Chef vs Nolio Release Automation comparison

Progress Software and Broadcom are both solutions in the Release Automation category. Progress Software is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while Broadcom is ranked #7 with an average rating of 10.0. Progress Software holds a 1.5% mindshare in RA, compared to Broadcom’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Chef

Read 25 Chef reviews

1,630 Views
424 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Nolio Release Automation

Read 51 Nolio Release Automation reviews

912 Views
876 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Chef

Nolio Release Automation

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

Chef and Nolio Release Automation are competing in IT automation. Chef shines with extensive community support, while Nolio excels in advanced release management capabilities, making them suitable for different enterprise needs.

Features: Chef offers flexibility and scalability with a powerful infrastructure automation language and integrates well with various ecosystems. Its community support allows for handling complex configurations. Nolio, however, provides detailed application deployment capabilities, reducing downtime and enhancing deployment speed. Its comprehensive release management tools support complex enterprise environments.

Room for Improvement: Chef may face challenges with rollback processes and requires more intuitive user interface elements for less technical users. Some users find Chef's initial setup complex and in need of simplification. Additionally, smaller teams might struggle with scaling Chef operations efficiently. Nolio could improve on the complexity of its initial setup and streamline its UI to make it more user-friendly for beginners. Its dedicated support could offer enhanced self-service features, and the system may require a more straightforward approach to integrate newer technologies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Chef offers a straightforward deployment model, benefiting from widespread community resources, which helps in seamless integration. Nolio, however, offers powerful automation capabilities tailored for large-scale deployments. Its dedicated customer support is beneficial for enterprises needing efficient and reliable technical assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Chef tends to have lower setup costs, appealing to startups and mid-sized companies looking for cost-effective automation solutions. Its open-source nature promises substantial ROI when fully utilized. Nolio demands a higher initial investment but provides significant ROI through its advanced, enterprise-grade functionalities, attracting larger organizations that value comprehensive release automation.

To learn more, read our detailed Chef vs. Nolio Release Automation Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Nolio Release Automation

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 879,425 peers since 2012

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

6.7

Chef enhances work efficiency and ROI by streamlining deployment, reducing manual labor, and supporting scalable infrastructure management.

Sentiment score

6.0

Nolio Release Automation enhances continuous delivery reliability but may require licensing updates; standard setups implement quickly, boosting efficiency.

The return has been far more hours saved than spent.

reviewer2787969

Technical Architecture Support at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Chef has provided a return on investment, particularly in needing fewer employees, as the tool significantly reduces the amount of human work required for many tasks.

reviewer2787357

Site Reliability Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have seen significant improvement in the time and the way we make changes to the infrastructure.

Sai Chandra

Principal Engineer at Wipro Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Chef report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Nolio Release Automation report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

5.8

Chef's customer support varies, with positive presales support, but challenges lead users to community forums and AWS for help.

Sentiment score

6.7

Nolio Release Automation customer service is efficient and responsive, but users seek improvements in expertise and regional support.

We usually work with the Chef teams and community support, who are always willing to assist.

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

For more quotes and insights, download the Chef report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Nolio Release Automation report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.3

Chef is praised for managing numerous nodes efficiently in diverse cloud environments despite some challenges with scaling.

Sentiment score

7.0

Nolio Release Automation offers flexible scaling for many, although some face limitations with HA capabilities and infrastructure challenges.

We leverage both to achieve the best option possible for scaling.

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

Chef's scalability handles a large number of nodes easily, allowing us to manage hundreds of servers consistently using the same set of cookbooks.

reviewer2787357

Site Reliability Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Chef's scalability is evident as the public sector organization I work at serves a population of 5 million, and we have had no problems with scaling.

reviewer2787969

Technical Architecture Support at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Chef report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Nolio Release Automation report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Chef offers reliable performance, minimal disruptions, and effective scalability, with high stability ratings and strong community support.

Sentiment score

6.4

Nolio Release Automation's stability varies; newer versions improve performance, yet large-scale deployments sometimes experience challenges and slowness.

It is a good tool to work with, offering a strong developer experience and community support.

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

Chef is stable.

reviewer2787969

Technical Architecture Support at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

In my experience, Chef is quite stable most of the time.

Sai Chandra

Principal Engineer at Wipro Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Chef report

This might be because it is a six-year-old version, and we are supporting nearly 1,500 applications and 15,000 to 16,000 agents.

Akhilesh B N

DevOps Delivery Engineer at Barclays Capital

For more quotes and insights, download the Nolio Release Automation report

Room For Improvement

Chef needs improved simplicity, integration, performance, documentation, better error messages, enhanced support, and usability for wider adoption.

Users seek better UI, stability, documentation, integration, and cost-efficiency in Nolio Release Automation for improved user experience.

On support, I think there should be more focus on how we can achieve AI automations in answering questions for beginners and addressing deep concerns without general manual management.

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

Self-healing infrastructure continuously verifies that the system matches the desired state and can auto-correct configuration changes during the next run.

reviewer2787357

Site Reliability Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

To improve Chef, making an interface with another language such as Python or Java that is well understood, as capable as Ruby, and even more widely adopted would demystify it a bit.

reviewer2787969

Technical Architecture Support at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Chef report

It is one of the greatest tools for continuous deployment, yet its popularity remains limited.

