Foreman vs Metal³
Foreman
theforeman.orgMetal³
metal3.ioSide by side
| Figure | Foreman | Metal³ |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Bare Metal as a Service (BMaaS) Software | 8.8 (#2) | 7.6 (#6) |
| Spec score · OS Deployment Software | 8.6 (#5) | 7.3 (#18) |
| Spec score · Bare Metal Provisioning Software | 8.7 (#5) | 7.4 (#19) |
| Provisioning | Foreman provisions bare-metal systems and instances across virtualization environments and public or private clouds. | Metal³ can discover hardware, configure BIOS and RAID, clean disks, install operating system images, deploy Kubernetes, and perform rolling upgrades. |
| Purpose | Foreman is an open-source tool for managing servers through provisioning, configuration, orchestration, and monitoring. | Metal³ is an open-source project that provides tools for managing bare-metal infrastructure using Kubernetes. |
Plans
In their own words
Foreman
Foreman is a free, open-source lifecycle management tool for physical and virtual servers. System administrators can use it to automate repetitive tasks, deploy applications, and manage on-premise or cloud systems. It provisions bare-metal machines and resources from providers including Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, OpenStack, Libvirt, oVirt, and VMware. Configuration integrations include Puppet, Ansible, Chef, and Salt; Foreman also collects Ansible reports and facts. Administrators can work through a web frontend, REST API, or Linux CLI, including Hammer CLI access to API calls. Role-based access control and integrations such as LDAP, FreeIPA, and Microsoft Active Directory support access management. Host groups, bulk management, health reports, and audits help organize systems and review changes. A typical deployment has a Foreman server, Smart Proxy servers, and managed hosts. The quickstart lists Enterprise Linux 9, Debian 12 and 13, and Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, and requires 4 GB of memory. Installation configures multiple system components, and setup requires Linux system administration knowledge.