# Chef Infra vs Foreman

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Chef Infra

| Attribute | Chef Infra | Foreman |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 56.4 (74% (medium)) | 51 (10% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 44 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 10,030 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 8,252 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A DevOps automation solution for defining and managing infrastructure configurations, enforcing compliance standards, and automating remediation across cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and air-gapped environments. Provides continuous compliance auditing, policy enforcement, and workflow orchestration. It is indexed under Configuration Management Tools.","source":"https://www.chef.io/blog/chefconf-early-bird-pricing-extended-to-wednesday-april-4th","question":"What is Chef Infra?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Chef Infra is a paid product; published pricing starts at $59 per node per year. It is sold across 3 plans (Business, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus). There is no free tier. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.chef.io","question":"How much does Chef Infra cost?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Chef Infra supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.chef.io/blog/chefconf-early-bird-pricing-extended-to-wednesday-april-4th","question":"What platforms does Chef Infra support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Chef Infra can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid, on-premise, air-gapped and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.chef.io/blog/chefconf-early-bird-pricing-extended-to-wednesday-april-4th","question":"Can Chef Infra be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 6 integrations for Chef Infra, including Google Compute Engine, GitHub, Jenkins, AWS, Azure and GCP. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.chef.io/blog/chefconf-early-bird-pricing-extended-to-wednesday-april-4th","question":"What does Chef Infra integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed GDPR for Chef Infra. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Chef Infra not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.chef.io/security","question":"What security certifications does Chef Infra have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Yes. Chef Infra is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/chef/chef","question":"Is Chef Infra open source?","confidence":0.95},{"answer":"Chef Infra is available worldwide. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.","source":"https://www.chef.io","question":"Where is Chef Infra available?","confidence":0.75}]` | `[{"answer":"A server lifecycle management tool that orchestrates provisioning, configuration management, and monitoring for both on-premise and cloud infrastructure. It provisions bare-metal and virtual servers from multiple cloud providers and integrates with configuration management tools to deploy and monitor server configurations. It is indexed under Configuration Management Tools.","source":"https://theforeman.org/","question":"What is Foreman?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Foreman 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://theforeman.org/","question":"Is Foreman free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Foreman supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://theforeman.org/","question":"What platforms does Foreman support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Foreman can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://theforeman.org/","question":"Can Foreman be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 15 integrations for Foreman, including Puppet, Salt, Ansible, MaaS, Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, OpenStack and Libvirt, plus 7 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://theforeman.org/","question":"What does Foreman integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed GDPR for Foreman. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Foreman not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://theforeman.org/security.html","question":"What security certifications does Foreman have?","confidence":0.7}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Chef Infra enables teams to define infrastructure and software configurations as code, automating deployment and management across any environment at scale. | A complete management solution for system administrators to automate server deployment, configuration, and monitoring across on-premise and cloud environments, with built-in support for configuration management tools like Puppet, Salt, and Ansible. |
| features.capabilities | `{"model":"pull","hosting":"both","language":"Ruby","idempotent":true,"architecture":"agent","desired_state":true,"windows_support":true,"content_registry":true,"open_source_core":true,"policy_compliance":true,"cloud_provisioning":true,"enterprise_edition":true}` | `{"model":"both","hosting":"self","desired_state":true,"open_source_core":true,"policy_compliance":true,"cloud_provisioning":true}` |
| integrations.count | 6 | 12 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Google Compute Engine"},{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"Jenkins"},{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Azure"},{"name":"GCP"}]` | `[{"name":"Puppet"},{"name":"Salt"},{"name":"Ansible"},{"name":"MaaS"},{"name":"Amazon EC2"},{"name":"Google Compute Engine"},{"name":"OpenStack"},{"name":"Libvirt"},{"name":"oVirt"},{"name":"VMware"},{"name":"LDAP"},{"name":"FreeIPA"},{"name":"Redmine"},{"name":"Discourse"},{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"Bare Metal (MaaS)","native":true}]` |
| language.primary | Ruby | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Business","summary":"$59/node/year","features":["Node Management","Job Orchestration","Configuration Management","Desktop Management","Compliance Audit","Unlimited User Seats","Unlimited Org Units","30 Days Data Retention","Standard Support","99.9% Uptime SLA"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"node","amount":59,"period":"year","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Suitable for organisations that need to automate and orchestrate infrastructure management jobs critical to business success.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"concurrent_jobs":"10","monthly_job_runs_per_node":"10"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"$189/node/year","features":["Node Management","Job Orchestration","Configuration Management","Desktop Management","Compliance Audit","Continuous Compliance","Cloud Security Posture Management","Application Delivery","Unlimited User Seats","Unlimited Org Units","30 Days Data Retention","Standard Support","99.9% Uptime SLA"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"node","amount":189,"period":"year","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For organizations tasked with maturing DevOps automation, orchestration and auditing for their entire organization.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"concurrent_jobs":"10","monthly_job_runs_per_node":"10"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise Plus","summary":"Custom pricing, contact sales","features":["Node Management","Job Orchestration","Configuration Management","Desktop Management","Compliance Audit","Continuous Compliance","Cloud Security Posture Management","Application Delivery","Unlimited User Seats","Unlimited Org Units","Up to 60 Days Data Retention","Premium Support","99.9% Uptime SLA","Optional Dedicated Instance"],"description":"For security-focused organizations aiming to extend DevOps automation to address security and compliance requirements.","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{"concurrent_jobs":"50","monthly_job_runs_per_node":"10"}}],"summary":"From $59/node/year annual billing. No free tier.","currency":"USD","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://www.chef.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T14:05:19.898Z","startingPrice":{"amount":59,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["year"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://theforeman.org/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T22:23:01.243Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | - |
| pricing.model | commercial | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | no | - |
| release.cadence_days | 233 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/chef/chef/releases/tag/v15.8.23","date":"2020-02-20T06:51:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v15.8.23"},{"url":"https://github.com/chef/chef/releases/tag/15.1.36","date":"2019-07-01T23:16:15Z","type":"prerelease","version":"15.1.36"},{"url":"https://github.com/chef/chef/releases/tag/11.18.14","date":"2015-07-09T13:15:27Z","type":"stable","version":"11.18.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/chef/chef/releases/tag/12.3.0","date":"2015-04-27T19:51:58Z","type":"stable","version":"12.3.0"}]` | - |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.9 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.scorecard | 3.2 | - |
| security.trust_center | - | https://theforeman.org/security.html |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=rubygems&package_name=chef&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"MODERATE"}` | - |

## Capabilities (Configuration Management Tools)

| Capability | Chef Infra | Foreman |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Architecture | Agent-based | - |
| Push / pull model | Pull | Both |
| Config language | Ruby | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Masterless mode | - | - |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Self-hosted only |
| **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 2026-10-16T18:57:05.724Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*