head to head · open source
portainer vs pytest-testinfra
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pytest-testinfra has 2,480 stars, 358 forks, 147 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. portainer leads on adoption by 1,463% (38,767 vs 2,480 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; pytest-testinfra is written in Python under Apache-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pytest-testinfra 14%. portainer was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docker, kubernetes), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | pytest-testinfra | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Zlib | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 358 |
| 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 pytest-testinfra if
- You want the pytest-testinfra feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pytest-testinfra 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 pytest-testinfra
Testinfra test your infrastructure Latest documentation: .. important:: Maintenance Notice This project is currently not actively maintained , and responses to issues or pull requests may be delayed for several months . Please consider this when using the project and feel free to contribute via pull requests, which will be reviewed as time permits. Thank you for your understanding! About ===== With Testinfra you can write unit tests in Python to test actual state of your servers configured by management tools like Salt , Ansible , Puppet , Chef and so on. Testinfra aims to be a Serverspec equivalent in python…
read the full pytest-testinfra overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or pytest-testinfra more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and pytest-testinfra has 2,480. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and pytest-testinfra free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and pytest-testinfra under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and pytest-testinfra?
portainer is written in TypeScript and pytest-testinfra 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 pytest-testinfra?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose pytest-testinfra if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.