AWS CodeBuild vs Chef comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Progress Software are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2, while Progress Software is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 1.7% mindshare in BA, compared to Progress Software’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

AWS CodeBuild

Read 12 AWS CodeBuild reviews

608 Views
608 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Chef

Read 19 Chef reviews

1,243 Views
286 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

AWS CodeBuild

Chef

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Chef and AWS CodeBuild serve as competitive products within the domain of software automation and CI/CD pipelines. AWS CodeBuild seems to have the upper hand due to its seamless integration with AWS services and scalability benefits.

Features: Chef provides robust configuration management, advanced automation capabilities, and support for various platforms. AWS CodeBuild offers seamless integration with AWS services, automatic scaling, and full CI/CD integration.

Room for Improvement: Chef can improve by simplifying the deployment process, reducing the need for manual scripting, and enhancing support for AWS environments. AWS CodeBuild could enhance its feature set with more support for non-AWS environments, increase visibility in logging, and improve the flexibility of customization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Chef’s deployment process may require more manual configuration and scripting expertise. In contrast, AWS CodeBuild provides an easy deployment experience with smooth integration into AWS environments. Chef offers comprehensive documentation and community support, whereas AWS CodeBuild benefits from AWS’s extensive customer service infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI: Chef involves upfront costs and may require specialized training, yet it can offer cost efficiencies in large-scale automation projects. AWS CodeBuild operates on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, providing immediate scalability and a higher ROI, especially for projects integrated within the AWS infrastructure.

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS CodeBuild vs. Chef

September 2025

Download the complete report

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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 CodeBuild

Ranking in Build Automation

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Chef

Ranking in Build Automation

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Release Automation (11th), Configuration Management (19th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of AWS CodeBuild is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
AWS CodeBuild	1.7%
Chef	1.0%
Other	97.3%

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Mahadev Metre

DevOps Engineer at Paydoh

Integration with diverse environments boosts productivity and automation

AWS CodeBuild's support for a wide range of programming languages and build environments benefits development teams significantly in terms of productivity and ease of use. There are extensive libraries of code structures available, making it a universal pipeline. All programming languages I have worked with are supported in AWS CodeBuild, eliminating the need for alternative deployment services. The service supports iOS builds, Kotlin, Java, NodeJS, and ReactJS. AWS has made it accessible to all languages, allowing developers to simply open the console and trigger builds. AWS manages all the background server operations for building or deploying code. For standard builds such as ReactJS or Java, a Linux or Ubuntu server suffices. AWS provides its own operating system for these purposes. For builds requiring physical servers, such as Apple macOS server, AWS rents Mac minis specifically for iOS and SwiftUI builds. While this incurs higher charges, it demonstrates AWS's commitment to providing comprehensive solutions for all use cases.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup of CodeBuild is easy."

"CodeBuild supports various platforms and coding."

"One of the main features I value in CodeBuild compared to previous experiences, like using Jenkins, is its ability to handle tasks automatically with AWS, requiring only proper setup of the check file."

"AWS CodeBuild reduces wait time and optimizes workflows."

"It works seamlessly with AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR)."

"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."

"The integration with other AWS services has streamlined our workflow."

"A valuable feature is the support for third-party repositories such as Bitbucket, GitLab, or GitHub."

More AWS CodeBuild pros

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

"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."

"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."

"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast. Chef-docker enabled us to have fewer sets of source code for different purposes. Configuration management was a breeze and all the servers were as good as immutable servers."

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

"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."

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

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

More Chef pros

Cons

"We had integration issues with a tool called Octopus Deploy while using CodeBuild. AWS support helped us resolve it, however, it could be better."

"The front-end interface and the management are somewhat challenging, and there's a lot of space for improvement."

"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."

"There is no persistent storage or preservation of workspace between the builds."

"They can further improve the integration of the Bitbucket for CodeBuild."

"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."

"While working on building images for multiple applications within a single script, I encountered an issue where looping functionality was not supported as expected."

"One of the main challenges is that if the environment is not set up properly, it will result in issues such as image errors."

More AWS CodeBuild cons

"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."

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

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

"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."

"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."

"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."

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

"It is an old technology."

More Chef cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay a monthly licensing fee."

"Despite the cost, it is worth the investment."

"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."

"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."

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

"Pricing for Chef is high."

"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."

"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."

"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

Computer Software Company

15%

Media Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS CodeBuild?

It works seamlessly with AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR).

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS CodeBuild?

The servers used for macOS and iOS builds are limited in availability, operating only in US East 1 and East 2, and US West 1 and West 2. This geographical limitation causes latency issues and exten...

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

GitHub Actions vs AWS CodeBuild

Compared 29% of the time

AWS CodePipeline vs AWS CodeBuild

Compared 21% of the time

GitLab vs AWS CodeBuild

Compared 16% of the time

Jenkins vs AWS CodeBuild

Compared 12% of the time

TeamCity vs AWS CodeBuild

Compared 12% of the time

More AWS CodeBuild Competitors

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 42% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs Chef

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Chef

Compared 9% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Chef

Compared 8% of the time

More Chef Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS CodeBuild

October 2025

Download AWS CodeBuild product report

Buyer's Guide

Chef

October 2025

Download Chef product report

Also Known As

CodeBuild

No data available

Overview

AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed continuous integration service that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces software packages that are ready to deploy. With CodeBuild, you don’t need to provision, manage, and scale your own build servers. CodeBuild scales continuously and processes multiple builds concurrently, so your builds are not left waiting in a queue. You can get started quickly by using prepackaged build environments, or you can create custom build environments that use your own build tools. With CodeBuild, you are charged by the minute for the compute resources you use.

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 CodeBuild vs. Chef

September 2025

Free Report: AWS CodeBuild vs. Chef

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