Open Source Alternatives
Open Source Networking Alternatives to Infoblox
Enterprise DNS, DHCP and IP address management, sold as appliances and cloud services.
Infoblox is a trademark of its respective owner.
Updated Aug 2026
What you gain
- ✓No token licensing to renegotiate when you add a site or a service
- ✓IPAM data in Postgres behind a REST API instead of an appliance
- ✓No per-IP or per-zone cost as the address space grows
- ✓You choose your own DNS and DHCP implementations
What you give up
- △No DNS firewall or response policy zone threat feeds
- △No Grid architecture syncing appliances across sites
- △No vendor support contract when DNS breaks at 2am
- △Hardened physical appliances have no open source equivalent
Switching Cost
Infoblox sells reliability and somebody to call, and open source IPAM sells neither. phpIPAM and NetBox hold your subnets and address space well, and NIPAP handles large allocations, but none of them serve DNS or DHCP. You are replacing one product with three: an IPAM database, BIND or Kea for the services, and automation connecting them. That is a quarter of work for a mid-size network and it puts DNS uptime on your team permanently. This suits teams already running infrastructure as code who resent the token licensing. It does not suit the teams who bought Infoblox so DNS would never be their problem.
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phpIPAM, NetBox and NIPAP will hold your address space happily, but none of them are DNS or DHCP servers. Replacing Infoblox means running three things: an IPAM database, BIND or Kea for the actual services, and automation gluing them together. Do that if you already run infrastructure as code. Do not do it if you bought Infoblox precisely so DNS would never be your problem.
OSS covers
- ✓IPAM
- ✓network source of truth
- ✓subnet and VLAN management
OSS does not cover
- △DNS and DHCP services themselves
- △DNS firewall and response policy zone threat feeds
- △Grid high availability across sites
- △a vendor support contract when DNS breaks at 2am
Building Blocks
Infoblox is a platform. It bundles multiple capabilities into one subscription. These tools each cover one piece. Teams often assemble 2–3 of them instead of paying for the full suite.
NetBox
92covers: IPAM and source of truth60%The premier source of truth powering network automation. Open source under Apache 2. Try NetBox Cloud free: https://netboxlabs.com/products/free-netbox-cloud/
phpIPAM
62covers: IPAM50%phpipam development repository
Nautobot
72covers: IPAM and network automation45%Network Source of Truth & Network Automation Platform
NIPAP
58covers: IP address planning40%Neat IP Address Planner - NIPAP is the best open source IPAM in the known universe, challenging classical IP address management (IPAM) systems in many areas.
Infrahub
67covers: network source of truth35%Infrahub is a graph-based data management platform with built-in version control, CI workflows, peer review, and API access. It’s purpose-built to power reliable infrastructure automation at scale.
AWS Textract