In our 27-criterion evaluation of configuration management providers, we identified the seven most significant — Canonical, Chef, Microsoft, Northern.tech, Puppet, Red Hat, and SaltStack — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. We focused on core features, including deployment, configuration modelling, automation, monitoring and governance, and community support, as well as on each vendor’s ability to match a strategy to these features.

This report helps infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals make the right choice when looking for configuration management solutions for their DevOps and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) automation.