# Chef Enterprise Automation Stack Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Chef Enterprise Automation Stack the right DevOps solution for you? Explore 36 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/170467/Chef/reviews --- Chef Enterprise Automation Stack 4.4 (36) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of Chef Enterprise Automation Stack Ease of use 3.7 Customer Service 3.9 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 36 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Gurleen K. Software Engineer Information Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Chef - The Configuration Mangement with power of DevOps" January 6, 2019 4.0 Chef is helping us to configure the build and deploy for the different server at the same time. Chef help us to implement the true DevOps environment for the development and product delivery. Pros Chef is the configuration management tool. It helps in automation build, deploys and manages the CI pipeline and also provides the collaboration and makes clean and easy way for release. The Open Source code make it transparent and easy to debug and customize it. Chef is the best tool to pick form the CM DevOps option as it has the most features that need a CI pipeline need it at the time of development and delivery. Chef is highly scalable with high availability as backup master node is also there. Cons Implementation is the most complex part. There should be wizards for the same to make it simple and easy. Master Node can be configured on linux only, So it makes it compulsory to know LINUX while setup of master node. ChefBook is not as easy as yaml scripting language. Review Source Vandana G. Business Analyst Management Consulting Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Chef - A DevOps Tool to manage your all configuration." January 11, 2019 5.0 We manage the application and services so efficiently with it. The chef-solo also helps in learning and implementing the things. On production we use client/server mode to make it more productive. The elastic search indexing help the client node to handle the query in more efficient manner. Pros Chef is a powerful configuration management tool that manages and helps in automating the infrastructure with the advance software methodology . It helps in managing the timeline for release. Chef also provide the template infrastructure to configure the module according to the enterprise and DevOps standard. It really helps in deploying the project with the automation. It is written in Ruby and Erlang which run so efficiently on servers without using the must resources. The DevOps methodology helps in making a streamline for configuration and maintenance. Cons Implementation of Chef and opting the DevOps methodology is one of the complex part of it. Master Node can be only configurable in Linux\\Unix platform. Learning curves are sharp but the brief documentation help and never let you stuck in any step. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer DevSecOps Engineer Information Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Good config management tool" June 6, 2023 3.0 Pros The agent can be modified to use a specific port which could be an advantage for networks that require common ports like SSH and WinRM to be closed. Cons The agent requires more overhead to make sure the updates reach the destination in a large segmented network. Alternatives considered [Ansible Tower](https://www.capterra.com/p/149875/Ansible-Tower/)[Ansible Automation Platform](https://www.capterra.com/p/206320/Ansible-Automation-Platform/) Review Source Nidhi S. Co-Founder & CTO Computer Games Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "A tool for automation of complete infrastructure." April 15, 2019 5.0 Chef is one of the best and simplest tool for configuration management and automation for code infrastructures. Chef made the deployment of 500+ hybrid environment of different projects which makes it simple with the help of automation. Pros Chef is a complete automation tool which help us to build the efficient infrastructure of code. It also helps to simplify the configuration management, monitoring and deployment. The build in templates for cloud and on-premises help to setup the configuration. Integration with different cloud and OS make it dynamic to flexible. Chef is one of the best and easiest tool for configuration management. The event feed provide the one stop notification for our all configurations. The customized compliance help to generate the reports for audits. Cons Chef needs to provide the simple wizards to setup the master & client nodes for different environment. Documentation search engine should be more enhanced. Chef should also come with the PUSH configuration as it is always recommended in such case when our infrastructure is scaling to frequently. Review Source Sanchita A. Software Engineer Telecommunications Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Chef - A robust configuration management DevOps tool" October 7, 2018 5.0 We are using it in our production and Unit Test environment. The automation provide by the DevOps tool is really excellent. We have jump into the Chef Enterprise edition as it really helping us from so many years. Pros Chef is the one of the robust configuration management tool compared to the current market option. Chef is the DevOps engineers first choice as it is having a large community in the current dedicated market place. Highly scalability feature of the tool make it operation engineer first choice as it make possible to deploy the system with zero outage with the help of docker. Open source code provide the great transparency in the tool. Chef play a vital role in the DevOps software lifecycle as it manage the configuration and help to provide the automatic lifecycle. Cons Installation process is bit tricky, specially at the time of configuring master server for it. Master server can be setup on Linux/Unix machine. Chef need code based knowledge for scripting the tool which make it little complex. Documentation is also very large it must come with and fast guide. