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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

"It gives us good feedback on visualizations and on how our processes have progressed."
"Gives people insight into what's happening during the deployment."
"The main benefit is you can deploy everything with it."
"The product provides efficiency, in terms time, cost, and resources."
"You can design your workflows for your needs."
"It is an umbrella system that allows us to integrate many different systems into our heterogeneous environment."
"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."
More Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] pros
"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."
"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast. Chef-docker enabled us to have fewer sets of source code for different purposes. Configuration management was a breeze and all the servers were as good as immutable servers."
"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"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."
More Chef pros
 

Cons

"It would be very beneficial for us to see integrations into cloud environments, especially into the Google Cloud environment because we are heading towards cloud."
"key thing is support for cloud-based deployment. That is lacking."
"I would like to see more support for WebSphere."
"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."
"The stability of the solution can be improved."
"There needs to be better error handling and error descriptions. It should be more clear what the errors are and what we can do to fix them."
"We hope that we can integrate the new CD Directive into our portfolio, so we can bring the deployment and release management closer together."
"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."
More Automic Continuous Delivery Automation [EOL] cons
"Support and pricing for Chef could be improved."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"It is an old technology."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
More Chef cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We increased our quality and reduced our time costs."
"I can save time and money more quickly."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"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."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"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."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
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
17%
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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