8 Best-Selling Ansible Books Millions Trust

Discover expert-recommended Ansible books by Jesse Keating, Michael Heap, and Jonathan McAllister offering proven automation strategies and practical DevOps insights.

Updated on June 24, 2025
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There's something special about books that both critics and crowds love, especially when it comes to mastering a tool as vital as Ansible. Automation powers modern infrastructure, and Ansible's simplicity paired with powerful orchestration makes it an indispensable skill for developers, sysadmins, and security pros alike. Millions use it daily to streamline deployments, manage cloud resources, and enforce security policies.

Experts like Jesse Keating, who authored Mastering Ansible, and Michael Heap, known for Ansible: From Beginner to Pro, have shaped how professionals approach automation. Their practical insights, born from real-world challenges, guide readers through complex orchestration and testing workflows. Jonathan McAllister’s focus on integrating Ansible with DevOps pipelines has also influenced many practitioners aiming to scale automation.

While these popular books provide proven frameworks, readers seeking content tailored to their specific Ansible needs might consider creating a personalized Ansible book that combines these validated approaches into a focused guide just for them. Such customization bridges broad expertise with your unique environment and goals.

Best for advanced Ansible automation users
Mastering Ansible offers a detailed exploration of the automation capabilities that set Ansible apart in the DevOps landscape. Jesse Keating presents methods to unlock advanced features like task delegation and rolling updates, enabling you to automate complex deployment scenarios with minimal disruption. This book’s practical approach to troubleshooting and extending Ansible with custom modules makes it a valuable resource for those looking to elevate their automation workflows and streamline infrastructure management.
Mastering Ansible book cover

by Jesse Keating·You?

2015·236 pages·Ansible, Automation, DevOps, Orchestration, Playbooks

What started as a need to deepen understanding of Ansible's automation capabilities led Jesse Keating to write this focused guide for developers and operators ready to move beyond the basics. You’ll gain insight into Ansible’s internal logic and learn to handle sensitive data securely, manipulate complex variables, and troubleshoot failures with precision. The book walks you through crafting multi-tier playbooks and orchestrating rolling updates that minimize service disruptions, along with extending Ansible through custom modules and plugins. If you’re aiming to refine your automation skills and tackle complex orchestration challenges in DevOps, this book offers a clear path forward without fluff.

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Best for developers automating infrastructure
Michael Heap is a software engineer from London who leads a team focused on reducing technical debt across diverse technologies. His hands-on experience with complex systems inspired him to write this concise guide to Ansible, aiming to help developers automate their environments effectively. With a background spanning C++, Java, Golang, and PHP, Heap brings broad expertise to demystify configuration management for practical use. This book reflects his commitment to making automation accessible and useful for developers looking to streamline their workflows.
Ansible: From Beginner to Pro book cover

by Michael Heap··You?

2016·187 pages·Ansible, Automation, DevOps, Configuration Management, Ansible Playbooks

What started as Michael Heap’s need to streamline complex IT environments evolved into a practical guide that demystifies Ansible automation for developers. You’ll learn how to build playbooks that automate environment setup, reuse tasks through roles, and even create custom modules tailored to your business needs. The book walks you through testing your infrastructure with tools like Test Kitchen and ServerSpec, making it clear how to maintain reliable automation workflows. If you’re frequently handling manual server setups or package installs, this book will equip you to automate those repetitive tasks efficiently without overwhelming you with unnecessary complexity.

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Best for custom automation plans
This custom AI book on Ansible automation is created based on your current expertise, interests, and the specific challenges you face in automating infrastructure. AI crafts this book to focus precisely on the areas you want to learn, whether it’s playbook design, security practices, or integrating with cloud platforms. Personalizing the content ensures you skip over generic material and dive into what matters most for your automation success.
2025·50-300 pages·Ansible, Ansible Basics, Playbook Design, Role Management, Inventory Setup

This personalized AI book on Ansible automation explores battle-tested methods tailored to your real-world challenges and interests. It covers core automation concepts, practical playbook design, and advanced orchestration techniques, all matched to your background and specific goals. By focusing on your unique environment, the book examines efficient workflows and troubleshooting tactics that resonate with proven practices millions have found valuable. You'll gain a deep understanding of Ansible's capabilities, from modular roles to secure deployments, through a tailored lens that makes complex automation accessible and immediately relevant to you.

