RackN

vs Foreman, MaaS, Cobber, and Ironic

RackN wins through collaboration. No other bare metal platform focuses first on fundamentally improving operations for our community. We’re not

Deep and Active Support

Unlike the open source projects below, RackN is a licensed software product.  That means we treat customer support for operations and bare metal as a first-class product feature. 

Our revenue comes from our software’s utility, not services or support.

And we win on features.

No other system on the market provides the integrated capabilities of the RackN Digital Rebar Platform (DRP).  Our unique infrastructure as code (IaC) features enable a wide range of advanced use-cases such as multi-site management, dynamic out of band workflows (contexts), manage switches or storage appliances for air-gapped and edge deployments. We deliver these features because only RackN takes a holistic bare metal management approach. Take us for a free self-service test drive and you’ll find that we are the simplest to use and most flexible data center automation platform available.  In addition to the vast open Digital Rebar catalog, we’ve made 100% of the RackN extensions available to community users running labs up to 20 machines.

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Class
Feature
RackN
Cobbler
Foreman
MaaS
Ironic
API

Ad Hoc (Pooled) Assignment

Evented (WSS)

Integrated DHCP

Intent API

Secure API

Active Community

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

YES ✔
Enterprise
Commercial Support

Highly Available

Multi Tenant

RBAC with Views

SSO Integration

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

Flexible

Field Extensible

Metal and Cloud

In-Field Configuration

Multi-OS

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

Linux

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

Linux

No

No

No

Linux

No

No

No

YES ✔

Hardware

Automatic Classification

Burnin and Decommission

Integrate OOB / IPMI

Integrated Inventory

Multi-Arch / Multi-Protocol

Switch Integration

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

No

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

YES ✔

Scale

Scale to 1,000s

Advanced Evented UX

Multi-Site Management

Multi-Site Federated Views

Self-Upgrading

Small footprint

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Orchestration

Integrated Triggers

Webhooks

Alert Subsystem

Cluster Lifecycles

Day 2 Mode

Modular IaC

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Pipelines

One Process, Many Targets

Firmware configuration

Image deployment

Integrated Workflow

Dynamic Contexts

Modular IaC

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

No

No

No

No

YES ✔

YES ✔

YES ✔

No

No

Class Feature RackN Cobbler Foreman MaaS Ironic
API Ad Hoc (Pooled) Assignment YES ✔ no no YES ✔ YES ✔
Evented (WSS) YES ✔ no no no no
Integrated DHCP YES ✔ no no no no
Intent API YES ✔ no no no no
Secure API YES ✔ no no no no
Active Community YES ✔ no no no YES ✔
Enterprise Commercial Support YES ✔ no YES ✔ YES ✔ YES ✔
Highly Available YES ✔ no no YES ✔ no
Multi Tenant YES ✔ no no no no
RBAC with Views YES ✔ no no no no
SSO Integration YES ✔ no no no no
Flexible Field Extensible YES ✔ no YES ✔ no no
Metal and Cloud YES ✔ no YES ✔ no no
In-Field Configuration YES ✔ no no no no
Multi-OS YES ✔ Linux Linux Linux YES ✔
Hardware Automatic Classification YES ✔ no no no no
Burnin and Decommission YES ✔ no no no YES ✔
Integrate OOB / IPMI YES ✔ no no no YES ✔
Integrated Inventory YES ✔ no no YES ✔ YES ✔
Multi-Arch / Multi-Protocol YES ✔ no no no no
Switch Integration YES ✔ no no YES ✔ YES ✔
Scale Scale to 1,000s YES ✔ no no no no
Advanced Evented UX YES ✔ no no YES ✔ no
Multi-Site Management YES ✔ no no no no
Multi-Site Federated Views YES ✔ no no no no
Self-Upgrading YES ✔ no no no no
Small footprint YES ✔ no no no no
Orchestration Integrated Triggers YES ✔ no no no no
Webhooks YES ✔ no no no no
Alert Subsystem YES ✔ no no no no
Cluster Lifecycles YES ✔ no no no no
Day 2 Mode YES ✔ no no no no
Modular IaC YES ✔ no no no no
Pipelines One Process, Many Targets YES ✔ no no no no
Firmware configuration YES ✔ no no no YES ✔
Image deployment YES ✔ no no YES ✔ YES ✔
Integrated Workflow YES ✔ no no no YES ✔
Dynamic Contexts YES ✔ no no no no
Modular IaC YES ✔ no no no no

Don’t Take Our Word For It!

The Digital Rebar Platform speaks for itself.  We encourage operators to download and test it!