Akhilesh B N

DevOps Delivery Engineer at Barclays Capital

For more quotes and insights, download the Nolio Release Automation report

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find Chef's pricing flexible but complex, appreciating AWS Marketplace integration despite preferring cheaper open-source alternatives.

Enterprise buyers find Nolio Release Automation expensive due to setup costs and licensing complexities, but appreciate CA's customized pricing support.

Licensing looks reasonable compared to the manual work of managing whole data centers with even 10,000 servers.

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we sidestepped it by using Cinc because none of the functionality that is exclusive to the paid version was actually in use in the organization.

reviewer2787969

Technical Architecture Support at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Chef report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Nolio Release Automation report

Valuable Features

Chef automates configuration management, supporting scalability, ease of use, and efficiency, ideal for large-scale cloud environments with community support.

Nolio Release Automation offers user-friendly, no-code deployment with flexible OS support, reducing errors and operational costs.

Security is a key aspect that Chef can automate, monitor new features that are available, and even do patches without you getting involved.

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

Chef can manage hundreds or thousands of servers effortlessly, allowing for easy rollout of a single cookbook change to all machines.

reviewer2787357

Site Reliability Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

When you have infrastructure as code and you already have everything apart from the environment-specific config, which you can specify in variables, then it is not only more repeatable and reliable, it is faster.

reviewer2787969

Technical Architecture Support at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Chef report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Nolio Release Automation report

Categories and Ranking

Chef

Ranking in Release Automation

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (12th), Configuration Management (12th)

Nolio Release Automation

Ranking in Release Automation

7th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of Chef is 1.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nolio Release Automation is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Release Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Chef	1.5%
Nolio Release Automation	1.8%
Other	96.7%

Release Automation

Featured Reviews

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

Automation has transformed daily infrastructure work and now frees teams to focus on new challenges

One thing that Chef needs to improve on is making it available in as many languages as possible. There should be a focus on how to make it understandable, not just to infrastructure people, but also to those working in monitoring. How can we ensure that it is part of their daily input? That is something that still has a small missing link. We are almost there, but it can help us achieve outcomes in the future in terms of objectives, not just workflows and visibility. How can we make real-time interactive dashboards more available? Look at what kind of tools can be integrated with them, not just working with the ones like Chef Kitchen and Habitat, but trying to make it even more flexible than what we have right now. On support, I think there should be more focus on how we can achieve AI automations in answering questions for beginners and addressing deep concerns without general manual management.

Read full review

Akhilesh B N

DevOps Delivery Engineer at Barclays Capital

Real-time monitoring and seamless integration enhance deployment efficiency

The main disadvantage I see is the limited awareness of Nolio Release Automation in other organizations. It is a very nice tool, but its market presence is limited. I heard from the organization that the licensing cost was somewhat expensive. Perhaps focusing on marketing efforts would be beneficial. It is a really nice tool, and I am unsure why many organizations are not using Nolio Release Automation. It is one of the greatest tools for continuous deployment, yet its popularity remains limited. Some organizations are not aware of its existence. This might be an area worth researching and potentially developing new marketing strategies.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

46%

Healthcare Company

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	39

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?

See all answers

What needs improvement with Chef?

I would add that Ruby is a domain-specific language in the Chef dialect, which is a learning curve, but so is Terraform and so is Ansible. The only feedback would be if they could come up with an i...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Chef?

My main use case for Chef is configuration and deployments. We receive blank servers and use Chef to build predefined application or appliance servers. A quick specific example of how I use Chef to...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nolio Release Automation?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nolio Release Automation?

I am working for an organization where they have been using Nolio Release Automation since 2016-2017. We are currently using version 6.6, and due to dependencies and lack of support from Broadcom, ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Nolio Release Automation?

The 6.9 version offers significant improvements over 6.6. The dashboard is very appealing, showing information about applications and offline agents. We can easily remove offline agents and upgrade...

See all answers

Comparisons

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 20% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs Chef

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Chef

Compared 7% of the time

GitHub Actions vs Chef

Compared 7% of the time

More Chef Competitors

GitLab vs Nolio Release Automation

Compared 30% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Nolio Release Automation

Compared 21% of the time

OpenText Release Control vs Nolio Release Automation

Compared 19% of the time

Digital.ai Deploy vs Nolio Release Automation

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Nolio Release Automation

Compared 14% of the time

More Nolio Release Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Chef

December 2025

Download Chef product report

Buyer's Guide

Nolio Release Automation

December 2025

Download Nolio Release Automation product report

Also Known As

No data available

CA Release Automation

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

CA Release Automation enables you to seamlessly connect the continuous delivery ecosystem to deliver high-quality applications faster than ever before. With this enterprise-ready solution, you can accelerate and stabilize application deployments from development to test to production. Its advanced capabilities can help you plan, manage and optimize the continuous delivery pipeline to improve release quality and efficiency. With CA Release Automation, get automated, agile release management that’s ready to work in your IT world.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

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

CA Release Automation customers include Citrix, NIIT Technologies, ING Bank, Molina Healthcare, Swisscom, Bupa and Tesco. Read case studies from customers who are igniting and advancing their continuous delivery journey with CA Release Automation.

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Nolio Release Automation

December 2025

Free Report: Chef vs. Nolio Release Automation

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