Chef Infra vs Rex

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.

Rex is a free, open-source automation framework for managing local computers and remote machines over SSH. It runs self-hosted and agentless on Linux and Windows, with support also listed for RHEL/CentOS, Fedora, OpenWRT, BSDs, and Solaris. Projects keep inventory, environments, authentication details, and tasks in a Rexfile. You can combine local or remote execution, push or pull management, and imperative or declarative styles. Tasks can install packages, upload configuration files, start services, and trigger actions when files change. Rex uses a DSL compatible with Perl syntax and can be extended with Perl modules or custom code. Authentication documentation covers passwords, SSH keys, passphrases, external credential sources, and ssh-agent. The control host needs Perl and dependencies; managed hosts need Perl 5 and a valid SSH account. Installation is recommended through CPAN, with package-manager and source options. Apache 2.0 licensing applies to Rex and its parts.