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Battle-Tested Methods
3,000+ Books Created
Best for Ansible beginners building foundations
Starting Ansible offers a unique approach to demystifying this powerful automation tool, guiding you step-by-step from installation to advanced concepts like roles and templates. This beginner-friendly guide has gained recognition for its clear explanations and practical structure, making it a trusted resource for those entering the world of Ansible. It addresses the common challenges faced when learning configuration management by breaking down complex topics into manageable parts, helping you integrate automation into your development and operations tasks with confidence.
2016·122 pages·Ansible, DevOps, Automation, Configuration Management, Ansible Modules

The methods Nathan Hull developed while crafting this guide for beginners in Ansible offer a straightforward pathway into a tool often seen as complex. You’ll start by understanding what Ansible is and how to get it up and running on your system. The book’s clear breakdown of modules, playbooks, handlers, and especially roles, gives you practical insight into organizing and automating your workflows. By covering templates and task management in detail, it equips you with the skills to handle real development challenges with Ansible. This book suits anyone new to configuration management seeking solid foundational knowledge without being overwhelmed.

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Best for DevOps engineers scaling automation
If you're looking to harness Ansible 2 to streamline your DevOps environment, this book breaks down how to leverage one of the most straightforward yet powerful automation tools available. Its stepwise approach covers essential topics like integrating Docker containers and continuous delivery pipelines, making it a practical choice for DevOps professionals aiming to embed automation deeply within their organizations. The book’s focus on combining Ansible with popular tools such as Jenkins and Slack shows its dedication to real-world applicability and scaling automation effectively.
2017·266 pages·Devops, Ansible, Automation, Configuration Management, Continuous Integration

Jonathan McAllister draws from his deep experience with automation tools to guide you through leveraging Ansible 2 for DevOps success. You’ll get hands-on understanding of writing Ansible playbooks using YAML and Jinja, automating container provisioning with Docker, and integrating continuous integration and delivery pipelines. The book delves into creating custom Ansible modules and managing third-party tools like Jenkins and Slack, helping you scale automation across complex environments. This is tailored for DevOps engineers and developers ready to embed Ansible into their workflows, focusing on practical skills rather than abstract theory.

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Best for security-focused automation professionals
Madhu Akula is a security ninja and DevOps researcher with extensive industry experience, ranging from building secure infrastructure to publishing leading research and training global teams. His work has been featured at major conferences including Defcon and DevSecCon. This background uniquely positions him to guide readers through leveraging Ansible 2 for automating complex security tasks, making the book a valuable resource for professionals aiming to strengthen their infrastructure with automation.
Security Automation with Ansible 2 book cover

by Madhu Akula, Akash Mahajan··You?

2017·364 pages·Ansible, Automation, Security, DevOps, Ansible Playbooks

What sets this book apart is its focus on applying Ansible 2's automation capabilities specifically to security tasks, guided by authors deeply embedded in the security and DevOps fields. Madhu Akula and Akash Mahajan lead you through creating modular, reusable playbooks that handle everything from patch management to continuous security scanning across diverse environments like Linux, Windows, and cloud containers. You'll gain hands-on insights into integrating tools like Ansible Tower and Jenkins, managing secrets with Ansible Vault, and extending Ansible with custom modules. This book suits system administrators, DevOps engineers, and security consultants who want to automate security workflows reliably without reinventing the wheel.

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Best for rapid automation wins
This AI-created book on Ansible automation is written based on your unique background, skill level, and goals. You tell us which Ansible topics and tasks matter most to you, and this book is crafted to cover exactly those areas, focusing on rapid and effective automation. Since Ansible can be broad, having a customized guide helps you avoid unnecessary complexity and learn efficiently. It’s like having a mentor who knows what you need and helps you build automation skills step by step.
2025·50-300 pages·Ansible, Automation Basics, Playbook Development, Configuration Management, Orchestration

This tailored book explores a focused, step-by-step approach to mastering Ansible automation quickly. It combines core concepts with practical actions that match your background and goals, emphasizing rapid results within a 30-day period. The content covers essential Ansible tasks and playbook creation, gradually building your skills in automation, configuration management, and orchestration. It examines how to efficiently deploy automation workflows that make everyday infrastructure tasks smoother and more reliable. By tailoring the content to your specific interests and skill level, this book reveals pathways to fast automation wins without overwhelming you with unnecessary details. It’s a personalized resource designed to help you gain confidence and practical ability in Ansible through clear, actionable steps that focus on your success.

Tailored Content
Practical Automation
1,000+ Happy Readers
Best for cloud infrastructure automation
Aditya Patawari is a systems engineer and DevOps practitioner who helps organizations optimize cloud infrastructure using tools like Ansible, Docker, and Kubernetes. His extensive contributions to open source projects and hands-on consulting experience inform this book's practical approach to cloud automation. This background makes the book especially relevant for those seeking to manage complex cloud environments efficiently with Ansible.
Ansible 2 Cloud Automation Cookbook book cover

by Aditya Patawari, Vikas Aggarwal··You?

