TaskCat vs Test Kitchen
TaskCat
aws-ia.github.ioTest Kitchen
kitchen.ciSide by side
| Figure | TaskCat | Test Kitchen |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Infrastructure Testing Tools | 6.6 (#26) | 8.2 (#7) |
| Installation | The guide offers installation through PyPI, a development install from GitHub, or the official Docker image. | Users can install the gem with gem install test-kitchen or install Cinc Workstation. |
| License | The GitHub repository lists an Apache-2.0 license. | The project is released under the Apache License 2.0. |
| Purpose | TaskCat tests AWS CloudFormation templates by deploying them across multiple AWS Regions and reporting pass or fail for each Region. | Test Kitchen is a test harness for executing infrastructure code on one or more platforms in isolation. |
| Support | The documentation directs users to its guides, GitHub issues, and community discussions for help. | The documentation directs users to the #test-kitchen channel on Chef Community Slack for assistance from community members. |
Plans
In their own words
Test Kitchen
Test Kitchen is a free test harness for running infrastructure code in isolation on one or more platforms. Its workflow uses create, converge, setup, verify, and destroy commands to provision environments and test infrastructure code. Documented drivers cover Amazon EC2, Apache CloudStack, DigitalOcean, Docker through Dokken, Google Cloud Platform, Hetzner Cloud, Vagrant, Azure, Hyper-V, OpenStack, and VMware products. Which drivers are available depends on the driver gems installed in the Ruby environment. Provisioning options include Chef Infra, Cinc Client, Habitat, PowerShell DSC, and shell scripts; listed verification integrations include Cinc Auditor, Chef InSpec, and Serverspec. Community plugins add Ansible, Puppet, and Salt provisioners. Installation is available through RubyGems, system packages, or Cinc Workstation, but Test Kitchen itself does not bundle Cinc or Chef tooling. Requirements include a 64-bit operating system and enabled CPU virtualization. The project uses Apache License 2.0 and points users to Chef Community Slack for community assistance. The documentation notes known issues and no current maintainer for kitchen-docker, recommending kitchen-dokken instead.