head to head · open source
portainer vs eNMS
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. eNMS has 846 stars, 160 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. portainer leads on adoption by 4,482% (38,767 vs 846 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; eNMS is written in Python under GPL-3.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, eNMS 19%. portainer 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
| portainer | eNMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 846 |
| License | Zlib | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 160 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick eNMS if
- You want the eNMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and eNMS fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments. It is provided as is, at no cost, for the convenience of homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware. Portainer Business Edition builds on the same open source base and adds the features, hardening, and commercial support that production and enterprise environments require (RBAC, GitOps, edge management, audit, SSO, and more). Find out more about Portainer Business Edition features Take3 – get 3 free nodes of Portainer…
read the full portainer overview →
About eNMS
eNMS An enterprise grade vendor agnostic network automation platform. Introduction eNMS is a vendor agnostic NMS designed for building workflow based network automation solutions. It encompasses the following aspects of network automation: Configuration Management Service : Backup with Git, change and rollback of configurations. Validation Services : Validate data about the state of a device with Netmiko and NAPALM. Ansible Service : Store and run Ansible playbooks. REST Service : Send REST calls with variable URL and payload. Python Script Service : Any python script can be integrated into the web UI. eNMS will…
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or eNMS more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and eNMS has 846. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and eNMS free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and eNMS under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and eNMS?
portainer is written in TypeScript and eNMS in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, portainer or eNMS?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose eNMS if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.