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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
12th
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
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (5th), Configuration Management (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of AWS CodeBuild is 2.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 2.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS CodeBuild2.3%
Chef2.1%
Other95.6%
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.
G Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration with other AWS services has streamlined our workflow."
"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 most important thing is that it's self-contained in an AWS account, and it's all linked to the customer's AWS account."
"A valuable feature is the support for third-party repositories such as Bitbucket, GitLab, or GitHub."
"The integration is a good feature."
"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."
"AWS CodeBuild reduces wait time and optimizes workflows."
"CodeBuild supports various platforms and coding, which offers an advantage."
"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."
"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 has decreased a lot of man-hours that we were previously spending doing stuff which we now manage with Chef, decreased the time to fix production issues, and reduced the number of production issues since using Chef to automate our provisioning."
"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."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
"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 important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"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."
 

Cons

"The deployment fails sometimes."
"There is no persistent storage or preservation of workspace between the builds."
"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 have been times when CodeBuild has shown some instability, like bugs or breakdowns."
"We had integration issues with a tool called Octopus Deploy while using CodeBuild. AWS support helped us resolve it, however, it could be better."
"Notifications could be added, or SNS integration could be included so that notifications can be received on every build, whether the build fails or succeeds."
"The front-end interface and the management are somewhat challenging, and there's a lot of space for improvement."
"While working on building images for multiple applications within a single script, I encountered an issue where looping functionality was not supported as expected."
"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."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"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."
"One thing that Chef needs to improve on is making it available in as many languages as possible."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"The compatibility with the different platforms that we are using needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We pay a monthly licensing fee."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Media Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

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 primary use case for AWS CodeBuild?
My use of AWS CodeBuild is focused on the CI/CD part, which stands for continuous integration and continuous deployment. Basically, we write the code and then commit it into a repository, which cou...
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 do not have anything in mind at this time for how Chef could be improved.
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...
 

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: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.