AWS CodeDeploy vs Chef comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Progress Software are both solutions in the Release Automation category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8, while Progress Software is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.0% mindshare in RA, compared to Progress Software’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

AWS CodeDeploy

Read 14 AWS CodeDeploy reviews

715 Views
715 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Chef

Read 25 Chef reviews

1,630 Views
424 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

AWS CodeDeploy

Chef

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

Chef and AWS CodeDeploy are competing tools in the software deployment and infrastructure management category. AWS CodeDeploy seems to have the upper hand for those already invested in the AWS ecosystem due to its seamless integration with AWS services and deployment optimization capabilities.

Features: Chef excels in configuration management with its infrastructure as code approach, extensive customization through community cookbooks, and robust automation capabilities. AWS CodeDeploy provides integration with AWS and on-premises environments, support for automated rollout strategies, and seamless application deployment within the AWS ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: Chef can improve by simplifying its complexity for beginners and streamlining its deployment process. Additionally, it could enhance rollback features to prevent potential issues. AWS CodeDeploy could benefit from expanded support for non-AWS environments, improved cost management for large deployments, and a more intuitive user interface for those not familiar with AWS.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Chef offers flexibility and detailed documentation in its deployment model but may be challenging for new users. Its strong community support provides additional resources. AWS CodeDeploy simplifies deployment through integration with AWS services, benefiting from AWS's comprehensive support infrastructure, making it straightforward for AWS users.

Pricing and ROI: Chef's open-source foundation offers an attractive cost model, balancing cost and functionality for infrastructure management. AWS CodeDeploy's pricing is part of the AWS free tier and pricing scheme. While potentially higher for extensive deployments, the ROI is compelling for AWS-centric application deployment.

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS CodeDeploy 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 CodeDeploy

Ranking in Release Automation

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Chef

Ranking in Release Automation

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (12th), Configuration Management (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of AWS CodeDeploy is 2.0%, down from 2.3% 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 (%)
AWS CodeDeploy	2.0%
Chef	1.5%
Other	96.5%

Release Automation

Featured Reviews

Mahadev Metre

DevOps Engineer at Paydoh

YAML configuration and cloud integration simplify tasks and enhance AWS resource flexibility

The features and capabilities of AWS CodeDeploy that I have found most valuable are that it is very user-friendly, and the codebase we can use there, specifically the tech stack, is YAML configuration. YAML is quite user-friendly itself, so if you just understand the basic concepts of YAML, then you're good to go. However, people face some problems with the YAML tech stack, as it is very strict with indentation and the placement of attributes. Overall, it's very strict with indentation and how it interprets our input. For example, in a stage where an environment is defined, there should be two spaces followed by an environment key and value. Knowing YAML is essential before working on AWS CodeDeploy, as the YAML file controls the service. AWS CodeDeploy's integration with other AWS services contributes significantly to scaling, monitoring, and security in my deployment processes by requiring IAM permissions. This is the only gateway for it to obtain permission to perform any tasks or triggers. One advantage we have with AWS CodeDeploy is its hassle-free accessibility through IAM roles and permissions. Being an AWS service, it operates on ARNs, which are identifiers. When we refer to these codes in IAM policies, we can give specific permissions while adhering to the least privileges rule of IAM. This makes it quite good and flexible with AWS resources, unlike third-party options.

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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.

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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

"AWS CodeDeploy operates on an on-demand basis. This means that you only pay for the exact duration of the deployment process. Whether it takes one minute, two minutes, or even longer, you're only charged for the time it takes to complete the deployment. You're not locked into paying for dedicated servers."

"You can easily integrate AWS CodeDeploy with multiple services."

"CodeDeploy is quite easy to use within the AWS ecosystem."

"I found the default settings of AWS CodeDeploy to be highly beneficial for my deployment workflows. For instance, when deploying a Node.js application, I manually installed the necessary components on my AWS instance, such as the web server required by developers. Then, I created deployment scripts for starting and stopping instances and performing the deployment itself. These scripts were stored alongside my code in GitHub, ensuring they executed seamlessly with the CI/CD pipeline. Since the project wasn't overly complex, I opted for the default settings, which proved to be efficient and straightforward for deployment."

"The biggest feature of AWS CodeDeploy is its scalability."

"The product is easy to use."

"I appreciate the feature for automating the deployment of code to the server."

"It's just like every other AWS resource I use. It gets the job done."

More AWS CodeDeploy pros

"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."

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

"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 valuable feature is automation."

"Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed."

"Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them."

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

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

More Chef pros

Cons

"The documentation could be more detailed, especially for new users."

"We have faced some issues and bugs along the way when it comes to stability."

"I faced some stability issues."

"AWS CodeDeploy's lack of ability to use independently without CodePipeline or CodeBuild makes it unstable."

"An improvement for the end users would be easier implementation, especially regarding local testing tools for deployment."

"Deployment and stability should be improved."

"Improvements could be made to AWS CodeDeploy in terms of its agent's compatibility across different operating systems. Currently, there are instances where the agent may not work seamlessly with certain integrations, leading to issues with registering protocols on authorized servers."

"There will always be room for improvement, however, I cannot think of any specific improvements at the moment."

More AWS CodeDeploy cons

"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."

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

"It is an old technology."

"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."

"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."

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

"The learning curve is steep due to Chef's Ruby-based DSL and the complex components of cookbooks and recipes, which can be challenging for new users, especially those without programming backgrounds."

"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 product is free with EC2."

"AWS CodeDeploy has proven to be a cost-effective solution for us, especially considering the benefits we gain from using it. In terms of pricing, AWS is quite affordable, providing excellent value for the features and services it offers."

"It is costly."

"The product's price is normal."

"Since we are using a dedicated AWS environment, the solution's pricing is fine."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	4

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 CodeDeploy?

Automation of Deployments

See all answers

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

Evaluating cost, it is important to note that the services provided by CodeDeploy can be expensive to purchase from other cloud platforms. However, depending on the services, it might be worth the ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for AWS CodeDeploy?

My usual use cases for AWS CodeDeploy involve utilizing it as an AWS service, which is a subservice of CodePipeline. AWS CodePipeline is a whole package of services which consists of AWS CodeDeploy...

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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

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Release Automation

December 2025

Download AWS CodeDeploy product report

Buyer's Guide

Chef

January 2026

Download Chef product report

Overview

AWS CodeDeploy is a service that automates code deployments to any instance, including Amazon EC2 instances and instances running on-premises. AWS CodeDeploy makes it easier for you to rapidly release new features, helps you avoid downtime during deployment, and handles the complexity of updating your applications. You can use AWS CodeDeploy to automate deployments, eliminating the need for error-prone manual operations, and the service scales with your infrastructure so you can easily deploy to one instance or thousands.

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 CodeDeploy vs. Chef

December 2025

Free Report: AWS CodeDeploy vs. Chef

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