ISC Stork vs Jen Kea DHCP Management Console
ISC Stork
isc.orgJen Kea DHCP Management Console
github.comSide by side
| Figure | ISC Stork | Jen Kea DHCP Management Console |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · DHCP Management Software | 8.6 (#2) | 8.4 (#5) |
| Authentication | Documentation covers LDAP, OIDC, Kea basic authentication, HTTPS and mutual TLS; agent registration requires authorization or a protected token. | Security controls include TOTP and WebAuthn/passkey MFA, trusted devices, login throttling, session timeouts, audit logging and HTTPS certificate upload. |
| High availability | It displays Kea high-availability relationships, roles and failover status. | Jen shows HA state, compares leases across a pair and provides a guided maintenance workflow when the Kea HA hook is present. |
| Integrations | Stork can export traffic activity data to Prometheus for display in Grafana charts. | Jen connects to Kea through the Control Agent or direct daemon control sockets, uses MySQL/MariaDB for Kea data, and uses SSH for configuration and service operations. |
| License | Stork source is released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. | The repository states that Jen is released under GNU GPL version 3. |
| Public API | Stork exposes a REST API documented with Swagger/OpenAPI and a gRPC agent API defined in agent.proto. | The architecture documents REST v1 routes and Bearer API-key authentication that plugins can also use. |
| Purpose | Stork provides a web-based graphical interface for monitoring, troubleshooting, and maintaining Kea DHCP server configuration. | Jen is a full-featured web-based management interface for ISC Kea DHCP Server, managing leases, reservations, subnets and infrastructure from a browser. |
| What it does | Stork is a web dashboard for monitoring, troubleshooting and managing Kea DHCP plus monitoring and limited read-only management of BIND and PowerDNS. | Jen is a browser-based console for managing ISC Kea DHCP leases, reservations, subnets and related infrastructure. |
Plans
ISC Stork
- Stork open-source softwareFree
- Stork open-source softwareFree
- Kea/Stork support subscriptionPrice not published
- Professional support for StorkPriced on request
In their own words
ISC Stork
ISC Stork is a free, open-source web interface for monitoring, troubleshooting, and maintaining Kea DHCP server configuration. It reports host and daemon health, including memory, CPU utilization, software versions, and uptime, and monitors DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 pool use and high-availability status. With the required Kea hooks installed, administrators can manage reservations, subnets, and pools through its interface. Stork can display BIND configuration and DNS zone information, but DNS support is in early stages and it does not change BIND settings. Traffic activity can be exported to Prometheus for Grafana charts, and LDAP can be used for administrator authentication and authorization. A deployment uses a Stork server and agents installed on application servers; the server requires PostgreSQL. The server and agents communicate through TLS-encrypted gRPC channels. Stork expects the running Kea configuration to be authoritative, and the Kea Configuration Backend hook is incompatible with Stork management. It runs on most Linux and Unix platforms and macOS under the MPL 2.0 license. ISC offers free community help and paid professional support.
Jen Kea DHCP Management Console
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.