Ansible

Ansible is Red Hat's (IBM-owned) open-source automation engine, GPLv3-licensed; ansible-core hit 2.21 in May 2026 (EOL Nov 2027) and the commercial Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform reached 2.7 in June 2026. Unlike Puppet or Chef, it's agentless — pushing YAML playbooks over SSH (Linux) or WinRM/PSRP (Windows) instead of running a persistent daemon. That SSH push model handles ~500 nodes comfortably but degrades past 1,000-2,000 as the control node's CPU and network saturate. AAP pricing is node-based and unlisted; third-party estimates put it at $175-$250/node/year, with published contracts ranging $25K-$250K+/year. Independent 2026 surveys (Computingforgeeks, Spacelift) still rank it the most-adopted config-management tool for new projects. Current version/status: ansible-core 2.21 (May 2026, EOL Nov 2027); Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.7 (June 2026). License: GPLv3 (ansible-core, open source); Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a separate commercial subscription product. Pricing: ansible-core is free; Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform uses unlisted node-based annual subscriptions, third-party-estimated at roughly $175/node/year (Standard) to $250/node/year (Premium), with published enterprise contracts spanning $25K-$250K+/year. Maintained by Red Hat (IBM subsidiary).

🧊Why learn Ansible?

Pick Ansible when you're automating a fleet under ~500 mixed Linux/network boxes and don't want agents to install or maintain — SSH-only onboarding beats Puppet's agent+master setup for day-one speed. Don't pick it for a 5,000+ node fleet needing sub-second event-driven pushes; that's Salt's ZeroMQ transport, which 2026 comparisons clock at several times faster than Ansible once you're past 1,000+ nodes. Don't pick it Windows-first either — Ansible's own docs admit WinRM's "double hop" credential-delegation problem breaks AD operations and Windows Update API access, with no clean fix short of CredSSP or Kerberos delegation. Known weakness: Ansible's own documentation acknowledges that WinRM's network-logon model causes credential-delegation ("double hop") failures, blocking Active Directory operations and Windows Update API/DPAPI access on managed Windows hosts.

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Compare Ansible

Ansible vs Puppet→Ansible vs Chef→Ansible vs Saltstack→Ansible vs Terraform→

Learning Resources

Getting started with Ansible

Managing Windows hosts with Ansible (WinRM)

Ansible releases and maintenance

ansible/ansible releases (GitHub)

Related Tools

Ssh Yaml Python Terraform Kubernetes

Alternatives to Ansible

Puppet Chef Saltstack Terraform

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