Chef Reviews in June 2025: User Ratings, Pros & Cons

"Strong Core Software, Disappointing Community Additions"

What do you like best? The diverse collection of community cookbooks. What do you dislike? The lack of maintenance on the majority of community cookbooks, which requires me to re-invent the wheel rather than use a pre-existing framework. Recommendations to others considering the product: If you're new to configuration management ideas in general, Chef has a steep learning curve. The Chef software gives its admins just enough rope to hang themselves. If you're already familiar with the Chef ...

"I use it for production technology at a cyber security startup and absolutely love it"

What do you like best? I love the ease of use, specifically the short time required to get set up and start iterating on a project using chef to manage complex configurations across large clusters of servers. What do you dislike? There a few things I don't like, but one in particular is that when first learning chef I found it hard to find exactly what I needed in the documentation and tutorials. Eventually, however, I was able to dig through enough documentation that I found what I ...

"Excelent server automation tool"

What do you like best? There are plenty of well written, documented and supported Chef recipes for dealing with all sorts of server automation, like users management, database management, Solr configuration, full application stack configuration (Sensu, Gitorious, Redmine), SSH, and many more commonly used software. All of them are open-source and have plenty of customization options. Chef itself has good documentation. Dependencies management is very easy and robust by using ...

"good work in setting up instance in cloud"

What do you like best? After use the chef, it's easy and take very less time to set up a production instance(from 2 weeks to 3 hours). It's easy to learn by official docs. What do you dislike? a little expensive for side project / start up project Recommendations to others considering the product: it's good enough when build a cloud environments. And it's a good option on migrating the existing biz to the cloud. What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you ...

"Simple yet Elegant"

What do you like best? When you are a rapid web designer/developer, you never want to be late on delivery. Chef should be your choice if you want to automate or config a system the way you want. It's easier than what you might think. Test it today! What do you dislike? I've never had a problem with Chef, so I do not dislike anything about it. Recommendations to others considering the product: Just use it once and you'll love it. What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits ...

"Chef let IT infrastructure implementation like an art planting."

What do you like best? 1. Chef is cross platform management solution. 2. make automation easier. 3. Just like cooking, follow the menu instruct to make a delicious meal. 4. Node role define flexible, easy and good for work. What do you dislike? 1. module enhance not easy. 2. knife tool function may be could more and more. 3. Could not direct access to node console. 4. System configuration were handle by admin node(chef server). What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits ...

"Vagrant User"

What do you like best? I won't state how much I like chef due to its automation, but I'd like to say that in comparison with puppet and ansible, it gives better control as it allows you to "develop" your system. The dependencies system that's out of the box due to Ruby is really good! As a vagrant only user, chef-zero was the product that I really needed! What do you dislike? - I have to write ruby - As a vagrant user, it feels it has quite some overhead when the system bootstraps - It ...

"Vagrant User"

What do you like best? I won't state how much I like chef due to its automation, but I'd like to say that in comparison with puppet and ansible, it gives better control as it allows you to "develop" your system. The dependencies system that's out of the box due to Ruby is really good! As a vagrant only user, chef-zero was the product that I really needed! What do you dislike? - I have to write ruby - As a vagrant user, it feels it has quite some overhead when the system bootstraps - It ...

"Simple yet Elegant"

What do you like best? When you are a rapid web designer/developer, you never want to be late on delivery. Chef should be your choice if you want to automate or config a system the way you want. It's easier than what you might think. Test it today! What do you dislike? I've never had a problem with Chef, so I do not dislike anything about it. Recommendations to others considering the product: Just use it once and you'll love it. What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits ...

"Chef let IT infrastructure implementation like an art planting."

What do you like best? 1. Chef is cross platform management solution. 2. make automation easier. 3. Just like cooking, follow the menu instruct to make a delicious meal. 4. Node role define flexible, easy and good for work. What do you dislike? 1. module enhance not easy. 2. knife tool function may be could more and more. 3. Could not direct access to node console. 4. System configuration were handle by admin node(chef server). What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits ...