Facter vs SIW

Facter is a free command-line tool that gathers system information such as hardware details, network settings, and operating system type and version. Puppet uses it to collect information before requesting a catalog or compiling one with puppet apply. Its built-in core facts include legacy and structured facts, though some facts do not apply to every system. Users can add custom facts in Ruby, with multiple resolutions available for determining a value, or external facts that return static data or output from a script or program. Facts can be hashes or arrays, and Boolean, numeric, and structured values retain their types. Configuration can block fact groups or cache results with time-to-live settings. Facts are available in Puppet manifests, while the --puppet option loads Puppet-specific facts from the command line. PuppetDB's API can support exploration, search, and reporting on infrastructure facts. Facter runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows and can be self-hosted. Legacy facts are omitted from default command-line output unless --show-legacy is used. Puppet's custom-fact examples require some Ruby familiarity, and facter.conf must be created manually or managed with a module.

SIW is a Windows system information tool for examining computer hardware, software, network and system details. It covers software licenses, devices, processes, services, network connections and open ports. Reports can be generated in HTML, JSON, CSV, TXT, XML or ODBC formats, then saved or printed. Command-line options can choose report modules, create, compress or append reports, and run report creation silently. Reports can also be sent through SMTP, uploaded using FTP, FTPS or HTTP POST, or saved to a database through ODBC. The Technician’s Version runs without installation from a USB flash drive, network drive or domain login script. Customizations include logos, tailored reports and builds limited to command-line use or without selected modules; these cost $50 extra. SIW lists a free viewer and a 14-day trial, which works only on specified 64-bit Windows versions and replaces some values with ***TRIAL***. Paid options range from a 23.99 USD one-time Technician’s Version without updates or support to paid update subscriptions and lifetime-update licenses. The maker identifies administrators, technicians and IT tech support as users.