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Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] vs Chef comparison

Broadcom and Progress Software are both solutions in the Release Automation category. Additionally, 86% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.
Chef
Read 19 Chef reviews
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  • 231 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
 

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] and Chef based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Release Automation
March 2025
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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automic Continuous Delivery...
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Chef
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (20th), Release Automation (11th), Configuration Management (18th)
 

Featured Reviews

MJ
The main benefit is you can deploy everything with it, but everybody has to need to use this tool in the organization
The main benefit is you can deploy everything with it, but everybody has to need to use this tool in the organization. If some organizations have their own tool, it is hard to make it clear that ARA would be better if everyone used it, because it provides a benefit when you can monitor all the users.
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Aaron P - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation
In terms of improvement, Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation. There is also an issue with shared resources like cookbooks lacking context, which could lead to problems when multiple companies use them. Chef should aim for wider availability, better flexibility, clearer documentation, and improved management of shared resources to prevent conflicts. Many companies are now moving to Ansible, so I would recommend better documentation, easier customer use, and simpler integration. I have concerns about the complexity of migrating to different servers and would prefer a simpler process.
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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The event monitor is very good. You can monitor when the file is created so you can pick up the file once it's done."
"The IT process automation is the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"You can design your workflows for your needs."
"The product provides efficiency, in terms time, cost, and resources."
"Deployment workflow (WF) can be designed this way, so that it is not necessary to provide all applications (systems) artifacts of which an application consists."
"It provides a wonderful user interface which is easy to use."
"We have saved on our time costs and have seen more quality."
"It is an umbrella system that allows us to integrate many different systems into our heterogeneous environment."
More Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] pros
"If you're handy enough with DSL and you can present your own front-facing interface to your developers, then you can actually have a lot more granular control with Chef in operations over what developers can perform and what they can't."
"Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"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."
"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."
"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"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."
More Chef pros
 

Cons

"One of the biggest features I've been asked by my team to put in there is opening more scripting languages to be part of the platform. There is a little bit of a learning curve in learning how to code some of the workflows in Automic at this time. If widely used languages like Perl and Python were integrated, on top of what's already there, the proprietary language, it would make it easier to on-board new resources."
"key thing is support for cloud-based deployment. That is lacking."
"Not a perfect ten because the user interface is brand new and it needs improvement."
"If you have a technical problem and need development of the tool, the support team is terrible, because they cannot help with the technical details."
"At the moment, the version that we are using (version 12.0), the environment is complex with multiple installations. Therefore, the monitoring is not scalable, but this should be improved in 12.1 and 12.2."
"I would like to see more support for WebSphere."
"The stability of the solution can be improved."
"GUI for mobile phones: Availability to approve and start deployment through mobile phones."
More Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] cons
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"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."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"It is an old technology."
"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
More Chef cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We increased our quality and reduced our time costs."
"I can save time and money more quickly."
"Customers often complain about the price."
"If you have a fixed contract, it has limits to spreading out. If you have a flexible enterprise license contract, then you have a lot of scalability for this tool."
"I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up."
"When we're rolling out a new server, we're not using the AWS Marketplace AMI, we're using our own AMI, but we are paying them a licensing fee."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"The price per node is a little weird. It doesn't scale along with your organization. If you're truly utilizing Chef to its fullest, then the number of nodes which are being utilized in any particular day might scale or change based on your Auto Scaling groups. How do you keep track of that or audit it? Then, how do you appropriately license it? It's difficult."
More Chef pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
18%
University
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Chef?
Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?
Chef is priced based on the number of nodes.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Chef?
Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

No data available
BigFix vs Chef Logo
BigFix vs Chef
Compared 31% of the time
AWS Systems Manager vs Chef Logo
AWS Systems Manager vs Chef
Compared 16% of the time
Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Chef Logo
Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Chef
Compared 13% of the time
VMware Aria Automation vs Chef Logo
VMware Aria Automation vs Chef
Compared 12% of the time
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef Logo
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef
Compared 11% of the time
More Chef Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL]
March 2025
Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] reportDownload Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] product report
Buyer's Guide
Chef
March 2025
Chef reportDownload Chef product report
 

Also Known As

CA Continuous Delivery Automation, Automic Release Automation, Automic ONE Automation, UC4 Automation Platform
No data available
 

Overview

Deliver apps at pace with agile development and let customer satisfaction soar. 

Today, the pressure is on to transform how you deliver applications to market. Get release agility and speed without compromising quality and stability with CA Continuous Delivery Automation. Deliver apps reliably on demand from development through production—mobile to mainframe. Agilely scale as the cadence, volume and complexity of your apps grow. It’s DevOps-ready release management and automation for your dynamic enterprise.

Broadcom

Chef, is the leader in DevOps, driving collaboration through code to automate infrastructure, security, compliance and applications. Chef provides a single path to production making it faster and safer to add value to applications and meet the demands of the customer. Deployed broadly in production by the Global 5000 and used by more than half of the Fortune 500, Chef develops 100 percent of its software as open source under the Apache 2.0 license with no restrictions on its use. Chef Enterprise Automation Stack™, a commercial distribution, is developed solely from that open source code and unifies security, compliance, infrastructure and application automation with observability. Chef provides an unequaled developer experience for the Coded Enterprise by enabling users to express infrastructure, security policies and the application lifecycle as code, modernizing development, packaging and delivery of any application to any platform. For more information, visit http://chef.io and follow @chef.

Progress Software
 

Sample Customers

BET365, Charter Communications, TASC
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Buyer's Guide
Release Automation
March 2025
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