Chef vs Split comparison

Progress Software and Split are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Progress Software is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.6, while Split is ranked #21 with an average rating of 8.3. Progress Software holds a 2.2% mindshare in BA, compared to Split’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Split users who would recommend it.

Chef

Read 26 Chef reviews

4,438 Views
1,243 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Split

Read 3 Split reviews

367 Views
349 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Chef

Split

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Chef and Split based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Build Automation solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Chef vs. Split Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Split

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 902,988 peers since 2012

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

Chef

Ranking in Build Automation

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Release Automation (5th), Configuration Management (12th)

Split

Ranking in Build Automation

21st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

4.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Chef is 2.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Split is 0.6%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Chef	2.2%
Split	0.6%
Other	97.2%

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

G Srivastava

Senior Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Agent setup and complexity have limited automation benefits but have reduced manual patching work

There are other automation tools, configuration management tools in the market, which offer many good functionalities compared to Chef. For Chef, we need to install those agents, the Chef client, on all those nodes. That is another heinous task to perform on those nodes. Compared with other tools, they do not require any agent; they simply push configurations to all the clients. Chef needs to improve on this agent installation on all those nodes. I would say that the agent configuration is required, and we need to manage the workstation, the Chef server, and then the Chef client. These two or three things are very difficult. It is a time-taking task compared with other configuration management tools. They need to compete with other tools, such as Ansible or Terraform. They should work on their agent part. If they can remove the agent installation on the nodes and combine both the Chef server and workstation into one server, that will provide a significant benefit in cost for the clients. They should aim for an agentless architecture rather than an agent-based architecture, which will help other customers. That is a very difficult thing because I have stopped using Chef. If you have very good developers who are skilled in Ruby language and can write codes in the Chef recipe, then those developers should start using Chef.

Read full review

Priyanka Manuja

Senior Decision Scientist at Tesco

Data-driven experiments have transformed feature rollouts and now validate business impact

I feel that overall my experience with Split has been positive regarding necessary improvements, particularly around user experience and enhancements to the user interface, especially for larger teams. As experimentation programs grow, users must navigate many feature flags and different environments, so making discovery, organization, and lifecycle management more intuitive would be beneficial. While Split integrates well with many tools, additional connectivity with analytics and BI reporting platforms could provide a more seamless experience for organizations. There are areas where Split can be improved, particularly around advanced reporting and visualization capabilities. While the platform manages experiments and feature rollouts effectively, having more robust, out-of-the-box reporting options would allow business stakeholders to interpret results without relying on external tools. Additionally, as organizations grow, managing and overseeing feature flags becomes more challenging, so enhancing governance capabilities would be beneficial. In terms of user experience and integrations, I think the platform could enhance those areas as well. Users often need to navigate through a large number of feature flags as experimentation programs scale, so improvements to the user interface that simplify discovery, organization, and lifecycle management would be valuable, especially for larger teams. While Split integrates effectively with many tools, increasing connectivity with analytics and BI reporting could help organizations enhance their operations.

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 most valuable feature is automation."

"We have seen a lot of ROI, our customers really enjoy the tool, and we are able to save in development time and deployment time, making it easier to manage the environments."

"Chef offers valuable features in infrastructure as code, where it uses cookbooks and recipes written in Ruby language for detailed and flexible configuration of systems and applications."

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

"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 manual work has been reduced with the help of this automation, we only need two or three people to write those recipes and upload them on the Chef server, and once the configuration tool pulls those changes from the Chef server, it automatically deploys all those changes and has reduced our manpower and our costs."

"Part of the reason why we have stuck with it is that it managed to effectively scale with us and stay stable at the same time."

"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."

More Chef pros

"Split facilitated a culture of data-driven decision-making, allowing us to validate our ideas and providing measurable outcomes for decisions."

"Split has increased some of our CVR; for example, in a recent pop-up model experiment, our conversion was around 15% and once we started the experiment, the on-variant won by increasing the CVR up to 35%, making it a really good tool for determining which particular feature would deliver the expected CVR."

"Split is a great way to handle the config based on checks and in a dynamic way if you want to control your software without doing any deployment."

