# Foreman vs Salt

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Salt

| Attribute | Foreman | Salt |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 48.8 (17% (low)) | 56.5 (78% (high)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 47 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 428 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 15,637 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | - | 23,765 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A server lifecycle management tool that orchestrates provisioning, configuration management, and monitoring for both on-premise and cloud infrastructure. It provisions bare-metal and virtual servers from multiple cloud providers and integrates with configuration management tools to deploy and monitor server configurations. | An open-source framework that allows teams to automate and manage thousands of systems from a central control plane. It provides remote command execution, configuration management, and infrastructure orchestration capabilities through a master-minion agent architecture. |
| features.capabilities | `{"model":"both","hosting":"self","desired_state":true,"open_source_core":true,"cloud_provisioning":true}` | `{"model":"pull","hosting":"self","architecture":"agent","desired_state":true,"windows_support":true,"open_source_core":true,"cloud_provisioning":true,"enterprise_edition":false}` |
| integrations.count | 15 | 1 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Puppet"},{"name":"Salt"},{"name":"Ansible"},{"name":"MaaS"},{"name":"Amazon EC2"},{"name":"Google Compute Engine"},{"name":"OpenStack"},{"name":"Libvirt"},{"name":"oVirt"},{"name":"VMware"},{"name":"LDAP"},{"name":"FreeIPA"},{"name":"Redmine"},{"name":"Discourse"},{"name":"GitHub"}]` | `[{"name":"Bitnami"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Python |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://theforeman.org/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T22:23:01.243Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://saltproject.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T13:47:59.463Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| release.cadence_days | - | 5 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.1-2","date":"2026-07-26T01:32:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.1-2"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.1-1","date":"2026-07-23T19:43:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.1-1"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.2","date":"2026-07-01T19:37:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.27","date":"2026-07-01T18:54:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.27"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.26","date":"2026-06-24T17:16:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.26"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.1","date":"2026-06-11T14:41:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.0","date":"2026-05-27T10:36:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.0rc4","date":"2026-05-15T17:27:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.0rc4"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.0rc3","date":"2026-05-13T16:48:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.0rc3"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.25","date":"2026-05-13T16:42:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.25"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.0rc2","date":"2026-05-06T18:22:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.0rc2"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3007.14","date":"2026-04-29T18:00:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v3007.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3008.0rc1","date":"2026-04-23T23:59:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v3008.0rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.24","date":"2026-04-23T22:26:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.24"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.23","date":"2026-02-23T21:17:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.23"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.22","date":"2026-02-22T02:37:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.22"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3007.13","date":"2026-02-12T23:09:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v3007.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.21","date":"2026-02-11T16:11:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.21"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3007.12","date":"2026-02-05T23:17:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v3007.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/saltstack/salt/releases/tag/v3006.20","date":"2026-02-05T23:05:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v3006.20"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 4.8 |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":67,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=salt&per_page=100","last_12m":2,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (Configuration Management Tools)

| Capability | Foreman | Salt |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Architecture | - | Agent-based |
| Push / pull model | Both | Pull |
| Config language | - | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Masterless mode | - | - |
| Hosting | Self-hosted only | Self-hosted only |
| **Correctness** |  |  |
| Idempotent | - | - |
| **Model** |  |  |
| Desired-state declarative | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Ecosystem** |  |  |
| Content registry | - | - |
| **Platform** |  |  |
| Windows support | - | ✓ |
| **Scope** |  |  |
| Cloud provisioning | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Governance** |  |  |
| Policy / compliance | - | - |
| **Commercial** |  |  |
| Enterprise edition | - | ✗ |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Open-source core | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T15:03:06.695Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*