Puppet, Chef, cfengine, and Bcfg2 are all players in the configuration management space. If you’re looking for Linux automation solutions, or server configuration management tools, the two technologies you’re most likely to come across are Puppet and Opscode Chef. They are broadly similar in architecture and solve the same kinds of problems. Puppet, from Reductive Labs, has been around longer, and has a large user base. Chef, from Opscode, has learned some of the lessons from Puppet’s development, and has a high-profile client: EngineYard.

You have an important choice to make: which system should you invest in? When you build an automated infrastructure, you will likely be working with it for some years. Once your infrastructure is already built, it’s expensive to change technologies: Puppet and Chef deployments are often large-scale, sometimes covering thousands of servers.

Chef vs. Puppet is an ongoing debate, but here are 10 advantages I believe Puppet has over Chef today. Read more »