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Chef pros and cons

Vendor: Chef
4.0 out of 5
655 followers
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Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Chef is stable and scalable for managing configurations and automation.
It is easy to install and excels in compliance features.
Chef facilitates easy management of configurations and optimization capabilities, alongside complete infrastructure and application automation.
It allows for effective automation of processes.
Chef is highly beneficial for automation professionals focusing on infrastructure as code.

CONS

Support and pricing for Chef could be improved.
Managing role-based access could be enhanced.
Chef could get better by being more widely available and providing better documentation.
It is an old technology.
Chef could develop a docker container or docker images in the future.
 

Chef Pros review quotes

WW
Dec 5, 2018
One thing that we've been able to do is a tiered permission model, allowing developers and their managers to perform their own operations in lower environments. This means a manager can go in and make changes to a whole environment, whereas a developer with less access may only be able to change individual components or be able to upgrade the version for software that they have control over.
MS
Dec 11, 2018
You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations.
MohammedHashim - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 2, 2018
I wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles.
Learn what your peers think about Chef. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IH
Dec 10, 2018
This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time.
TR
Dec 11, 2018
It has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves.
AC
Dec 9, 2018
The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints.
Murat Gultekin - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 10, 2022
Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good.
SN
Dec 11, 2018
It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for.
DevOpsDiff8c - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 11, 2018
Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them.
SA
Dec 5, 2018
Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments.
 

Chef Cons review quotes

WW
Dec 5, 2018
There appears to be no effort to fix the command line utility functionality, which is definitely broken, provides a false positive for a result when you perform the operation, and doesn't work.
MS
Dec 11, 2018
I would like them to add database specific items, configuration items, and migration tools. Not necessarily on the builder side or the actual setup of the system, but more of a migration package for your different database sets, such as MongoDB, your extenders, etc. I want to see how that would function with a transition out to AWS for Aurora services and any of the RDBMS packages.
MohammedHashim - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 2, 2018
The time that it takes in terms of integration. Cloud integration is comparatively easy, but when it comes to two-link based integrations - like trying to integrate it with any monitoring tools, or maybe some other ticketing tools - it takes longer. That is because most of the out-of-the-box integration of the APIs needs some revisiting.
Learn what your peers think about Chef. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IH
Dec 10, 2018
I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten.
TR
Dec 11, 2018
There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based.
AC
Dec 9, 2018
Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this.
Murat Gultekin - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 10, 2022
Support and pricing for Chef could be improved.
SN
Dec 11, 2018
Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms.
DevOpsDiff8c - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 11, 2018
If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best.
SA
Dec 5, 2018
They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes.