CFEngine

No phone app

7.7No. 9 of 59
in IT Automation Software

Recognised40% of the score80
Phone app26% of the score0
Documented20% of the score87
Free plan14% of the score100

Free plan: Yes
Runs on: api, Linux, Mac, self-hosted, Web, Windows

Summary

CFEngine automates infrastructure, security, and compliance by helping managed systems move toward a state defined by users. Users describe that target in CFEngine’s domain-specific language; lightweight agents run on devices and connect to the hub by default every five minutes to check configuration compliance. It is designed for embedded devices, servers, cloud systems, and mainframes, including environments with tens or hundreds of thousands of nodes. Enterprise includes the Mission Portal web interface, a reporting hub with an SQL database, REST APIs, compliance reports, policy analysis, alerts, inventory and change reports, and file-integrity and performance monitoring. Its customizable, shareable dashboards present compliance and performance information. Secure bootstrap uses mutual authentication, key exchange, and encrypted TLS communication. Community Edition costs 0.00 USD per free under GNU GPL, supports Linux, and includes community support. Enterprise is free for up to 25 hosts; pricing beyond that is available on request. Listed supported systems include Linux distributions and Windows.

Who it is for

CFEngine suits administrators managing configuration, security, or compliance across Linux and Windows systems. Its stated scale and device coverage may suit organizations managing large or varied infrastructure.

What is good

Agents check configuration compliance by default every five minutes.
Designed for deployments of tens or hundreds of thousands of nodes.
Enterprise includes compliance and inventory reporting.
Secure bootstrap uses mutual authentication and encrypted TLS communication.
Enterprise is free for up to 25 hosts.

What to know first

Community Edition supports Linux.
Enterprise pricing beyond 25 hosts is available on request.
Agents connect to a CFEngine hub.

Verdict

CFEngine combines desired-state policies with agents that check managed systems regularly. Community Edition is free for Linux, while Enterprise adds its reporting interface and is free for up to 25 hosts.

CFEngine plans and pricing

All plans

Community Edition Free GNU GPL · Linux support · community support cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026

Enterprise Edition Not published up to 25 hosts free · single price per license · no add-ons or extra functionality costs cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026

Compared on IT automation software

Free plan: Yescfengine.com
Deployment model: self_hostedcfengine.com
Agent model: agent_basedcfengine.com
Drift detection: Yescfengine.com
Patch management: Yescfengine.com
Policy as code: Yescfengine.com
Compliance reporting: Yescfengine.com
Supported platforms: Linux (RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu) and Windowscfengine.com

Facts

Purpose: CFEngine automates infrastructure, security and compliance by continuously keeping infrastructure secure, compliant and up to date.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Policy model: Users define desired infrastructure states in CFEngine's domain-specific language, and lightweight agents converge actual states toward them.docs.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Architecture: The CFEngine agent runs on each managed device and connects to the CFEngine hub by default every five minutes to ensure configuration compliance.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Scale: CFEngine runs on embedded devices, servers, cloud systems and mainframes and handles tens or hundreds of thousands of nodes.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Dashboards: Dashboards provide real-time compliance levels, performance monitoring, custom alerts and actions, and customizable shareable dashboards.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Inventory: Inventory reporting collects detailed information across bare-metal servers, virtual machines, cloud instances and IoT devices.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Security: CFEngine's secure bootstrap uses mutual authentication, key exchange and encrypted communication over TLS.docs.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Platforms: CFEngine supports major platforms including RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian and Windows Server, with tailored support available for OpenBSD, IBM AIX, macOS and Solaris.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Support: Enterprise provides a dedicated support team that answers questions, recommends best practices and can prioritize development of requested features.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
Modules: CFEngine Build is a catalogue of policies and modules created by CFEngine, partners and the community.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026
API: The Enterprise API is a REST API that also uses SQL to create custom reports from data held in globally distributed CFEngine database servers.docs.cfengine.com · 1 Oct 2026