Cons

"Other things would be the need to use Cinc if you want to use the open-source version because Progress Software's policy on copyright is confusing for new users and it puts a barrier in the way to adoption because many small, medium enterprises, startups, and non-profits who might want to use Chef would find the whole Cinc versus Chef situation confusing and the fact that there is not an easy path to install Chef and then go to a paid version without having to change from Cinc to Chef or Chef to Cinc."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I chose a rating of seven because Chef is a great tool, but sometimes resource consumption is quite large, and it requires server-side setup, which is not required but should be considered if you are using server-client plus server."

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

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

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

More Chef cons

"The UI of split.io can be improved."

"There are areas where Split can be improved, particularly around advanced reporting and visualization capabilities."

"Additionally, we tend to move towards other issues related to Split due to flickering issues, which we observed because of latency."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Chef pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

11%

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

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 do not have anything in mind at this time for how Chef could be improved.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Chef?

My main use case for Chef is configuration management to set up systems, provision software, and keep configurations up to date. I create Chef recipes for setup and install needed software from a c...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Split?

I have used Split for setup, cost, licensing, and pricing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Split?

Split is a strong feature management platform, but there are opportunities for improvement. Simpler onboarding with guided workflows and beginner-friendly documentation would help new users get sta...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Split?

Split has helped streamline our cloud-native application delivery by enabling safe feature rollouts and controlled releases through feature flags. The ability to separate deployment from release re...

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 7% of the time

Jenkins vs Chef

Compared 6% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs Chef

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Chef

Compared 6% of the time

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 5% of the time

More Chef Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Chef

June 2026

Download Chef product report

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

May 2026

Download Split product report

Overview

Chef is a powerful automation tool designed for efficient infrastructure management across varied environments. With its environment-as-code model, Chef provides predictability and reliability in deployments, enhancing security compliance and reducing manual intervention.

Chef focuses on automating deployments and configurations, ensuring server consistency, managing scalable environments, and orchestrating service deployments. Its versatile recipe-writing and Ruby-based flexibility cater to large-scale operational needs. Chef’s integration with services like AWS and Azure enhances its versatility, while its idempotent deployments assure reliability. Despite its prowess, Chef requires improvements in feature offerings, especially regarding container orchestration and cloud technologies.

What are Chef's Key Features?

Automation: Streamlines infrastructure management across diverse environments.
Environment-as-Code: Offers predictability and efficiency in management.
Idempotency: Ensures reliable deployments by maintaining the same outcome no matter how often applied.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with AWS and Azure.
Security Compliance: Enhances security measures across infrastructures.
Ruby-Based Flexibility: Provides versatile recipe-writing and flexible configurations.
Scalability: Suitable for large-scale operational needs.

What Benefits Should Users Consider?

Consistency: Automated deployments reduce errors and manual efforts.
Efficiency: Decrease in manual intervention enhances team productivity.
Reliability: Idempotent deployments ensure consistent outcomes.
Scalability: Supports expanding infrastructures effectively.
Security: Maintains compliance with enhanced security features.

Chef is implemented across industries to automate application deployments, manage CI/CD pipelines, provision infrastructure, and maintain compliance. Its recipes and cookbooks streamline workflows in application deployment, system updates, and orchestration of services, reducing errors and manual intervention in a variety of sectors.

Progress Software

Split provides organizations with advanced capabilities for managing feature flags, maximizing their impact through experiments and data-driven insights to enhance product development and delivery.

Split's use case revolves around enabling teams to experiment with feature rollout safely and effectively. By offering a controlled release environment, Split aids in identifying what resonates with users and making data-driven decisions. Developers and product managers benefit from Split's ability to mitigate risks associated with feature deployments. Integrating with tools used in development workflows, Split ensures seamless implementation and utilization.

What are the valuable features Split offers?

Feature Flags: Control and modify features without redeploying code, improving agility.
Experimentation: Conduct A/B tests to understand user behavior and impact of changes.
Analytics: Detailed insights into the performance and reception of new features.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Time to Market: Accelerate releases while maintaining quality and stability.
Enhanced User Experience: Iterative improvements based on reliable data analysis.
Reduced Risk: Rollback capabilities prevent adverse effects on user experience.

In e-commerce, Split optimizes user experience through experimentation to enhance conversion rates. Finance sectors utilize it to test security features without compromising user data. By implementing Split, industries tailor deployment strategies to specific operational demands, ensuring scalable results.

Split

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Split

June 2026

Free Report: Chef vs. Split

Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Split and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Chef vs. Split report.

See our list of best Build Automation vendors.

We monitor all Build Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.