Chef InSpec vs OpenSCAP

Chef InSpec tests and audits applications and infrastructure against a desired state described in InSpec code. Its runtime framework and rule language express compliance, security and policy requirements. Reusable profiles group controls and can include versioning, platform requirements and dependencies. Resources support testing AWS, Azure, AliCloud and GCP infrastructure, and users can create custom resources. Tests can run locally or against cloud services and infrastructure such as Linux in Docker containers. Results can be exported as JSON, HTML or plain text, or sent to Chef Automate. The kitchen-inspec verifier also runs profiles through Test Kitchen. Chef offers premium CIS- and STIG-based profiles for compliance scanning. The free tier is for non-production workloads and personal, non-commercial use; the 30-day trial is for product evaluation under non-production conditions. Commercial licensing covers production and non-production workloads, with entitlements based on purchase order. Chef InSpec 7 requires EULA acceptance, and license-key requirements depend on the distribution source. Telemetry is enabled for free and trial tiers, but not commercial users.

OpenSCAP is a free collection of open-source tools for applying and enforcing the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) standard. It provides customizable policies for security compliance and automated vulnerability assessment. OpenSCAP Base includes a library and the oscap command-line tool for parsing and evaluating SCAP content, scanning systems and producing documents. It supports XCCDF benchmarks and OVAL definitions, with SCAP 1.2 support and backward compatibility for SCAP 1.1 and 1.0. SCAP Workbench can tailor content, run local or remote scans, and export results; OpenSCAP Daemon schedules assessments of machines and containers. Policy variables and rules can be changed, and customized policies saved separately for reuse. Integrations listed include Red Hat Satellite, RH Access Insights, Preupgrade Assistant and orcharhino. With Red Hat Satellite 6, the site describes centralized policy management, scheduled audits and audit-result collection and search. OpenSCAP Base is available on Linux distributions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora and Ubuntu; the project also reports Windows support since version 1.3.0. Policies may include automated remediation, but some rules cannot be remediated automatically, and remediation may disrupt infrastructure functionality.