Cloud & Infrastructure · head to head
Chef vs Vault
Vault
Cloud & Infrastructure
Manage Secrets and Protect Sensitive Data
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Chef priced per node per year, at $59 on Business and $189 on Enterprise, so cost scales with fleet size rather than with team size; Vault vault 1.15.0 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1, not an OSI open source licence, with IBM Corporation as licensor
- They diverge on capability: Chef covers Recipes, Vault covers Secrets management.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Chef and Vault actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (open-source), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud & Infrastructure).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Chef
- Recipes
- Cookbooks
- Roles
- Data bags
- Attributes
- Chef Server
- Chef Infra
- Chef Compliance
Only in Vault
- Secrets management
- Encryption
- Authentication
- Authorization
- Audit logging
- API access
- High availability
- Replication
Both cover
- Docker
- On-premise deployment
- Cloud deployment
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Chef
- Configuration management and infrastructure automation across server fleetsnot Vault
- Enforcing compliance and audit policy on managed nodesnot Vault
Vault
- Centrally storing and rotating secrets, API keys and database credentialsnot Chef
- Issuing short-lived dynamic credentials to applications instead of static passwordsnot Chef
- Encryption as a service and PKI certificate issuancenot Chef
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Chef
- Priced per node per year, at $59 on Business and $189 on Enterprise, so cost scales with fleet size rather than with team size
- Tripling the price between the two published tiers puts compliance and audit features well above basic automation
- Enterprise Plus and every self managed deployment are custom quoted with no published price
Vault
- Vault 1.15.0 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1, not an OSI open source licence, with IBM Corporation as licensor
- The Additional Use Grant forbids offering Vault to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis in a paid product that competes with IBM's paid versions of Vault
- Each version only converts to MPL 2.0 four years after that version is published, and the Change Date is tracked per version
- Replication, HSM support, namespaces, performance standby nodes, FIPS builds, control group authorisation, multi-factor authentication, secrets sync and lease count quotas all require a Vault Enterprise licence
- A Vault Enterprise licence must be applied to the cluster before any Enterprise feature can be used
Pricing, plan by plan
Chef
Free- Open SourceFree
- Chef Infra
- Community support
- Full functionality
- Chef Automate$4000/year
- Chef Infra
- Compliance automation
- Insights
Vault
Free- Open SourceFree
- Secrets management
- Encryption as a service
- Identity management
- EnterpriseFree
- Advanced features
- Premium support
- Dedicated updates
Which should you pick?
Choose Chef if
- You need recipes.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Windows, Mac, Api.
- You also want cookbooks.
Choose Vault if
- You need secrets management.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Windows, Mac, Cloud.
- You also want encryption.
Questions people ask
- Is Chef or Vault better?
- Neither clearly leads. Chef starts at Free and Vault at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Chef or Vault?
- Chef starts at Free and Vault at Free.
- Does Chef or Vault run on more platforms?
- Chef runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Api. Vault runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Cloud.
- Can I use Chef for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Chef best used for?
- Chef is most often used for configuration management and infrastructure automation across server fleets, enforcing compliance and audit policy on managed nodes. Of those, configuration management and infrastructure automation across server fleets and enforcing compliance and audit policy on managed nodes are not what Vault is typically brought in for.
- What can Chef do that Vault cannot?
- Chef covers Recipes, Cookbooks, Roles, Data bags. Vault covers Secrets management, Encryption, Authentication, Authorization. Both handle Docker, On-premise deployment, Cloud deployment.