# Ansible vs Chef Habitat

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Ansible

| Attribute | Ansible | Chef Habitat |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 64.1 (65% (medium)) | 53.8 (11% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 35 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 2,140 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 70,980 | - |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 1,964,190 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Ansible is an open source IT automation engine that automates provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, orchestration, and many other IT processes. It is free to use, and the project benefits from the experience and intelligence of its thousands of contributors. It is indexed under Configuration Management Tools.","source":"https://www.ansible.com","question":"What is Ansible?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Ansible is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the GPL-3.0 licence. Paid editions are also offered: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, priced on request. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.ansible.com","question":"Is Ansible free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Ansible supports a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.ansible.com","question":"What platforms does Ansible support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Ansible can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.ansible.com","question":"Can Ansible be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 22 integrations for Ansible, including Terraform, VMware, ServiceNow, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Cisco and Juniper, plus 14 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.ansible.com","question":"What does Ansible integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Ansible is published under the GPL-3.0 licence, a copyleft licence, so check its terms before embedding it in a closed-source product. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible","question":"Is Ansible open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"Chef Habitat automates the process of building, packaging, and deploying applications in isolated artifacts that can run anywhere. It provides a development studio for defining deployment instructions, packages applications into immutable artifacts, and includes a lightweight supervisor agent to manage deployments across servers, VMs, and containers. It is indexed under Configuration Management Tools.","source":"https://www.habitat.sh","question":"What is Chef Habitat?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Chef Habitat is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.habitat.sh","question":"Is Chef Habitat free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Chef Habitat supports the web, Windows, Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.habitat.sh","question":"What platforms does Chef Habitat support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Chef Habitat can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid, on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.habitat.sh","question":"Can Chef Habitat be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 3 integrations for Chef Habitat, including Docker, Azure Container Registry and Amazon Elastic Container Registry. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.habitat.sh","question":"What does Chef Habitat integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Chef Habitat is available worldwide. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.","source":"https://www.habitat.sh","question":"Where is Chef Habitat available?","confidence":0.75}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A system for automating infrastructure provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment across multiple machines via standard SSH without requiring agent installation on remote systems. | Chef Habitat automates the process of building, packaging, and deploying applications in isolated artifacts that can run anywhere. It provides a development studio for defining deployment instructions, packages applications into immutable artifacts, and includes a lightweight supervisor agent to manage deployments across servers, VMs, and containers. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"self","architecture":"agentless","desired_state":true,"masterless_mode":true,"open_source_core":true,"cloud_provisioning":true}` | `{"model":"push","hosting":"both","language":"PowerShell, Bash","idempotent":true,"architecture":"agent","desired_state":true,"masterless_mode":true,"windows_support":true,"content_registry":true,"open_source_core":true,"policy_compliance":true,"cloud_provisioning":true}` |
| integrations.count | 22 | 4 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Terraform"},{"name":"VMware"},{"name":"ServiceNow"},{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure"},{"name":"Google Cloud Platform"},{"name":"Cisco"},{"name":"Juniper"},{"name":"F5"},{"name":"HPE"},{"name":"Dell Technologies"},{"name":"NetApp"},{"name":"SAP"},{"name":"Pure"},{"name":"Palo Alto Networks"},{"name":"CyberArk"},{"name":"HashiCorp Vault"},{"name":"Splunk"},{"name":"Dynatrace"},{"name":"Infoblox"},{"name":"Aruba"},{"name":"Windows"}]` | `[{"name":"Docker"},{"name":"Azure Container Registry"},{"name":"Amazon Elastic Container Registry"},{"name":"Docker Hub"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | - |
| license.spdx | GPL-3.0 | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Ansible (Open Source)","description":"Free open-source project"},{"free":false,"name":"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform","description":"Enterprise platform with security hardening and support","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free open-source version or paid enterprise platform","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.ansible.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T14:05:30.789Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open source and free","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.habitat.sh","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T22:39:22.643Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.21.5","date":"2026-10-05T15:11:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.21.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.20.10","date":"2026-10-05T15:10:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.20.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.19.14","date":"2026-10-05T15:08:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.19.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.22.0b2","date":"2026-09-29T15:54:01Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.22.0b2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.21.5rc1","date":"2026-09-29T15:47:26Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.21.5rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.20.10rc1","date":"2026-09-29T15:47:35Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.20.10rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.19.14rc1","date":"2026-09-29T15:41:38Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.19.14rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.22.0b1","date":"2026-09-18T16:37:36Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.22.0b1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.21.4","date":"2026-09-08T16:52:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.21.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.20.9","date":"2026-09-08T16:50:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.20.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.19.13","date":"2026-09-08T16:48:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.19.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.21.4rc1","date":"2026-08-31T16:28:46Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.21.4rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.20.9rc1","date":"2026-08-31T16:27:27Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.20.9rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.19.13rc1","date":"2026-08-31T16:26:07Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.19.13rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.21.3","date":"2026-08-10T16:46:28Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.21.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.20.8","date":"2026-08-10T16:45:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.20.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.19.12","date":"2026-08-10T16:43:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.19.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.18.19","date":"2026-08-10T16:42:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.18.19"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.21.3rc1","date":"2026-08-03T22:47:24Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.21.3rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ansible/ansible/releases/tag/v2.20.8rc1","date":"2026-08-03T22:46:13Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.20.8rc1"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7.5 | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":7,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=ansible-core&per_page=100","last_12m":1,"max_severity":"HIGH"}` | - |

## Capabilities (Configuration Management Tools)

| Capability | Ansible | Chef Habitat |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Architecture | Agentless / SSH-push | Agent-based |
| Push / pull model | - | Push |
| Config language | - | PowerShell, Bash |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Masterless mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hosting | Self-hosted only | Cloud + self-hosted |
| **Correctness** |  |  |
| Idempotent | - | ✓ |
| **Model** |  |  |
| Desired-state declarative | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Ecosystem** |  |  |
| Content registry | - | ✓ |
| **Platform** |  |  |
| Windows support | - | ✓ |
| **Scope** |  |  |
| Cloud provisioning | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Governance** |  |  |
| Policy / compliance | - | ✓ |
| **Commercial** |  |  |
| Enterprise edition | - | - |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Open-source core | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T18:33:27.178Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*