Batfish vs NAPALM

Batfish is an open-source tool for analyzing network device configurations and validating network behavior. It works from configuration files, so core analysis does not require direct access to network devices. Teams can inspect deployed configurations and check planned changes before deployment. Checks cover undefined references, MTU and AAA settings, template compliance, sensitive-service reachability and expected traffic paths. Batfish can test whether end-to-end reachability survives any single-link or single-device failure, compare current and planned reachability, assess ACL or firewall changes and evaluate functional equivalence across vendors. Pybatfish provides a Python 3 SDK, and example Jupyter notebooks are available. An all-in-one Docker container bundles Batfish and notebooks. It runs on operating systems supporting Docker. Documented support includes Arista, AWS, Azure, Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto Networks and SONiC, while Aruba, Dell Force10 and Foundry have limited support.

NAPALM is a free Python library for automating network devices from multiple vendors through a shared API. It connects to devices, changes configurations, and retrieves operational data. Its core drivers cover Arista EOS, Cisco IOS, Cisco IOS-XR, Cisco NX-OS, and Juniper JunOS, with additional community drivers. Configuration methods include replace, merge, compare, commit-confirm, and rollback, although availability depends on the platform. Getters can return device facts, configurations, interface information, BGP neighbors, and environment data, with coverage varying by driver. For validation, NAPALM can compare live device state against YAML expectations and create a compliance report. The project identifies integrations with Ansible, SaltStack, and StackStorm. Installation uses `pip install napalm`, which includes the currently available core drivers. Version 5.1.0 and later supports Python 3.9 and later. It is self-hosted, licensed under Apache-2.0, and free at free. Documentation advises checking platform-specific caveats before use.