Foreman: Infrastructure Automation Ledger 2026 Scorecard

Part of the Infrastructure Automation Ledger (edition 2026-10-16). How the scores work: methodology.

Snapshot

Type: engine (community project; packaged by Red Hat as Satellite)
Owner: Community project under the theforeman GitHub organisation; no legal owner or foundation; much of the core work is done by Red Hat staff (not verified from a primary page)
Licence: GPL-3.0; free in full, no commercial edition
Latest release: 5.0.1 and 3.19.2 (2026-10-02); 5.0.0 on 2026-09-08
Support lifecycle: No written policy; the latest two releases get fixes, about six months each (5.0 and 3.19 on 2026-10-15); community support only
Next milestone: 5.1 (Ubuntu 22.04 support ends) and 5.2 (Puppet support removed, OpenVox only); no dates, from a secondary source
Targets: Bare metal (discovery, PXE, image, boot disk); VMs on vSphere, libvirt, OpenStack and EC2 in the core installer; Azure, Google, oVirt, KubeVirt (foreman_kubevirt 0.6.0, 2026-03-17) and Proxmox VE (foreman_fog_proxmox 1.0.0, 2026-09-15, compatibility table still lists Proxmox below 8.0) as plugins; Nutanix, Hyper-V and XCP-ng plugins are community only with unclear release status; no network or storage targets
Tier: Open-source engine
Archetype: Dependable builder
Evidence grade: B. Release dates, the 3.18, 3.19 and 5.0 release notes, the licence file and the plugin release feeds were read from primary sources. The 5.1 and 5.2 plans come from a secondary article. Capability before 2026 is inferred from the release record: where no dated trigger could be sourced the line is held flat, so the 2015 values are probably half a step generous in two or three domains.

Scope of the scores: Foreman is a host lifecycle manager, not a configuration engine: it orchestrates Puppet, Ansible and Salt and shows their reports. It has no plan or dry-run mode of its own; preview comes from the engine it drives (Puppet noop, Ansible check mode). Scored alone as the engine inside Red Hat Satellite.

Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	53.4 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+2.5 points (2015 to 2022: +1.0)	higher is better
Credibility	16.0 / 25	higher is better
Commercial risk	not scored (engine: nothing to buy)
Technical lock-in	8.0 / 25	lower is better
Integrator fit	10.5 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	2.0 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	52.0 / 100	balanced weights; see the methodology

Capability by domain, 2015 to today

Scores 0 to 5 against fixed anchors; total is weighted to 100.

Domain (weight)	2015	2019	2022	Today
Provisioning breadth (15)	2.5	2.5	2.5	3
Configuration management depth (12)	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
State, planning and safety (12)	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5
Language and authoring (10)	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
Orchestration and self-service (10)	3	3	3.5	3.5
Scale and control plane (8)	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5
Security and compliance (10)	2.5	2.5	2.5	3
Bare metal and day-2 operations (8)	4	4	4	4
Ecosystem and integrations (8)	3	3	3	3
AI assistance (7)	0	0	0	0
Total / 100	49.9	49.9	50.9	53.4

Year by year: 2015: 49.9 · 2016: 49.9 · 2017: 49.9 · 2018: 49.9 · 2019: 49.9 · 2020: 50.9 · 2021: 50.9 · 2022: 50.9 · 2023: 50.9 · 2024: 50.9 · 2025: 50.9 · 2026: 53.4

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
2020	Orchestration and self-service	3 → 3.5	+1.0	2.0: Dynflow task engine rebuilt on Sidekiq with PostgreSQL as the only database; job scheduling and recurring jobs
2026	Provisioning breadth	2.5 → 3	+1.5	foreman_fog_proxmox 1.0.0 and foreman_kubevirt 0.6.0: Proxmox VE and KubeVirt plugins released in the project organisation
2026	Security and compliance	2.5 → 3	+1.0	3.18: SSH certificates for remote execution; 5.0: Katello syncs RHEL 10 content signed with ML-DSA

Direction, 2023 to 2026

Each release item carries one theme and one driver (V vision, C customer need, M market window, U upstream, P portfolio).

Date	Item	Theme	Driver
2026-03	3.18: SSH certificate support for remote execution	Security	C
2026-03	foreman_kubevirt 0.6.0: KubeVirt compute resource plugin	Provisioning breadth	C
2026-06	3.19: Agama installer support for SLES 16 provisioning	Bare metal	C
2026-06	3.19: containerised deployment (Katello scenario, EL only)	Packaging	V
2026-08	Puppet support to be removed from 5.2 after Perforce ended open source Puppet releases; OpenVox stays (secondary source)	Configuration management	U
2026-08	Ubuntu 22.04 support ends with 5.1 (secondary source)	Packaging	U
2026-09	5.0: version aligned with Katello, TypeScript frontend, Ruby 3.3, Valkey replaces Redis	Packaging	U
2026-09	5.0: EL10 supported only through foremanctl containers, no migration from the RPM installer	Scale	V
2026-09	5.0: Katello syncs RHEL 10 content signed with ML-DSA	Security	U
2026-09	5.0: Ubuntu 24.04 and Debian 13 provisioning; SSH BMC provider removed	Bare metal	C
2026-09	foreman_fog_proxmox 1.0.0: Proxmox VE compute resource plugin	Provisioning breadth	C
2026-10	foreman-mcp-server repository in the project organisation; experimental, no release as of 2026-10-15	AI	V

