Canonical Landscape vs Quattor
Canonical Landscape
landscape.is.canonical.comQuattor
quattor.orgSide by side
| Figure | Canonical Landscape | Quattor |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $571.75/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Configuration Management Tools | 8.8 (#3) | 7.8 (#13) |
| Integrations | Landscape has a scriptable API and can integrate with existing configuration management, monitoring, and ticketing systems. | The overview describes configuration components for core and grid computing services, with examples including general-purpose metaconfig and filecopy components. |
| Intended users | Landscape is presented for teams administering large or growing Ubuntu estates across desktops, servers, clouds, and embedded devices. | The getting-started guide describes Quattor as a somewhat complex toolkit and says production use requires detailed knowledge of the tools and site configuration. |
| Purpose | Landscape is Canonical’s systems management solution for managing Ubuntu desktops, servers, cloud instances, IoT devices, and other Ubuntu systems. | Quattor is a system administration toolkit for automated installation, configuration, and management of clusters, farms, grids, and clouds. |
| Scale | A single instance can manage up to 40,000 machines, with the option to scale for larger deployments. | The site says Quattor has been used in academic and commercial environments managing infrastructures from tens of systems to over 30,000. |
| Security | Landscape SaaS data in transit uses HTTPS with TLS and data at rest is encrypted using AES-128. | The 26.2.0 release announcement says its RPM packages and repository metadata are signed with a GPG key. |
Plans
Canonical Landscape
- Landscape SaaS (Ubuntu Pro)Free
- Managed Landscape on public clouds, VMware, OpenStack or LXD$6,861 a year
- Managed Landscape on bare metal$9,470 a year
- Self-hosted LandscapePriced on request
In their own words
Canonical Landscape
Canonical Landscape manages Ubuntu desktops, servers, cloud instances, IoT devices, and other Ubuntu systems from a central portal. Administrators can handle updates, packages and repositories, run scripts remotely, set role-based access, and monitor machines. It can alert on updates and graph temperature, disk and memory use, system load, and custom metrics. One instance can manage up to 40,000 machines, with options to scale further. Deployment choices are Canonical-hosted SaaS, Managed Landscape, and self-hosted software; SaaS is bundled with Ubuntu Pro. A free SaaS account with Ubuntu Pro covers up to five machines. Managed Landscape costs $6,861 a year per physical machine on public clouds, VMware, OpenStack, or LXD, or $9,470 a year per physical machine on bare metal. No self-hosted price is listed; Ubuntu Pro is its main licensing mechanism. Landscape has a scriptable API and can integrate with configuration management, monitoring, and ticketing systems. Self-hosting requires the organization to install, host, and maintain it. SaaS does not currently offer repository mirroring or custom external identity-provider configuration.
Quattor
Quattor is free, open-source Linux software for automating installation, configuration, and lifecycle management across clusters, farms, grids, and clouds. Its self-hosted architecture uses a configuration-management database server, an Automated Installation Infrastructure server, and managed clients; the two servers may share one machine. AII plugins handle DHCP and PXE setup and create Kickstart files for Enterprise Linux-derived systems. Client components retrieve and validate profiles, then run configuration components. Quattor validates system descriptions before deployment, and its Pan compiler converts declarative configuration into nested structures including XML and JSON. Modular interfaces allow replacement implementations and site-specific tools, with components for core and grid services. The site describes deployments ranging from tens of systems to more than 30,000. It supports Enterprise Linux, including Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux, and is licensed under Apache 2.0 and the EU DataGrid Software License. Community users provide development and support.