Platform Comparison

Overview

Clusterducks Scale HC3 Citrix PVS Cobbler Foreman
License AGPL3 Proprietary + GPL Proprietary GPL GPL3
First Release 2016 2012 2004 (Ardence) 2007 2009
Cost Free $$$$ $$$$ Free Free
Category Lifecycle Management VM Deployment Image Management Image Provisioning Lifecycle Management
Clusterducks Scale HC3 Citrix PVS Cobbler Foreman
Server OS Linux/FreeBSD ICOS (Linux) Windows Linux/FreeBSD/Others Linux/FreeBSD/Others
Bare Metal Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Virtualization Yes (libvirt) Yes (libvirt) Yes (XenServer) Yes Yes
Server Filesystem ZFS IBM GPFS NTFS (SAN for HA) N/A N/A
Clusterducks Scale HC3 Citrix PVS Cobbler Foreman
Storage Protocol iSCSI / NFS Direct-attach Proprietary (UDP) N/A N/A
Device OS Windows, Linux, MacOS Windows, Linux Windows, SUSE, RedHat Windows, Linux, Others Windows, Linux, Others
Device OS Integration* Basic (Linux) ? Active Directory+ Yes Yes

* Device OS integration refers to OS-level agents or drivers that allow for system individualization without external utilities, i.e. hostname changing and domain join management

Hardware Requirements

Clusterducks Scale HC3 Citrix PVS Cobbler Foreman
Minimum Servers 1 (plus web ui) 3 1 1 1
CPU Dual Core or better Vendor-supplied Dual Core or better - -
Memory 8GB (more=faster) Vendor-supplied (128G) 8G+ (avg 32G) - -
Network 1Gbit+ 2x10Gbit 1Gbit+ - -

Limitations

Project Max # Servers
Clusterducks Network is the bottleneck
Scale HC3 Up to 8
Citrix PVS ?
VMware Yes

User Experience

Project Responsiveness Boot storms? Access Method
Clusterducks Native (bare metal) No (bare metal) Bare Metal + VM (thin client, BYOD)
Scale HC3 Latency (vitualization) Yes VM (thin client, BYOD)
Citrix PVS Native No (bare metal) Bare Metal + VM (thin client, BYOD)
VMware Latency (virtualization+) Yes VM (thin client, BYOD)

Developer Experience

Project API Access Modular
Clusterducks Yes No
Scale HC3 ? No
Citrix PVS ? No
VMware Yes Yes

Administrator Experience

Project Special Drivers? Control Method Preferred Data Model Replication Snapshots
Clusterducks No Web UI / API Non-persistent (reprovision @ boot) 1-min intervals, as-needed May occur every minute with no performance loss
Scale HC3 virtio Web UI Persistent Near-realtime ?
Citrix PVS Yes PC Application Persistent Shared storage ?
VMware Yes Depends Persistent Shared storage Unusuable due to performance limitations

Category

Project Column
Clusterducks Yes
Scale HC3 ?
Citrix PVS ?
VMware Yes