Which is better, Ansible or Chef?

The practice of maintaining computers, servers, and software consistent and in order is known as configuration management. The procedure ensures that all systems are functioning properly. Configuration management is done with tools like Ansible, Chef, and Puppet.

Some of you may be planning to learn one of these software for faster career growth. Before that, it is important to know which software is ideal for your specific purpose. Taking up Ansible or Chef automation free course to get a taste of both these tools also won’t be a bad idea.

Ansible and Chef, two prominent DevOps tools, are compared in this article. We will attempt to demonstrate their differences (and commonalities) in order to help you in making a more informed decision on whether Ansible or Chef is the right configuration management tool for your requirement.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is a simple and humble open-source IT automation engine with a large number of modules for interfacing with the apps and services that a DevOps engineer requires. Application deployment, intra-service orchestration, and the entire application lifecycle may all be automated with it. Michael DeHaan created it, and it was first released in 2012.

Ansible is simple to set up because it doesn’t require any client-side security architecture. The Python programming language is used to create Ansible. Ansible can use inventory files to store client information such as IP address and hostname.

Ansible’s playbooks are a crucial component that is written in a simple language called YAML. To make setup easier, difficult tasks are turned into repeatable playbooks. These playbooks are simple to comprehend and debug if necessary.

Advantages of Ansible

• Ansible is straightforward to set up. The playbooks can be used even if you don’t know how to program.
• It is able to orchestrate any application environment, regardless of where it is deployed.
• No software or firewall ports are required to automate client systems. It is not necessary to have a separate management organization.
• It’s simple to deploy multi-tier applications. There is no need to manually configure these applications on each machine.
• Ansible is a tool that allows developers to automate configuration management chores on a daily basis. This frees up the time, allowing them to focus on more vital activities.

What is Chef?

Chef is a robust configuration management program that is used to automate infrastructure. Adam Jacobs, the founder of the software startup OpsCode, created it. Chef will automate infrastructure configuration, administration, and deployment whether you’re operating in a hybrid environment or in the cloud.

Chef automates the application lifecycle, allowing businesses to become more efficient and faster. This program can automate repetitive configuration processes.

The Ruby programming language is used to create ChefChef. It also offers a command-line interface with a Ruby-based DSL. It can be used as a client-server application or as a stand-alone application. Chef is free and open-source, and it may be used to set up a cloud. This utility can convert system administration duties into recipe and cookbook definitions.

Chef runs on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Cisco IO, AIX, and Nexus, among other platforms. It also works with several cloud platforms, including Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenStack, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Bluemix. Chef may be readily linked with a variety of cloud systems using the knife utility.

Advantages of Chef

• Its automated features assist firms in reducing risk and improving compliance at various phases of software development.
• It increases the effectiveness of any company’s DevOps team by automating cloud infrastructure and appropriately handling manual operations.
• Building, testing, delivering, monitoring, and troubleshooting an application are all part of the tool’s software deployment process.
• All coding mistakes must be corrected prior to deployment. Chef facilitates this, increasing the system’s robustness and reducing downtime.
• Chef makes switching to a different cloud environment a lot easier. It manages your cloud and data centers, and you can use it even if you switch cloud providers.

Now that you possess a better understanding of the two configuration management systems let’s make a comparison of them.

Difference between Ansible vs. Chef

The following parameters will be used in the Ansible vs. Chef comparison:

Installation and setup

Ansible: Ansible does not run any agents on client machines. As a result, no client-server setup is required. For logging onto a client’s PC and configuring the nodes, SSH connections are needed. The virtual machine of the client does not require any extra configuration. As a result, the setup is simple.

Chef: The server will run on the master computer in ChefChef. In addition, the Chef client agent will be installed on each client system. All of the settings that have been tested are saved on workstations and then submitted to Chef’sChef’s central server. As a result, getting everything set up is a little difficult.

Configuration management

Ansible: Ansible does not run any agents on client machines. As a result, no client-server setup is required. For logging onto a client’s PC and configuring the nodes, SSH connections are needed. The virtual machine of the client does not require any extra configuration. As a result, the setup is simple.

Chef: The server will run on the master computer in ChefChef. In addition, the Chef client agent will be installed on each client system. All of the settings that have been tested are saved on workstations and then submitted to Chef’sChef’s central server. As a result, getting everything set up is a little difficult.

Static/dynamic inventories

Static and dynamic inventories, such as a flat INI file with hosts separated into sections, can be used by Ansible. Chef does not provide this flexibility because each host must be registered separately on the Chef server.

Pricing

Ansible: Ansible costs $10,000 per year for 100 nodes, with 85 support, for basic IT tasks. The premium package costs $14,000 per year with 247 support.

Chef: Chef is more cost-effective, as it costs $137 per node and includes everything you need to create and deploy.

Source of truth

Ansible: The authoritative configuration of a particular set of systems or systems is defined as the source of truth. The source of truth for Ansible is its deployed playbooks, which serve as excellent source control systems.

Chef: Chef’s source of truth is its own server, and those servers require uploaded cookbooks, which necessitates ensuring that the latter are consistent and the same.

To put it in another way, Ansible’s solution is simpler and more logical.

Conclusion

The Chef is older, has superior documentation, and is capable of doing tough jobs. However, it is more difficult to set up than Ansible. Developers and DevOps engineers love Chef’s Ruby DSL. However, compared to Ansible, which utilizes plain YAML, it has a steep learning curve. As previously said, Ansible is more expensive than Chef, which is a more economical option. In the Ansible vs. Chef debate, the winner is determined by the company’s needs.