cdist vs Salt
cdist
cdi.st
Salt
saltproject.ioSide by side
| Figure | cdist | Salt |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Configuration Management Tools | 8.6 (#6) | 8.3 (#9) |
| Installation | cdist can be installed from Git or as a Python package using pip install cdist. | Salt provides official RPM, DEB, and generic repositories for Windows, macOS, and other non-RPM and non-DEB packages. |
| Integrations | The project publishes a separate cdist-contrib repository for additional types not included in core cdist. | SaltStack Config integrates with LDAP, SAML, OIDC, and Active Directory. |
| Purpose | cdist is a configuration management system positioned as an alternative to Ansible, Chef, or Puppet. | Salt is a Python-based, open-source framework for remote execution, configuration management, automation, provisioning, and orchestration. |
| Support | The maker offers community help through a Matrix room and an IRC channel, and says commercial support can be requested from ungleich. | The project directs users to GitHub issues for bugs and problems and to Discord for community technical support and discussions. |
| Supported systems | The maker’s supported operating systems list includes Linux distributions and BSD systems, as well as Mac OS X and XenServer. | Salt is tested and packaged for CentOS, Debian, RHEL, Ubuntu, macOS, Windows, and more. |
Plans
In their own words
cdist
cdist is a free, open-source configuration management system that applies a defined state to computers through shell scripts and cdist types. It is positioned as an alternative to Ansible, Chef, and Puppet. Types provide the extension mechanism, and the project says their results are idempotent, so outcomes do not depend on call order. cdist uses push mode: source computers connect to targets over SSH and apply configuration, without requiring a central server or an agent on the target. A target needs a POSIX-compatible shell and SSH server, while the source needs a POSIX-like shell, Python 3.5 or later, and an SSH client. The project lists a small core, standard types, and parallel execution. Installation is documented through Git or pip. Supported systems include Linux distributions, BSD systems, Mac OS X, and XenServer. Manuals are available in HTML and man-page formats, with community help through Matrix and IRC.
Salt
Salt is a free, open-source framework for remote execution, configuration management, provisioning and infrastructure orchestration. A single execution can run commands across thousands of systems in seconds. A typical setup has a master managing minions, but Salt also supports agentless operation through salt-ssh or salt-proxy and stand-alone use. Salt states define configurations that can be extended and layered, while orchestration can order work by dependency, such as preparing a load balancer before a web-server cluster. Salt Cloud provisions systems on cloud hosts and hypervisors and can connect new virtual machines to a master. Its documented providers include Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, Azure, OpenStack, DigitalOcean, Linode, VMware and Proxmox. SaltStack Config adds a web interface, role-based access control, multi-master support, reporting and an enterprise API, along with LDAP, SAML, OIDC and Active Directory integrations. Salt uses RSA key authentication and encrypted master-minion communication. It is self-hosted and licensed under Apache 2.0.