Centre of gravity: Packaging (3), Security (2), Provisioning breadth (2)
Blind spots (no items): State and planning, Language, Orchestration, Ecosystem, Licensing
Driver mix: Vision 25%, Customer need 42%, Market window 0%, Upstream 33%, Portfolio 0%
Idea-to-need index: 0.38 (0 = demand-pulled, 1 = thesis-pushed)

Credibility: 16.0 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	4.5	Quarterly releases on a three-month rhythm since 2013; 3.17 2025-12, 3.18 2026-03, 3.19 2026-06, 5.0 2026-09
Roadmap transparency	3	Public code, issue tracker and release-team posts; no dated roadmap
Say-do	3	Few formal announcements; 5.0 shipped what the release candidates described; the Puppet removal (5.2) and Ubuntu 22.04 end (5.1) are pending and known only from a secondary source
Velocity	3	Each release mixes framework maintenance (Rails, Ruby, PatternFly) with one or two capabilities; 5.0 was mostly packaging
Lifecycle stability	2.5	Only the latest two releases get fixes, about six months each; the installer is being replaced; EL10 only through containers with no migration path from RPM installs

Commercial risk: not scored

This is an engine: nobody sells it, so there are no commercial terms to score.

Technical lock-in: 8.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	1.5	ERB and kickstart templates in a PostgreSQL database; everything reachable through the REST API
Export path	2	API and Hammer export everything; no export to another provisioning tool
Stack coupling	2	Katello needs Pulp, Candlepin and PostgreSQL; Smart Proxy services for DHCP, DNS and TFTP
Hardware / cloud coupling	0.5	Any x86 server; fully offline capable
Skills and tooling coupling	2	Foreman-specific concepts (host groups, Smart Proxies) on top of standard Linux skills; Satellite skills transfer

Integrator fit: 10.5 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Partner programme openness	2	No partner programme; open code and open downloads
Multi-tenancy and self-service	3	Organisations and locations with RBAC; no portal for requesters
API and infrastructure-as-code	3.5	REST API, Hammer CLI and foreman-ansible-modules; no Terraform provider found
Skills and certification	2	Community documentation; certification exists only for Red Hat Satellite

AI leverage: 2.0 / 20

How the product uses AI, scored per year like capability. Only GA counts.

Criterion	2019	2022	Today	Latest step
AI code and plan generation	0	0	0	2015: None
AI platform stack	0	0	0	2015: None
AI-assisted operations	0	0	0	2015: None
Agent openness	2	2	2	2015: Full REST API with tokens and Hammer CLI; the official foreman-mcp-server repository is experimental with no release

Year by year: 2015: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2018: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2026: 2

AI say-do, 2023 to 2026: 1 AI items announced; 0 GA, 0 still preview, 1 pending, 0 dropped. The one item is the experimental MCP server repository, which has no release or tag.

Foreman has no AI generation and no AI in its own operations. Agents can drive the REST API, and an official MCP server exists only as an experimental repository without a release.

Reading

Foreman keeps a quarterly rhythm that few tools in this Ledger match, and its bare-metal lifecycle (discovery, PXE, images, content, errata) is the deepest in the group outside Ironic. Its scores are held back by what it is not: there is no plan mode, no configuration engine of its own, and the Puppet path it was built around is being removed in favour of OpenVox. The 5.0 release is a packaging turn, with EL10 available only through the new container installer and no migration from RPM installs. A buyer should check whether the Proxmox VE plugin works against Proxmox VE 8 or 9 before building on it, because its compatibility table stops below 8.0.

Open questions and items to re-score

Who maintains the core: the split between Red Hat staff and others was not verified from a primary page.
Dates for 5.1 and 5.2 and the Puppet removal come from a secondary article; the project release notes do not mention them yet.
foreman_fog_proxmox 1.0.0 compatibility with Proxmox VE 8 and 9 is unverified; the README table stops below 8.0.
Status of the community Nutanix, Hyper-V and Xen plugins and of any Terraform provider was not found.
The upgrade rule (one release at a time) and HA documentation were not re-verified.
The MCP server has no release; re-score when one ships.

	’20	’26
Provisioning breadth		1
Configuration management depth
State, planning and safety
Language and authoring
Orchestration and self-service	1
Scale and control plane
Security and compliance		2
Bare metal and day-2 operations
Ecosystem and integrations
AI assistance