Chef Is More Than a Configuration Management Tool
Chef and Puppet are both pioneers in the DevOps movement offering popular enterprise-grade configuration automation tools. When evaluating which one is right for you, you should understand how Chef’s mission has evolved. Chef’s mission is to help IT Operators achieve more – from enabling continuous security and compliance to automating application delivery. Chef focuses on helping organizations to become fast and efficient and stay ahead of the competition by automating delivery and management of the entire IT stack.
Chef vs. Puppet - Similarities and Differences
| Criteria | Chef | Puppet |
|---|---|---|
| Flexibility | Chef has a code-driven approach, which gives greater flexibility and control of configurations | Its model-driven approach equals less control when compared to code-driven approaches |
| Compliance and Security management | Chef has advanced capabilities with premium content based on industry benchmarks | Puppet does not have as much advanced capabilities as compared to Chef |
| Architecture | Server/client OR client-less (“pull”) | Server/client OR client-less (“pull”) |
| Concepts | Chef uses cookbooks and recipes to describe generic concepts | Puppet uses manifest to describe single concepts |
| Platforms Run on | Windows, enterprise Linux distributions, Cisco IO, Solaris, Nexus, AIX and AWS | Red Hat Linux, Debian, Windows Server OS, Windows Consumer OS 10, Mac 10.12 |
| Scalability | Chef is used by large enterprises to manage complex, scalable infrastructures | Puppet can be used to scale infrastructure needs as well |
The Chef Advantage
Chef has a code-driven approach that gives greater flexibility and control of customer configurations. Chef also provides an extensive collection of configuration and module recipes. Chef Premium Content includes ready-to-use, curated content for compliance audits, remediation and desktop configuration based on CIS benchmarks, DISA and STIGs. Along with that, tools like 'Test Kitchen' are dedicated solutions for testing; the 'Knife' tool eases the installation of Chef. With the launch of new capabilities like job orchestration and Chef agentless, customers now have the power to use Chef for a wide range of use cases. Overall, when compared, Chef is considered a more extensive, flexible and scalable solution.
Check Your Puppet Systems for Security and Compliance with Chef Compliance
Chef Compliance is extremely effective at inspecting a system, including identifying vulnerabilities and out-of-compliance versions of software. Chef Compliance validates your deployed configuration across applications and infrastructure. Many organizations that use Puppet also use Chef Compliance to shift compliance left and maintain a complete view of compliance status across the estate.
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Compliance Automation
With Chef’s unique compliance-as-code approach, policy is executed automatically and repeatedly, shifting security from an independent event to an integrated continuous practice.
Enterprise Content
Chef provides access to 400+ out-of-the-box profiles based on CIS and DISA STIG with more content being created every month.
Application Delivery Automation
Chef’s unique approach to creating technology agnostic and portable application delivery automation makes delivering, updating, and patching applications easier than ever.
Reporting and Dashboards
Chef Automate provides a rich dashboard that monitors your on-premises, cloud, and container workloads to enforce desired state and compliance.
Runs Everywhere
Chef delivers automation and compliance across a wide range of infrastructure environments, whether on-premises, at the edge, or in the cloud. Chef is the only vendor certified across all three major public clouds – AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Time to Value
You can ramp fast to get going with Chef Infra Language with build-in resources and helpers, 3000+ cookbooks used and supported by Chef Community.
We tested several solutions but found that Chef fits our needs the best. We like it for its features, ease of use, and the community behind it.
