When comparing RUDDER vs Chef, the Slant community recommends RUDDER for most people. In the question“What are the best configuration management tools?” RUDDER is ranked 3rd while Chef is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose RUDDER is:
Rudder checks every rule that has been set up to keep it compliant over time. It is a tool made to be used in production. It's not a dev tool where there is no continuity constraint.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Continuous configuration - dedicated to production
Rudder checks every rule that has been set up to keep it compliant over time. It is a tool made to be used in production. It's not a dev tool where there is no continuity constraint.
Pro Web UI + CLI + API
There is 3 ways to use Rudder. The biggest surprise is that everything that can be done with code is also possible with the web interface, without knowing anything about development or automation, generally speaking.
Pro Light agent developed in C - up to 10 000 nodes
The agent has nearly no impact concerning resources and that is the reason why Rudder is able to manage thousands of servers without any performance issues.
Pro Codeless user interface with built-in template library and editor
Non-expert users can define parameters in a central interface, and Rudder will automatically make sure that IT services are installed, configured, running and in good health. All actions (checks, warnings, fixed errors…) are reported upon immediately in the user interface, keeping drift from nominal behaviour low.
Pro Free and open source
Apart the agent on proprietary OS (AIX, Windows, ...) , Rudder is an open source and free software. This means that the code source is available on Github for every part of Rudder (Rudder webapp, and every other Normation repository). This also means that packages for a wide range of distributions are released and available to download freely.
Pro Running on Linux, Windows, AIX, Solaris, Android...
Rudder can manage quite everything. So far only HP-UX and iOS don't have their own agent version, but everything else is available already.
Pro Large community
Chef has a relatively large community. One of the reasons for it is the fact that it's a pretty old and mature tool. Chef, originally released in 2009, is a more mature product. Being popular and with a large and dedicated community means that Chef has lots and lots of resources and guides from third party sources out there for beginners to pick up. Not only that, there are also many plugins and configuration recipes made by the community.
Pro Cross-platform
Chef is cross-platform. Offering support for the biggest platforms out there: Linux, Windows and *nix.
Pro Popular choice among large companies
Chef has an impressive list of companies using it's automation service. Among them is Facebook, Etsy, Ancestry.com, PharmMD and Yahoo.
Pro Strong version control capabilities
Chef is centered around Git for it's configuration and deployments. Because of this, Chef also has great version control capabilities through Git.
Pro Mature
Chef was released in 2009, which is relatively a long time ago for software. Since then it has been through several versions and many bug fixes and tests. All of this can make Chef more appealing to teams who are looking for stability and maturity, which are things that Chef brings on the table.
Cons
Con Community growing but not very big at this day
There is more and more people getting involved in the Rudder community, but it's nothing compared to Puppet community so far.
Con Not a one-shot deployment tool
Rudder is overkill if the goal is only to push one-time actions. Thankully, a plugin is available to connect Rudder with Ansible and enhance its capability.
Con Ties you to Ruby
Chef is written in Ruby and its CLI uses a Ruby-based DSL. In order to fully use and customize it you need to use Ruby as Chef does not give users any other choice when it comes to languages to use to configure it.
Con Steep learning curve
Chef has a steeper learning curve than many of its competitors, making it a more difficult tool for the non-devs of a team (such as sysadmins) to work with. For some teams, the added cost of teaching Chef to the team may outweigh the benefits.