FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) vs Macrium SiteDeploy
FAI (Fully Automatic Installation)
fai-project.orgMacrium SiteDeploy
macrium.comSide by side
| Figure | FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) | Macrium SiteDeploy |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $1.67/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · OS Deployment Software | 7.9 (#10) | 8.0 (#9) |
| Spec score · OS Imaging & Deployment Software | 7.9 (#9) | 8.0 (#8) |
| Founded | 1999 | 2006 |
| Purpose | FAI automates unattended mass deployment and configuration of Linux systems and software on computers and virtual machines. | SiteDeploy is centralized OS imaging and deployment software for deploying golden images to multiple computers. |
| Storage | The project lists software RAID and LVM setup, disk partitioning, and file system creation as installation capabilities. | Golden image stores can use network shares, Amazon AWS Storage Gateway, or Azure Storage Accounts. |
| Support | The project directs questions to its mailing list and bugs to the Debian Bug Tracking System, and says commercial support is available worldwide from the author. | Macrium lists business customer support contacts for the UK and Europe and for the United States. |
Plans
Macrium SiteDeploy
- Core$20 a year
- Flex EnterprisePriced on request
- System BuildersPriced on request
In their own words
FAI (Fully Automatic Installation)
FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) automates unattended deployment and configuration of Linux systems and software on physical computers and virtual machines. It is free software under GNU GPL version 2 or later and can scale from a few computers to several thousand. The project lists Debian, Ubuntu, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Linux Mint, RHEL, and SUSE among supported distributions. Installations can use PXE network boot or unattended CD media, retrieving configuration through HTTP, NFS, SVN, or Git. Classes group similar machines, while hooks customize installation stages. FAI can partition disks, create file systems, and configure software RAID or LVM. It automates virtual-machine installation and customized cloud images for OpenStack, KVM, Azure, EC2, and GCE. FAI.me builds custom installation or live media and bootable disk images without local FAI installation, with settings for SSH keys, repositories, packages, scripts, and first-boot actions. Targets include desktops, servers, notebooks, clusters, server farms, and Linux labs or classrooms. The default large CD image includes full Debian XFCE and GNOME packages but fetches many other distribution packages over the network.
Macrium SiteDeploy
Macrium SiteDeploy has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.