLA, phone support, and ticket support. Paid plans start at $30 a year per managed machine. Ubuntu Pro is required for MAAS controllers; Canonical says it provides security patching and enterprise support for controllers and Ubuntu machines.