AWS Amplify vs Chef comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Progress Software are both solutions in the Release Automation category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.0, while Progress Software is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.0% mindshare in RA, compared to Progress Software’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 71% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

AWS Amplify

Read 7 AWS Amplify reviews

735 Views
735 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Chef

Read 25 Chef reviews

1,342 Views
349 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

AWS Amplify

Chef

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

Chef and AWS Amplify are tools in the application management and deployment category. AWS Amplify appears to have the upper hand due to its ease of use and seamless integration with AWS services.

Features: Chef offers automation capabilities, infrastructure as code, and integration with multiple cloud platforms. AWS Amplify provides swift deployment, comprehensive libraries for frontend frameworks, and backend support, including AI integration.

Room for Improvement: Chef could improve ease of use and reduce complexity in setup and operation. Better GUI interfaces and more comprehensive beginner guides would help. AWS Amplify could enhance its local development experience and expand offline capabilities. Providing more detailed customization options and extending support for more non-AWS environments would be beneficial.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Chef requires a steeper learning curve due to its complex setup but offers comprehensive control. AWS Amplify facilitates a user-friendly deployment model with the advantage of AWS's extensive support network and documentation.

Pricing and ROI: Chef may involve higher upfront costs due to its customization needs, offering significant ROI through scalable automation. AWS Amplify uses a pay-as-you-go model, aligning costs with usage and providing faster ROI through reduced time to market.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Amplify vs. Chef Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Amplify vs. Chef

December 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

AWS Amplify

Ranking in Release Automation

5th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Chef

Ranking in Release Automation

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (18th), Configuration Management (18th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of AWS Amplify is 2.0%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.5%, 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%
AWS Amplify	2.0%
Other	96.5%

Release Automation

Featured Reviews

Shrihari Haridas

DevOps Engineer at Burns & McDonnell

Amplify CLI acts as a single source of truth

The Amplify CLI acts as a single source of truth. You install the SDK from there, and using the Amplify API, you can talk to and manage AWS services directly from your code. You don't need to go to the GUI and click through menus - everything is manageable through the Amplify API at the code level. AWS Amplify integrates seamlessly with other services through AWS CloudFormation. Amplify first connects to the cloud for me. Whenever we write down the SDK, it's managed by CloudFormation. CloudFormation still happens on our cloud for your application because everything is updated with the help of cloud automation. Anything we need to change, we just add it to Amplify, and Amplify triggers the CloudFormation templates. Then it logs permission, updates the whole thing, or whatever you need it to ask.

Read full review

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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The link with Figma is very nice. You can create your design in Figma, and then you can import it into AWS Amplify and use it. You can link it to your data source and data bindings."

"I didn't host my application but have used their backend as a service. It was a complete package with authentication, AWS AppSync, DynamoDB, and GraphQL. AWS Amplify is great if you don't know backend development and don't want to struggle with other backend services like MongoDB. You don't have to worry about what backend language or database to use. If you're confused, enroll with AWS Amplify. I also recommend Google Firebase for similar purposes."

"The most valuable feature is user management, which includes authentication and authorization."

"The most valuable feature of AWS Amplify is authentication."

"Typically, whenever we make changes and need to switch environments (e.g., dev to production), it's easy for our developers to maintain the state of each environment and make customizations as needed. They don't necessarily need to involve the cloud team for basic management."

"One of the things I like best about AWS Amplify is its ease of use and strong integration with other AWS services, which enhances efficiency."

"The only tricky part I experienced was during the initial installation. I followed the documentation, but it wasn't working for some reason. I had to modify some local files in the CLI-generated folder to get it to work. I had to dig deep to find the issue, and it wasn't mentioned in the docs. So, some issues could be better highlighted in the AWS CLI documentation, which would help developers integrate other services more easily. AWS needs to improve its support."

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

"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."

"Chef has impacted my organization positively by ensuring that consistent deployments across production and test environments help more effective testing and faster deployments mean that more work can be done in one release cycle."

"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."

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

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

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

"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."

More Chef pros

Cons

"AWS Amplify can be improved in some areas, particularly in providing more robust documentation and easier customization options."

"AWS can implement multiple web applications, and cross-platform applications, like iOS."

"The documentation needs improvement, as it is not user-friendly and can be challenging for novices."

"AWS Amplify could improve in the deployment. It would be beneficial to have more methods, such as automation."

"I don't think there are major issues, but there is room for improvement in the UI/UX of AWS Amplify. The UI still needs to be more polished and user-friendly. It's currently a bit like drag-and-drop initially, but there should be more options to customize the UI based on our needs."

"I like AWS Amplify's documentation. It's comprehensive and includes many examples, so you don't need to ask for help much - you can refer to the docs. It's easy to use. I also appreciate the cost structure. You only pay for what you use. For example, if you use 100 GB, you're charged for that, but if you don't use it, you pay the maintenance cost."

"Its capability to handle big projects needs to be improved. If you generate a user interface in Figma and import everything where all components are in one directory, currently, it is complicated. It isn't able to cope with that. For small projects, it is not an issue, but if you have big projects and you want to use AWS Amplify, then it gets more difficult. That is the most important point for me. It should be improved to cope better with bigger projects."

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

"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."

"Chef has a very steep learning curve, especially for beginners."

"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."

"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."

"In terms of revenue, I have not observed much because it is holistically depending on the project."

"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."

"One thing that Chef needs to improve on is making it available in as many languages as possible."

More Chef cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on what your use case is and whether you're an existing AWS customer. It's a pay-as-you-go model, so not expensive."

"When you're just starting, it is free. You have to pay only when you reach a certain amount of usage. I'm still at the early stage. So, I don't have to pay a lot. At the moment, it is not too expensive for me. It is worth the money."

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

"Pricing for Chef is high."

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

"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."

"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."

More Chef pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Construction Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	1

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Amplify?

Typically, whenever we make changes and need to switch environments (e.g., dev to production), it's easy for our developers to maintain the state of each environment and make customizations as need...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Amplify?

I find the pricing of AWS Amplify reasonable, considering the value it provides, although opinions may vary based on usage.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Amplify?

AWS Amplify can be improved in some areas, particularly in providing more robust documentation and easier customization options.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?

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 orga...

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

Comparisons

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Compared 39% of the time

AWS CodeDeploy vs AWS Amplify

Compared 28% of the time

AWS CodeStar vs AWS Amplify

Compared 12% of the time

GitLab vs AWS Amplify

Compared 10% of the time

Ozone vs AWS Amplify

Compared 10% of the time

More AWS Amplify Competitors

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 21% 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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Amplify

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Chef

December 2025

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Overview

AWS Amplify is a set of purpose-built tools and features that lets frontend web and mobile developers quickly and easily build full-stack applications on AWS, with the flexibility to leverage the breadth of AWS services as your use cases evolve. With Amplify, you can configure a web or mobile app backend, connect your app in minutes, visually build a web frontend UI, and easily manage app content outside the AWS console. Ship faster and scale effortlessly—with no cloud expertise needed.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS Amplify vs. Chef

December 2025

Free Report: AWS Amplify vs. Chef

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