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Full Stack Developer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Amazing VM customizer and config tool" November 15, 2019 5.0 I have used chef to automate virtual machine deployment process, config setup for different environments. Pros I like that you write cookbook where you define, how your virtual machine should work. It makes deployments easy and everything run as smooth as it should. Cons Nothing to dislike since it works as it should - uses Ruby for cookbook defining and i like this product. Review Source Abhinav K. Sr Software Integrator Computer Software Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Chef - The Configuration Magement Tool" August 6, 2018 4.0 Chef is configuration management tool which is helping in automation of deployment process by which we doing the same task with less amount of time with zero errors as its completely follow automatic process. Pros Chef is the one of the highly popular tool for configuration management tool for DevOps practice. Deploying of 100s severs with a automation process with zero human error can be possible by chef. Many MNCs and other organization are jumping to devOps with help of Chef. Its highy scalable with high availability of it as its having the provision of backup master agent server. Its design to deploy, configure and manage servers. Source Code is also available of GIT as its open source software tool. Cons Chef Master server can be configured to linux or unix, but client can be on wimdows also. Setup process is also lengthy then tool named Ansible. As it have to install for both master and client server to make it work. Review Source Darshan Y. Linux and Virtualization specialist. Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Automate your deployment using Chef" December 7, 2019 5.0 Chef is being widely used by most of the enterprise companies to automate remote management, server deployments Pros One of the best configuration management tools available in market, because of availability of wide varieties of extensions it helps you to write cookbooks for any kind of platforms Cons Agent based solution makes it less favorite for end-users who like agent less CI tools like ansible, salt stack Review Source Trang N. Senior Test Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Chef provide a center location for continues manage infrastructure" December 31, 2019 5.0 We use Chef to manage our system consist of multiple Components deployed in AWS EC2 and Local with Auto Scale and frequency deploy our new code with updating our Chef cookbook and push to the Chef server. With Chef we could make our infrastructure as code and have consistent between our different environment Dev, Test, UAT or Prod. Pros With Chef we are easy to manage a large scale remote VMs in cloud or On-premise. We are able to completely bootstrap a newly added VM into our system remotely including software install, Application deployment and startup. The upgrade software version of deploy a new version of code for all VMs is handled from the Chef server with just update its cookbook. Have numerous provided cookbook for almost solution and we just need to modify it Cons Chef cookbook syntax is quite complex for understanding and it does not have UI graphic to know the progress of executing and error of Cookbook in each destination nodes Review Source Andrey P. Senior SQL Server DBA Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "CM for DevOps" January 9, 2019 5.0 Works great for automated cloud deployments Pros Easy to implement, learn and use on daily basis for Configuration Management. Cons WebIU does not allow modifucation of configurations Review Source TN Tyler N. Software Development Used the software for: ### "Satisfactory" March 9, 2018 5.0 Pros Really liked that the ability that it allowed scaling to be done relatively easily and if I had any questions I got a response back quickly. Cons Set up did take some time and using their API. No complaints other than that. They are also very friendly with support questions and answers. Review Source MH MOSHE H. DEVOPS ENGINEER Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "CONFIGURATION is great! " May 17, 2017 5.0 Pros I love this software! Its so easy to use. The support team is always on par and able to help me out. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Site Reliability Architect Biotechnology Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Stands the test of time" March 13, 2018 4.0 Pros We've been using Chef in production for 7 years now. As other technologies have entered into the scene, Chef has continued to evolve and keep up with the latest trends. It remains a solid choice for configuration management and infrastructure deployment, whether on virtual machines, or containers. Cons Templating language can be a bit hard to learn especially for those not already familiar with the Ruby programming language. Review Source RK Rajesh K. System Administrator Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Review Chef Enterprise Automation Stack" June 26, 2021 4.0 Over All Better Devops tool in Automation Industry. Pros The Chef Enterprise Automation stack is better automation tool in DevOps Industry. Easy to Deploy and Maintenance both On-Premises and Cloud Infrastructure. Cons The Chef Enterprise Automation stack may improve their deployment methodologies compared with others tool Like Ansible , Salt. Alternatives considered [Ansible Tower](https://www.capterra.com/p/149875/Ansible-Tower/) Reason for choosing Chef Enterprise Automation Stack Testing and Evaluation Switched from [Puppet Enterprise](https://www.capterra.com/p/124189/Puppet-Enterprise/) Testing Review Source SA Samuel A. Software Telecommunications Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Chef: Wizard of Automation" May 31, 2023 5.0 Pros Chef excels in automation, making managing large tech setups a breeze and simplifying the delivery of updates. Cons Chef's complexity and reliance on coding knowledge can be a challenge for beginners, and it lacks a user-friendly interface for managing configurations. Review Source ES Emanuele S. Cloud engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A robust platform for devops" May 12, 2019 4.0 I use chef to automate the process of installing and configuring middleware like Apache httpd, Jboss EAP, etc. with full proficiency in terms of time and quality. Pros Chef is a powerful platform which, once setup, permits to achieve a big efficiency on installation and configuration of complex middleware and software components, as well on deploying artefacts. Cons Lack of full retro compatibility when switching to new versions of software. Long learning curve is also a con. Review Source MR Meghanath R. Software Engineer Utilities Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Configuration made easy" June 26, 2022 5.0 Pros Easy to setup tool which works on pull mechanism, easy to learn Cons Basic understanding on config management tool is required Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Senior Software Engineer Automotive Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Amazingly powerful configuration management tool" February 25, 2019 4.0 Pros Chef is probably the best solution for enterprise configuration management. The language is very easy to use if you are familiar with Ruby and even if you are not the documentation is very easy to follow. Cons It is very resource intensive to perform Chef runs so is not very suited to low capacity server or VPS's. So its more suited to large enterprise where there are sufficient resources available. Review Source MA Mehak A. Software Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "DevOps tool to manage application configuration." December 31, 2020 5.0 Used it with a large application with multiple modules depending on each other and multiple servers and maintaining the configuration and keep them in sync would have been a really difficult task without the help of Chef. Pros The automation capability of Chef makes it very easy to integrate CI/CD pipelines. With a wide range of extensions present for Chef make is compatible with any kind of platform and the developer is able to write cookbooks for managing large numbers of serves and configuration. Cons There is no web console UI to update or manage the configurations. Chef is a very powerful tool so it is a resource-intensive tool and the code base is also large so not very suitable for small applications. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer DevOps Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "A good tool for management machine configurations and tracking infrastructure." December 19, 2018 4.0 Pros Once you configure your CLI and learn your away around setting up cookbooks and environments, it is easy to check in on the state of your infrastructure and perform updates and actions across many machines. Cons It can be difficult to track infrastructure as code if you have engineers making changes manually, and setting up permissions can be difficult at times. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Associate System Engineer Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Gets the job done with a minimal amount of setup and commands." March 7, 2018 5.0 Pros I like that I can configure an entire Oracle middleware environment within a matter of hours, instead of it taking days. This works well for our dev/qa/prod environments. Cons Not very flexible with Windows configuration, there is also not a lot of documentation out there for specific Windows configurations. Review Source BM Biswajit M. Production Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Its nice to have such transparent configuration management tool" January 11, 2018 4.0 We made our hardware infrastructure much easier to manage through chef. Pros Chef is an open source tool for configuration management, focused on the developer side for its user base. Chef operates as a master-client model, with a separate workstation needed to control the master. It's based in Ruby, with pure Ruby used for most elements you write. The Chef design is transparent and based on following the instructions it's given, which means that you'll have to make sure your instructions are clear.Chef is good for development-focused teams and environments. It's good for enterprises looking for a more mature solution for a heterogeneous environment. Cons 1\. The learning curve is steep if you're not already familiar with Ruby and procedural coding. 2. It's not a simple tool, which can lead to large code bases and complicated environments. 3. Doesn't support push functionality. Review Source Nupur G. Senior Officer Banking Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "best devops tool " April 18, 2018 4.0 Pros when it comes to configuration managementa nd maintianing same dependencies in various system chef can be used to write recepis and pulling them on the nodes. Cons The concept of chef server, node and workstation requires a lot of setup to start with.The process can be made more automated. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Associate Software Developer Computer Software Used the software for: I used a free trial ### "Configuration management on fingertips" October 10, 2018 4.0 Pros Mostly used for deploying on unit test systems(within 30 minutes) Automated software installation Simultaneously review the changes applied to servers Cons Not powerful as compared to ansible Training recommended(should have basic coding skills) Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Sustaining Engineer Internet Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Server configuration automation and reporting with interface options." July 16, 2019 4.0 gets the job done, medium ramp-up time to learn the syntax, plenty of features to make it worthwhile to use. Pros chef offers a CLI and GUI to report on fleets of deployed assets and configurations assigned to them. Cons getting at individual attributes and hosts can be cumbersome to parse from the command output. Review Source Similar Products Featured