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Chef vs Microsoft Azure DevOps comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.1
Chef improved deployment time, reduced human error, enhanced scalability, optimized resource use, and strengthened compliance and security management.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Azure DevOps enhances productivity and efficiency, with users reporting favorable returns and satisfaction due to integration capabilities.
On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the best, I would say ROI is an eight.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
Customers commend Chef for its responsive support, active community, comprehensive documentation, and efficient issue resolution despite occasional delays.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Azure DevOps support is praised for responsiveness, though improvements are needed in deployment support and complex issue resolution.
Resolving issues took time since understanding our unique problems was not always straightforward for support teams.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Chef is highly scalable, efficiently managing infrastructures of all sizes and accommodating numerous clients based on server capacity.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure DevOps scales effectively, handling diverse workloads and streamlining processes with robust adaptability and on-demand resources.
The scalability has left me pleased, not just for our teams in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, but as we expanded into North America, Africa, and even Australia.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Users rate Chef's stability 8-9/10, comparing it favorably to competitors like Ansible, and find it stable for various use cases.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Azure DevOps is praised for high stability, reliability, and efficiency, with swift issue resolution enhancing user satisfaction.
The solution is stable, and we did not encounter any stability issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Chef needs better support, pricing, role management, flexibility, documentation, integration, and improved automation to compete with Ansible.
Microsoft Azure DevOps needs enhancements in customization, integration, test management, user interface, security, configuration, pricing, and documentation.
Those processes are a bit difficult for some customers who may not have technical knowledge and don't go through the entire documentation.
Enhanced system guidance highlighting best practices would be beneficial, especially if experienced personnel are not available for support.
 

Setup Cost

Chef offers subscription plans with valuable automation features, but enterprise pricing is high and requires contacting sales for quotes.
Microsoft Azure DevOps offers competitive pricing with per-user licenses, free options, and additional costs for extra features.
They don't even provide a POC where you can have a sandbox or stuff that you can go through and see how exactly it's costing.
I find it to be expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Chef offers compliance, easy configuration management, and automation for IT infrastructure, integrating with CI processes and supporting multiple clouds.
Microsoft Azure DevOps streamlines development with seamless integration, user-friendly interface, automation, and robust project management capabilities.
Our company organized a training session with a certified Azure expert, which was extremely beneficial for adopting best practices during the initial three months.
I can't approve my own request and move the code around without a review.
 

Categories and Ranking

Chef
Ranking in Release Automation
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (17th), Configuration Management (17th)
Microsoft Azure DevOps
Ranking in Release Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
132
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (2nd), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of Chef is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 38.9%, up from 36.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Release Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Arun S . - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for large infrastructure, reliable, but steep learning cureve
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. The solution is good to manage multiple large infrastructures. We can have 10 to 10,000 users using this solution and it manages them well.
Akshat Prakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to deploy code to production without releasing certain features immediately and agile project management capabilities offer resource-leveling
My company has experienced benefits from using it or from recent updates in Azure Pipelines. For instance, we can manage different code versions from the same repository across different environments. We also use feature flags; the code is deployed, but the feature can be made visible to the end user at a later time. Additionally, as part of the deployment, we integrate automated and regression testing, which stops the deployment if testing fails, thus preventing regression bugs. This saves time and increases productivity by reducing the need for manual testing. Lastly, it integrates with the project management aspects, allowing us to link code deployments with project milestones. Azure DevOps supported our shift towards DevOps culture or practices. We shifted to the cloud environment and started migrating from our data centers about eight or nine years back. It has been a long journey. However, we have used Azure DevOps for almost five to six years in every project. We also use automation testing in Azure, so we have an integrated test suite that allows us to perform functional and regression testing effectively via the Azure DevOps system.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
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.
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Valuable features for project management and tracking in Azure DevOps include a portal displaying test results, check-in/check-out activity, and developer/tester productivity.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure DevOps, VSTS, Visual Studio Team Services, MS Azure DevOps
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Alaska Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Columbia, Skype
Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Microsoft Azure DevOps and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.