Quattor vs Salt
Quattor
quattor.org
Salt
saltproject.ioSide by side
| Figure | Quattor | Salt |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Configuration Management Tools | 7.8 (#13) | 8.3 (#9) |
| Spec score · Orchestration / Provisioning Software | 7.8 (#17) | 8.3 (#8) |
| Installation | The AII server uses plugins to manage DHCP and PXE boot configuration and to create Kickstart files for EL-derived systems. | Salt provides official RPM, DEB, and generic repositories for Windows, macOS, and other non-RPM and non-DEB packages. |
| Integrations | The overview describes configuration components for core and grid computing services, with examples including general-purpose metaconfig and filecopy components. | SaltStack Config integrates with LDAP, SAML, OIDC, and Active Directory. |
| License | Quattor is open-source software provided under the Apache 2.0 license and the EU DataGrid Software License. | Salt is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. |
| Purpose | Quattor is a system administration toolkit for automated installation, configuration, and management of clusters, farms, grids, and clouds. | Salt is a Python-based, open-source framework for remote execution, configuration management, automation, provisioning, and orchestration. |
| Scale | The site says Quattor has been used in academic and commercial environments managing infrastructures from tens of systems to over 30,000. | Salt can execute multiple commands across thousands of systems in seconds with a single execution. |
| Security | The 26.2.0 release announcement says its RPM packages and repository metadata are signed with a GPG key. | Salt uses RSA keys for authentication, AES keys for encryption, and rotates the AES key every 24 hours by default or when a minion is deleted. |
| Support | Quattor is developed and supported by its user community, with discussion through a mailing group and issue or pull request reporting on GitHub. | The project directs users to GitHub issues for bugs and problems and to Discord for community technical support and discussions. |
Plans
In their own words
Quattor
Quattor is free, open-source Linux software for automating installation, configuration, and lifecycle management across clusters, farms, grids, and clouds. Its self-hosted architecture uses a configuration-management database server, an Automated Installation Infrastructure server, and managed clients; the two servers may share one machine. AII plugins handle DHCP and PXE setup and create Kickstart files for Enterprise Linux-derived systems. Client components retrieve and validate profiles, then run configuration components. Quattor validates system descriptions before deployment, and its Pan compiler converts declarative configuration into nested structures including XML and JSON. Modular interfaces allow replacement implementations and site-specific tools, with components for core and grid services. The site describes deployments ranging from tens of systems to more than 30,000. It supports Enterprise Linux, including Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux, and is licensed under Apache 2.0 and the EU DataGrid Software License. Community users provide development and support.
Salt
Salt is a free, open-source framework for remote execution, configuration management, provisioning and infrastructure orchestration. A single execution can run commands across thousands of systems in seconds. A typical setup has a master managing minions, but Salt also supports agentless operation through salt-ssh or salt-proxy and stand-alone use. Salt states define configurations that can be extended and layered, while orchestration can order work by dependency, such as preparing a load balancer before a web-server cluster. Salt Cloud provisions systems on cloud hosts and hypervisors and can connect new virtual machines to a master. Its documented providers include Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, Azure, OpenStack, DigitalOcean, Linode, VMware and Proxmox. SaltStack Config adds a web interface, role-based access control, multi-master support, reporting and an enterprise API, along with LDAP, SAML, OIDC and Active Directory integrations. Salt uses RSA key authentication and encrypted master-minion communication. It is self-hosted and licensed under Apache 2.0.