Chef vs Digital.ai Release comparison

Progress Software and Digital.ai are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Progress Software is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.0, while Digital.ai is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.0. Progress Software holds a 0.5% mindshare in BA, compared to Digital.ai’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Digital.ai users who would recommend it.

Chef

Read 19 Chef reviews

282 Views
172 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Digital.ai Release

Read 4 Digital.ai Release reviews

494 Views
258 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Chef

Digital.ai Release

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

Chef and Digital.ai Release are products in the competitive DevOps automation market. Digital.ai Release has the upper hand due to its extensive feature set and perceived value, despite a higher price point.

Features: Chef is known for its robust automation capabilities, strong integration with cloud platforms, and effective infrastructure management. Digital.ai Release provides comprehensive release management, supports complex deployment pipelines, and offers advanced analytics for insightful decision-making.

Room for Improvement: Chef could improve deployment processes, customer interface usability, and enhance rollback features. Digital.ai Release could benefit from reducing initial setup complexity, refining user training materials, and integrating more seamlessly with other DevOps tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Chef offers flexibility with its open-source nature, aiding in customization and integration, along with reliable customer support. Digital.ai Release provides a more structured deployment model with streamlined onboarding and excellent customer service, simplifying adoption.

Pricing and ROI: Chef offers a cost-effective pricing model appealing to enterprises seeking lower initial investment and swift ROI. Digital.ai Release, with higher setup costs, ensures greater long-term ROI through its rich features and efficiency in the release process.

To learn more, read our detailed Chef vs. Digital.ai Release Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Digital.ai Release

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

Chef

Ranking in Build Automation

20th

Ranking in Release Automation

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Configuration Management (18th)

Digital.ai Release

Ranking in Build Automation

17th

Ranking in Release Automation

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

DevSecOps (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Chef is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Digital.ai Release is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Aaron P

DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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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Navanath Gajare

DevOps Tech Lead at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Effectively automates deployments and applies one template across applications

Our company uses the solution to handle deployments for new releases. Whenever there is a new release, the solution creates a new provision template for deployment. We also orchestrate and manage all users. We integrate with other tools like GitHub, Jenkins, or Digital.ai Deploy to manage…

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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

"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."

"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."

"The most valuable feature is automation."

"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."

"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."

"We have had less production issues since using Chef to automate our provisioning."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."

More Chef pros

"The most valuable feature of Digital.ai Release is its ability to communicate with various deployment systems, such as XLD and batch deployments, as well as integrate with tools, such as Flyway and Bamboo. We use Bamboo as our build orchestrator, and Digital.ai Release also integrates with Jira, another Atlassian solution. These capabilities make it a powerful tool for managing workflow, test automation, and other processes."

"The time is also reduced because the manual work has tremendously decreased. We just have to click one button, and it will create everything for us."

"The solution can apply one template across multiple applications."

"The orchestration, building the release, and then just executing it and managing that pipeline — the orchestration capabilities are great for that."

Cons

"It is an old technology."

"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."

"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."

"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."

"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."

"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."

"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."

"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."

More Chef cons

"Digital.ai Release could improve by having a better plugin that works with Guardian that we use for mainframe migrations. If there could be an interface or plugin for Guardian that would be beneficial."

"The solution is a little bit expensive."

"Currently, we put artifact details manually. What we could improve, in our case, is the deployment instruction base. Developers input all the information, including which artifact and where it needs to be deployed. What Digital.ai could do is automatically go to the deployment instruction page, take those artifact details, and implement them."

"The backfill could be improved, we could automate that. Right now it's subjective — it's up to the lead developer's memory to remember to backfill."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."

"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."

"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."

"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."

"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."

"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."

More Chef pricing and cost advice

"Overall, the price is just too high; especially considering we're in the middle of a pandemic."

"The solution's license includes all features."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

18%

University

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

52%

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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

What do you like most about Digital.ai Release ?

The time is also reduced because the manual work has tremendously decreased. We just have to click one button, and it will create everything for us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Digital.ai Release ?

There are many areas of improvement. Currently, we put artifact details manually. What we could improve, in our case, is the deployment instruction base. Developers input all the information, inclu...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Digital.ai Release ?

It helps with creating documentation, release processes, deploying to lower environments, scheduling meetings, and sending emails to stakeholders. The goal is to reduce manual work and save time.

See all answers

Comparisons

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 29% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Chef

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Chef

Compared 12% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Chef

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 10% of the time

More Chef Competitors

Jenkins vs Digital.ai Release

Compared 65% of the time

GitLab vs Digital.ai Release

Compared 35% of the time

More Digital.ai Release Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Chef

March 2025

Download Chef product report

Buyer's Guide

Digital.ai Release

March 2025

Download Digital.ai Release product report

Also Known As

No data available

XL Release, XebiaLabs XL Release

Overview

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

Automate, orchestrate, and gain visibility into your release pipelines at scale using Digital.ai Release, a release management tool that is designed for enterprises. Control and track releases, standardize processes, and bake compliance and security into your software release pipelines.

Digital.ai

Sample Customers

Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap

3M, GE, John Deere, Deutsche Telekom, Cable & Wireless, Xerox, and Société Générale, Liberty Mutual, EA, Rabobank

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Digital.ai Release

March 2025

Free Report: Chef vs. Digital.ai Release

Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Digital.ai Release and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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