head to head · open source
ansible vs nuke
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars, 24,333 forks, 837 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nuke has 3,754 stars, 457 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. ansible leads on adoption by 1,784% (70,721 vs 3,754 stars). ansible is written in Python under GPL-3.0; nuke is written in C# under MIT. ansible has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, nuke 12%. ansible was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| ansible | nuke | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 71K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2025-12-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 457 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ansible if
- You weight community size — 71K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nuke if
- You want the nuke feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and nuke fits your workflow better
About ansible
Ansible is a radically simple, agentless IT automation platform, written in Python and licensed under GPL 3.0, that handles configuration management, application deployment, cloud provisioning, ad hoc task execution, network automation, and multi node orchestration for operators, developers, and network and cloud teams who manage machines over plain SSH.
read the full ansible overview →
About nuke
NUKE is the AKEless build system for C /.NET: an MIT licensed build automation tool that lets .NET developers define their CI/CD pipelines as a regular console application instead of YAML, and it is aimed at C teams who want the language and IDE tooling they already rely on to extend to their build scripts.
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Frequently asked questions
Is ansible or nuke more popular?
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars and nuke has 3,754. ansible has the larger community by that measure.
Are ansible and nuke free?
Both are open source. ansible is licensed under GPL-3.0 and nuke under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ansible and nuke?
ansible is written in Python and nuke in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ansible or nuke?
Choose ansible if you want the larger community (70,721 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose nuke if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.