Chef Infra vs Foreman
Chef Infra
chef.io
Foreman
theforeman.orgSide by side
| Figure | Chef Infra | Foreman |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $4.92/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 1 |
| Spec score · IT Automation Software | 8.5 (#16) | 8.8 (#10) |
| Spec score · Orchestration / Provisioning Software | 8.5 (#7) | 8.7 (#5) |
| Spec score · Data Center Automation | 8.5 (#7) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Spec score · IT Configuration Management Software | 8.5 (#10) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Purpose | Chef Infra configuration management software automates infrastructure configuration and aims to keep it consistent and compliant over its lifetime. | Foreman is an open-source tool for managing servers through provisioning, configuration, orchestration, and monitoring. |
| Security process | Progress Chef describes responsible vulnerability disclosure and says its product QA includes software composition analysis, static application security testing, and dynamic application security testing. | The project accepts vulnerability reports privately and says it aims to fix high-severity issues in the current stable release. |
| Support | The pricing page lists standard support for Business and Enterprise and premium support for Enterprise Plus. | Community support is available through the Discourse support board and a public Matrix room; the project says its support room is not an official support channel. |
Plans
Chef Infra
- Business$59 a year
- Enterprise$189 a year
- Enterprise PlusPriced on request
In their own words
Chef Infra
Chef Infra automates infrastructure configuration and helps keep systems aligned with a defined desired state. Teams express configurations and policies as code, test them, and deliver them through automated pipelines; Chef Infra can correct configuration drift when systems diverge. It supports Windows and Linux systems, cloud ARM systems, and Mac laptops across on-premises, cloud, and edge environments. Chef Infra Client includes more than 150 resources, while the community provides thousands of configuration templates. Chef Workstation bundles the client with Chef InSpec, Chef Habitat, Test Kitchen, Cookstyle, and Chef Upgrade Lab. The policy language is Ruby DSL, and listed capabilities include policy testing, reporting, and CI/CD integration. The free community version is non-commercial. Business costs $59 a year per node, and Enterprise costs $189 a year per node; Enterprise Plus requires a customized quote. Chef Infra Client 19.x is listed as the current LTS release, while 18.x is deprecated and earlier versions are end of life.
Foreman
Foreman is a free, open-source lifecycle management tool for physical and virtual servers. System administrators can use it to automate repetitive tasks, deploy applications, and manage on-premise or cloud systems. It provisions bare-metal machines and resources from providers including Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, OpenStack, Libvirt, oVirt, and VMware. Configuration integrations include Puppet, Ansible, Chef, and Salt; Foreman also collects Ansible reports and facts. Administrators can work through a web frontend, REST API, or Linux CLI, including Hammer CLI access to API calls. Role-based access control and integrations such as LDAP, FreeIPA, and Microsoft Active Directory support access management. Host groups, bulk management, health reports, and audits help organize systems and review changes. A typical deployment has a Foreman server, Smart Proxy servers, and managed hosts. The quickstart lists Enterprise Linux 9, Debian 12 and 13, and Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, and requires 4 GB of memory. Installation configures multiple system components, and setup requires Linux system administration knowledge.