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AWS CodeBuild vs Chef comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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 CodeBuild
Ranking in Build Automation
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Chef
Ranking in Build Automation
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (5th), Configuration Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of AWS CodeBuild is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AWS CodeBuild2.0%
Chef1.5%
Other96.5%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

SomdipRoy - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Skillnetinc
Has enabled automated deployments through continuous integration and supports multi-environment delivery
My recommendation for AWS CodeBuild to make it better for the next release would be something within AWS CodeBuild which can support the repository functions as well. It may not be as powerful as GitHub Actions, but it provides a very competitive price compared to GitHub Actions. GitHub Actions, if you want to use the YML CI/CD pipeline, gives a free tier of around three thousand hours per month. AWS CodeBuild is a little more expensive than that. However, if it supports the repository function as well along with it, then it will be a complete package. Everything would be in AWS, including the code versioning, code commit to the code infrastructure, to the code database, to the networking, and how the applications are accessed. Everything would be in one place, which would be very helpful. I believe AWS CodeBuild is a bit expensive because GitHub provides around three thousand minutes free, plus it has the free repository function as well. At the enterprise level, it charges maybe around nineteen dollars per user, though I do not remember exactly. In terms of AWS CodeBuild, I believe it is a bit expensive because it is providing only the deployment features. It is not providing the repository. In that comparison, I would say it is a little bit expensive.
Walter Ochieng Odhiambo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration is a good feature."
"The most important thing is that it's self-contained in an AWS account, and it's all linked to the customer's AWS account."
"CodeBuild supports various platforms and coding."
"The tool is used to build and test code. I find its biggest advantages are elasticity and reliability. We can easily assign as many computing resources as needed to build our code, which is much simpler than traditional methods that require server upgrades. It's a serverless tool, so it's very flexible and elastic."
"The integration with other AWS services has streamlined our workflow."
"The initial setup of CodeBuild is easy."
"A valuable feature is the support for third-party repositories such as Bitbucket, GitLab, or GitHub."
"AWS CodeBuild's support for popular languages and tools has enhanced my productivity; it supports the three most popular stacks that are in the world: the Python stack, the Node.js stack or framework, and the Java framework, along with other technology stacks such as Ruby on Rails."
"Chef benefited my organization by definitely reducing time because we were provisioning tens of thousands of servers."
"The product is useful for automating processes."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."
"Chef has given us an easy time doing all that automation, security, and monitoring by automating the processes across all those servers so that we don't do manual work, going one place at a time to install updates."
"All the use cases—configurations, deployment, compliance, and other common situations—demonstrate how helpful Chef is, and we found it very beneficial, which is why both my past organization and my current organization are using it."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"I believe AWS CodeBuild is a bit expensive because GitHub provides around three thousand minutes free, plus it has the free repository function as well."
"Multiple clients have faced issues with pricing. After migrating from Azure to EC2, they were unexpectedly charged 100,000 rupees because the pricing details were not clearly visible."
"We had integration issues with a tool called Octopus Deploy while using CodeBuild. AWS support helped us resolve it, however, it could be better."
"There have been times when CodeBuild has shown some instability, like bugs or breakdowns."
"They can further improve the integration of the Bitbucket for CodeBuild."
"The front-end interface and the management are somewhat challenging, and there's a lot of space for improvement."
"For improvement, I'd suggest more build instance-type options. There's a big jump from 15 gigabytes of RAM to 150, and I'd like something in between as the larger option is too expensive for our needs."
"There is no persistent storage or preservation of workspace between the builds."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"Support and pricing for Chef could be improved."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"The time that it takes in terms of integration. Cloud integration is comparatively easy, but when it comes to two-link based integrations - like trying to integrate it with any monitoring tools, or maybe some other ticketing tools - it takes longer. That is because most of the out-of-the-box integration of the APIs needs some revisiting."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay a monthly licensing fee."
"AWS CodeBuild is free. We only pay for our code's compute resources during the build process. For example, if our code takes ten minutes to build, we only pay for those ten minutes of computing time. CodeDeploy and CodePipeline are free because they're serverless and don't require computing resources. CodeCommit has minimal costs for storing code."
"Despite the cost, it is worth the investment."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"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 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."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"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."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Media Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS CodeBuild?
It works seamlessly with AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR).
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CodeBuild?
The cost structure is affordable for most builds except macOS servers. Standard builds can utilize AWS EC2 servers for background operations. However, macOS or iOS builds require physical servers m...
What needs improvement with AWS CodeBuild?
My recommendation for AWS CodeBuild to make it better for the next release would be something within AWS CodeBuild which can support the repository functions as well. It may not be as powerful as G...
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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CodeBuild
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CodeBuild vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.