Rex vs Salt
Rex
rexify.org
Salt
saltproject.ioSide by side
| Figure | Rex | Salt |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Configuration Management Tools | 7.3 (#20) | 8.3 (#9) |
| Community support | Community support is available through GitHub Discussions, Matrix, IRC, a mailing list, and maintainer office hours. | Salt Project directs community members to its Discord server and GitHub Discussions. |
| Configuration management | Rex tasks can install packages, upload configuration files, start services, and run an action when a file changes. | Salt states are described as simple, extensible, deterministic, and layerable. |
| Installation | The recommended installation method is CPAN, and Rex is also distributed through operating-system package managers and from source. | Salt provides official RPM, DEB, and generic repositories for Windows, macOS, and other non-RPM and non-DEB packages. |
| Integrations | The guides include managing OpenWrt devices and Amazon EC2 instances. | SaltStack Config integrates with LDAP, SAML, OIDC, and Active Directory. |
| License | Rex and all its parts are released under the Apache 2.0 license. | Salt is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. |
| Purpose | Rex is an automation framework for managing local machines and remote machines over SSH. | Salt is a Python-based, open-source framework for remote execution, configuration management, automation, provisioning, and orchestration. |
Plans
In their own words
Rex
Rex is a free, open-source automation framework for managing local computers and remote machines over SSH. It runs self-hosted and agentless on Linux and Windows, with support also listed for RHEL/CentOS, Fedora, OpenWRT, BSDs, and Solaris. Projects keep inventory, environments, authentication details, and tasks in a Rexfile. You can combine local or remote execution, push or pull management, and imperative or declarative styles. Tasks can install packages, upload configuration files, start services, and trigger actions when files change. Rex uses a DSL compatible with Perl syntax and can be extended with Perl modules or custom code. Authentication documentation covers passwords, SSH keys, passphrases, external credential sources, and ssh-agent. The control host needs Perl and dependencies; managed hosts need Perl 5 and a valid SSH account. Installation is recommended through CPAN, with package-manager and source options. Apache 2.0 licensing applies to Rex and its parts.
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.