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 7.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.4% mindshare in RA, compared to Progress Software’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 71% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

AWS Amplify

Read 7 AWS Amplify reviews

862 Views
853 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Chef

Read 19 Chef reviews

1,238 Views
272 Comparison Views

95% 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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Amplify vs. Chef

July 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

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (20th), Configuration Management (18th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of AWS Amplify is 2.4%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Release Automation

Featured Reviews

Krishna Vishwakarma

Flutter Developer at Techsevin

Has good documentation but takes time for a beginner to learn

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.

Read full review

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.

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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves."

"If you're handy enough with DSL and you can present your own front-facing interface to your developers, then you can actually have a lot more granular control with Chef in operations over what developers can perform and what they can't."

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

"One thing that we've been able to do is a tiered permission model, allowing developers and their managers to perform their own operations in lower environments. This means a manager can go in and make changes to a whole environment, whereas a developer with less access may only be able to change individual components or be able to upgrade the version for software that they have control over."

"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."

"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."

"I wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles."

"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."

More Chef pros

Cons

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."

"I would also like to see more analytics and reporting features. Currently, the analytics and reporting features are limited. I'll have to start building my own custom solution with Power BI or Tableau or something like that. If it came with built-in analytics and reporting features that would be great."

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

"There appears to be no effort to fix the command line utility functionality, which is definitely broken, provides a false positive for a result when you perform the operation, and doesn't work."

"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."

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

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

"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."

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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

More Chef pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

How to estimate whether using the AWS services is worthwhile for saving time and money for manufacturing at a retailer company?

Estimating the cost-effectiveness of using AWS services for manufacturing at a retailer company involves a comprehensive analysis. To make an informed decision, you should consider factors like the...

See all answers

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 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

Comparisons

AWS CodeDeploy vs AWS Amplify

Compared 47% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs AWS Amplify

Compared 43% of the time

AWS CodeStar vs AWS Amplify

Compared 10% of the time

More AWS Amplify Competitors

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 39% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs Chef

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Chef

Compared 10% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Chef

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 7% of the time

More Chef Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Amplify

August 2025

Download AWS Amplify product report

Buyer's Guide

Chef

August 2025

Download Chef product report

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

July 2025

Free Report: AWS Amplify vs. Chef

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Amplify vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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