DacatDHCP vs Jen Kea DHCP Management Console

DacatDHCP combines an IPv4 DHCP service with a web interface for configuring address pools, viewing leases, and monitoring status. The lightweight single-file application bundles the service and management interface. Settings include network-interface selection, address ranges, gateway, DNS, and lease duration. The interface shows assigned addresses and client information, while version 1.0.0 adds fixed MAC-to-IP mappings with matching logs. The main release supports Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2016 or later on Windows amd64. Management works in Edge, Chrome, and other modern Chromium-based browsers; Internet Explorer 11 is not supported. The interface listens on 127.0.0.1, and write endpoints use CSRF and origin checks. Administrator privileges are required. DacatDHCP is permanently free and open source under Apache License 2.0. It is intended for labs, test environments, temporary LANs, small networks, troubleshooting, and isolated networks. Address pools must share the selected interface’s subnet. Leases remain in memory after startup and are not restored after restart; active IP-conflict detection is not provided.

Jen Kea DHCP Management Console is a free, GPL v3 web interface for managing ISC Kea DHCP Server. Operators can manage leases, reservations, subnets, and infrastructure from a browser, while the dashboard shows subnet utilization, lease activity, server status, HA state, and alerts. Lease tools include filtering active leases, releasing them, cleaning stale leases, converting dynamic leases to reservations, and CSV import or export. Subnet and pool edits are applied over SSH after Kea validation, a host-side backup, multi-server preflight, and rollback protection. Optional IPv6 support covers leases, devices, reservations, subnet pools, timers, and metrics. Alert channels include Pushover, Telegram, Slack, ntfy, Discord, email, and generic webhooks; optional plugins add network discovery, IPAM Lite, local DNS synchronization, and other functions. Jen connects through the Control Agent or direct daemon sockets, uses MySQL or MariaDB for Kea data, and uses SSH for configuration and service operations. The recommended guided installer runs on Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04, and Docker deployment is also supported. The project targets homelab-to-small-business operators managing a handful of servers, not large fleets.