How Nautobot differs from Netbox
Nautobot and NetBox are both open-source network infrastructure management tools, but they differ in several key ways:
Origins and Development
- NetBox was originally created by Jeremy Stretch at Digital Ocean
- Nautobot is a fork of NetBox, created in early 2021 by Network to Code
Architecture and Design Philosophy
- Nautobot was designed with a more pluggable architecture, focusing on extensibility through apps/plugins
- NetBox maintains a more monolithic core with plugin support added later
Key Technical Differences
- Plugin System: Nautobot has a more robust plugin ecosystem and treats plugins as first-class citizens in its architecture
- GraphQL: Nautobot added built-in GraphQL support alongside REST API
- Job Framework: Nautobot includes a more comprehensive job scheduling and execution framework
- Git Integration: Nautobot offers deeper Git integration for configuration management
- Single Sign-On: Nautobot has enhanced SSO capabilities
Community and Support
- NetBox has a larger overall user base as the original project
- Nautobot has strong commercial support through Network to Code
Release Cycle
- They follow different development roadmaps and release schedules
- Some features may appear in one before the other
Both tools serve similar purposes in documenting and managing network infrastructure, IP address space, and rack/device management, but their different approaches to architecture and extensibility may make one more suitable than the other depending on your specific requirements.
Nautobot was initially developed as a fork of Netbox
Nautobot is an open source Network Source of Truth and Network Automation Platform. Nautobot was initially developed as a fork of NetBox (v2. 10.4), which was originally created by Jeremy Stretch at DigitalOcean and by the NetBox open source community.
Leave a Reply