Puppet’s Strong Performance in The Forrester Wave™: Infrastructure Automation Platforms, Q4 2024 & What It Means for Your Enterprise

Technology's moving incredibly quickly. Automation has shifted from being an optional benefit to a core requirement for businesses aiming to optimize operations, increase efficiency, strengthen security, and maintain regulatory compliance across international markets. At the center of this change is infrastructure automation. To understand which vendors are leading in this area, resources like The Forrester Wave™ provide valuable comparative analysis.

Puppet was recently evaluated in The Forrester Wave™: Infrastructure Automation Platforms, Q4 2024 category, and we’re proud to be recognized again as a Strong Performer. Our consistent placement is significant for enterprise leaders looking to simplify and enhance their infrastructure lifecycle and who wish to partner with an established vendor with strong automation DNA. 

Understanding the Forrester Wave™ 

The Forrester Wave™ is one of the most trusted evaluations of vendors within specific technology sectors. The report scores each vendor on criteria like current offerings, strategy, and market presence — allowing those in leadership and procurement roles to confidently compare solutions based on their unique operational needs. 

For enterprise IT teams managing complex configurations, optimizing budgets, and tackling compliance, The Forrester Wave™ report offers clarity on which solutions can best address these challenges. 

Highlights from Puppet's Evaluation in The Forrester Wave™: Infrastructure Automation Platforms, Q4 2024 

Puppet’s evaluation included a mix of accolades and areas for growth. Let’s break down some of the key highlights and where we’re paving the way for the future. 

Top Marks in Strategic Vision and Roadmap 

Puppet's strategic vision received some of the highest scores in the report. This reflects our deep understanding of where the industry is headed and our roadmap for continuing to address the shifting needs of cloud, hybrid, and on-prem infrastructure automation. 

Where we really stood out was in our roadmap execution: We earned the highest score among all vendors for our upcoming product advancements. This recognition underscores our unwavering commitment to helping businesses ensure compliance and solve complex infrastructure challenges at scale.

Strength in Core Use Cases 

The report identified configuration management and regulatory compliance as two of Puppet’s key strengths — areas that are foundational for enterprise-grade infrastructure automation. Our customers, many of whom work in high-growth or highly regulated industries, rely on Puppet to achieve desired state automation and maintain compliance across diverse environments, including legacy systems, multi-cloud setups, and everything in between. 

How We're Improving to Address Gaps in Our Current Offering

While we excelled in critical areas, the report also surfaced places where we can improve further. Some features emphasized by Forrester were not aligned with our strategic focus at the time of evaluation, and others (such as updates to patching and vulnerability management) were recently released or are on track for completion in the coming months. 

We’ve also introduced several exciting new features since the evaluation period, including: 

• Observability Data Connector:  Delivering deeper insights into your infrastructure.
• ServiceNow Self-Service Capabilities: Improving efficiency of ticket management.
• Security Compliance Enforcement:  Set and maintain compliant infrastructure configurations and prove compliance with automated paper trails. 

These recent improvements, combined with our forward-looking strategy recognized by Forrester, put us in an exceptional position to strengthen our stance in these areas. 

Why Enterprise Automation Should Go Beyond Task-Based Solutions 

One factor that wasn’t fully explored in this year’s report is Puppet’s commitment to desired state automation. Ensuring long-term security and compliance requires automatically and continuously maintaining a desired state aligned with hardened security standards. This minimizes manual intervention, reduces mean time to remediation, and supports long-term management of large-scale environments. 

This approach not only meets immediate needs but also builds ongoing resilience into your operations, equipping enterprises to tackle future challenges with confidence. 

Looking Ahead: Puppet’s Vision for the Industry 

The landscape for infrastructure automation is always evolving, with enterprise teams prioritizing: 

• Heterogeneous environments that support legacy systems, cloud workloads, and hybrid ecosystems.
• Continuous compliance with emphasis on hardened security and improved resilience.
• Scalable and intelligent automation supporting your entire Windows and Linux server estate, no matter how large or distributed. 

Puppet’s vision directly aligns with these evolving demands. Whether you’re provisioning servers, ensuring compliance with the latest regulation, or managing complex infrastructure across regions, Puppet’s solutions are designed to simplify your efforts. 

Why This Matters for Decision Makers 

If you’re leading an enterprise automation strategy, Forrester’s evaluation — and Puppet’s position in it—offers three key takeaways: 

1. Confidence in Our Business and in Our Roadmap: Our DevOps roots run deep and tell an enviable story of long-term success. Combined with our strategic vision and our relentless pursuit of excellence, you can rest assured that your business will be supported — not just today but as the technological landscape evolves. 
    
2. Trust in Configuration and Compliance Capabilities: Whether you're managing sprawling infrastructure or legacy systems, Puppet excels where it matters most for both externally regulated and self-regulated industries through continuous alignment with globally respected security hardening standards, like CIS Benchmarks and DISA STIGs. 
    
3. Commitment to Customer Value: We actively listen to our customers and continually prioritize releasing features that provide immediate benefit for our users, including enhancing security, cloud management, and observability. 

The Path Forward for Enterprises and Puppet 

While we’re certainly proud of our recognition as a Strong Performer in this Forrester Wave™, our focus remains on delivering maximum value to our customers. With new easy-to-use patching and vulnerability remediation features rolling out as we speak and an evolved product roadmap, we’re confident Puppet will continue to empower enterprises to achieve their goals faster, more efficiently, and with greater precision. 

We invite you to take the next step in transforming your IT operations. Whether you’re already one of our valued customers or just beginning your automation journey, our team is here to help. 

Explore our latest features and see how Puppet can enhance your enterprise automation strategy:

LEARN MORE