2018·200 pages·Ansible, Cloud Automation, DevOps, Infrastructure, Ansible Modules

When Aditya Patawari and Vikas Aggarwal set out to write this book, they drew on their extensive experience in systems engineering and DevOps to tackle the challenges of cloud infrastructure automation with Ansible. You learn to navigate cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure using Ansible modules, securing credentials with Ansible Vault, and deploying multi-tier applications seamlessly. The book is structured around practical recipes that guide you through building reusable tasks and working with self-hosted clouds such as OpenStack and Docker. If you're involved in managing cloud environments and want a focused, hands-on approach to streamlining automation, this book gives you clear methods without unnecessary complexity.

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Best for sysadmins new to Ansible
Mohamed Alibi is a Linux system administrator at the European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL-EBI, with a master's degree in Networking and Computer Sciences and expertise in grid computing data management. His hands-on experience managing complex environments informs this guide to Ansible, designed to help you automate and orchestrate infrastructure with confidence. Alibi’s practical approach reflects real-world challenges faced by administrators, making this book a solid resource for those eager to reduce manual workload through automation.
Ansible Quick Start Guide book cover

by Mohamed Alibi··You?

2018·214 pages·Ansible, Configuration Management, Automation, Infrastructure, Playbooks

Mohamed Alibi’s expertise as a Linux system administrator shines through in this guide, which takes you from basic Ansible setup to advanced infrastructure automation. You’ll learn how to configure Ansible servers, write YAML playbooks, and leverage community roles and modules to manage diverse environments including Linux, Windows, and virtualized systems. The book drills into practical tasks like using Ansible Vault for security and organizing your inventory, making it a hands-on manual for automating configuration management. While it’s ideal for system and network admins new to Ansible, anyone aiming to streamline infrastructure tasks will find clear explanations and useful examples throughout.

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Best for network engineers using Ansible
Bookauthority, a respected source for curated book recommendations, highlights this as "One of the best new Ansible ebooks." Their endorsement reflects how this concise guide meets the needs of IT pros balancing evolving technologies with practical network automation challenges. This book’s focused approach offers a quick yet thorough resource that helped many sharpen their Ansible skills efficiently.

Recommended by Bookauthority

One of the best new Ansible ebooks

2019·45 pages·Ansible, Network Security, Configuration, Playbooks, Command Line

What happens when network engineering expertise meets concise technical writing? U V Omos delivers a tightly focused manual tailored for IT professionals juggling legacy systems and emerging tech demands. You gain direct exposure to Ansible modules, playbooks, command line tools, and network orchestration across varied vendor devices, all without the fluff—perfect if you're preparing for interviews or need a quick refresher. The book’s brevity—only 45 pages—means you won’t get bogged down in lengthy explanations, but rather a sharp, targeted guide on network security configurations. If you’re seeking an efficient way to sharpen specific Ansible skills for real-world network tasks, this book fits that niche well.

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Conclusion

These eight Ansible books collectively underscore a few clear themes: practical automation techniques, integration with DevOps practices, and specialized applications like security and cloud management. They offer proven frameworks that countless readers have used to improve efficiency and reliability in their IT environments.

If you prefer proven methods, start with Mastering Ansible or Ansible: From Beginner to Pro to build strong automation foundations. For validated approaches in DevOps integration, Implementing DevOps with Ansible 2 and Ansible 2 Cloud Automation Cookbook provide actionable strategies. Network engineers will appreciate the focused insights in Big Little Book on Ansible and Ansible Tower.

Alternatively, you can create a personalized Ansible book to combine proven methods with your unique needs. These widely-adopted approaches have helped many readers succeed in mastering Ansible and advancing their automation skills.

Frequently Asked Questions

I'm overwhelmed by choice – which Ansible book should I start with?

Start with Starting Ansible or Ansible: From Beginner to Pro for accessible introductions that build solid foundations before moving to more advanced topics.

Are these books suitable for someone new to Ansible?

Yes, books like Starting Ansible and Ansible Quick Start Guide are designed specifically to help beginners grasp core concepts and start automating quickly.

What’s the best order to read these Ansible books?

Begin with beginner-friendly guides, then explore specialized topics like security or cloud automation. For example, follow Starting Ansible with Security Automation with Ansible 2 or Ansible 2 Cloud Automation Cookbook.

Do these books focus more on theory or practical application?

Most of these books emphasize hands-on usage, with detailed playbooks, real-world examples, and actionable guidance to apply Ansible effectively in your environment.

Are any of these books outdated given how fast Ansible evolves?

While Ansible advances rapidly, these titles cover core automation principles and best practices that remain relevant, supported by authors with ongoing industry experience.

Can I get a personalized Ansible book tailored to my specific needs?

Absolutely! While expert books provide proven methods, a personalized Ansible book can combine these approaches with your unique goals for a focused learning path. Try creating your custom Ansible book.

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