Ansible
Ansible is a radically simple IT automation platform that makes your applications and systems easier to deploy and maintain. Automate everything from code deployment to network configuration to cloud management, in a language that approaches plain English, using SSH, with no agents to install on remote systems. https://docs.ansible.com. (by ansible)
Cloud-Init
unofficial mirror of Ubuntu's cloud-init (by number5)
| Ansible | Cloud-Init | |
|---|---|---|
| 415 | 3 | |
| 68,888 | 217 | |
| 0.5% | 0.5% | |
| 9.7 | 9.6 | |
| 1 day ago | 7 days ago | |
| Python | Python | |
| GNU General Public License v3.0 only | GNU General Public License v3.0 or later |
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
Ansible
Posts with mentions or reviews of Ansible.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects. The last one was on 2026-03-29.
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Deploying Mercure alongside Caddy on a shared VPS
Mercure is a real-time push protocol built on server-sent events (SSE). It ships as a standalone binary that embeds its own Caddy server. If you already run Caddy as your web server, you now have two Caddy processes fighting over ports. This post covers how to deploy both on the same VPS using Ansible, with solutions for every gotcha that came up.
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Ansible Has a Free API: Automate Everything Without Agents
GitHub
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CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
So, what exactly is a CLI agent? In simple terms, it’s a command-line interface tool that automates tasks for you. It’s like having a personal assistant who doesn't complain when you ask it to perform mundane tasks repeatedly. For example, I’ve been using Ansible lately for automating the deployment of applications on my server.
- Top 12 Puppet Alternatives for Automation
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SDK-Driven Development: A Litmus Test for Good Software Design
Also for systems administration and DevOps, I first used Ansible to streamline the management of our servers. Writing playbooks is OK, but going beyond that to convert them to roles is a good practice from collaboration perspective. This SDK approach worked quite well for me and my team. Now, I am developing NixOS modules for various services we deploy. In both cases, the goal is to compose well-defined and documented modules (SDK) into a complete system in a few lines of code (application).
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Getting Started with DevOps
Ansible,
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Again self-hosting! on k3s
You can use GitHub repos as RSS links and received notification about new releases. If you're using miniflux just past https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases.atom
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That's a Lot of YAML
That said, I can't readily imagine why you couldn't do exactly what you said because the AnsibleModule[1] contract is JSON over stdin/stdout (and one can write Ansible modules in any programming language[2] - they just default to Python)
1: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/v2.18.4/lib/ansible/...
2: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-core/2.18/dev_guide/develop... and https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/v2.18.4/test/integra...
- The Pain That Is GitHub Actions
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Top 17 DevOps AI Tools [2025]
Ansible provides streamlined automation for IT orchestration and configuration management through its declarative language. Teams can efficiently define and execute automation tasks, ensuring consistent environment management. This tool provides simplicity and effectiveness making it a valuable tool for managing complex IT infrastructures at scale.
Cloud-Init
Posts with mentions or reviews of Cloud-Init.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-10-30.
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What scripts have you built to stand up a new server?
This is what cloud-init[1], Puppet[2] et al a for. I haven't done this with shell scripts in at least 15 years.
[1] https://github.com/canonical/cloud-init
[2] https://www.puppet.com/
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cloud-init + ENI + static routes not working
When I look through this I see references to things that make it *seem* like eni supports routes, but I haven't been able to pull part the code enough to figure it out.
- How do you grow microOS file system?
What are some alternatives?
When comparing Ansible and Cloud-Init you can also consider the following projects:
pyinfra - 🔧 pyinfra turns Python code into shell commands and runs them on your servers. Execute ad-hoc commands and write declarative operations. Target SSH servers, local machine and Docker containers. Fast and scales from one server to thousands.
Docker Compose - Define and run multi-container applications with Docker
SaltStack - Software to automate the management and configuration of infrastructure and applications at scale.
letsencrypt - Certbot is EFF's tool to obtain certs from Let's Encrypt and (optionally) auto-enable HTTPS on your server. It can also act as a client for any other CA that uses the ACME protocol.
Puppet - Server automation framework and application