Chef, Inc.

What Chef, Inc. does

Chef, Inc., now marketed as Progress Chef, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) that provides a Policy-as-Code infrastructure automation platform for enterprise IT and DevOps teams. Founded in 2008 as an open-source configuration management project and acquired by Progress in 2020, the company has built a 15+ year track record in infrastructure automation with named enterprise customers including Meta, IBM, Walmart, Barclays, and Ford. Its product architecture centers on the Chef 360 Platform, a unified control plane combining infrastructure management (Chef Infra), compliance automation (Chef InSpec/Chef Compliance), job orchestration (Chef Courier), node management, and cloud security (Chef Cloud Security), with the agent-based Chef Infra Client converging systems to desired state via immutable Policyfiles. The platform supports heterogeneous environments spanning Windows, Linux, Mac, cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped setups, with approximately 4,000 community cookbooks in the Chef Supermarket and CIS/DISA STIG compliance content baked in.

Chef monetizes through enterprise software licensing and subscriptions for the Chef 360 platform, delivered as SaaS (Chef SaaS, with monthly billing), self-managed on-premises, or via AWS and Azure marketplaces, complemented by professional services and the LearnChef certification program. Go-to-market combines enterprise field sales, a product-led growth motion (free trials and self-service downloads), marketplace listings, and the annual ChefConf conference, with channel partners TapHere! Technologies (federal) and tecRacer Group (EMEA) extending reach into government and European markets. Forward product investment is focused on the AIOps module Chef Opsmith (Early Access as of 2026) and continued expansion of the SaaS delivery model.

Name

Chef, Inc.

Legal name

Chef, Inc.

Website

https://getchef.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2008

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Chef, Inc. (Progress Chef) provides a Policy-as-Code infrastructure automation and compliance platform for enterprise IT and DevOps teams, unifying configuration management, compliance testing, job orchestration, and cloud security under the Chef 360 platform.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Seattle

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Software Licenses and Subscriptions: Enterprise software licensing and subscription revenue from Chef 360 platform, including Chef Infra, Chef Automate, Chef InSpec, and related products. Available as SaaS, on-premises, or via marketplaces.
2. Chef SaaS: Cloud-based deployment option with automatic upgrades and centralized governance, offered as a subscription service.
3. Professional Services and Training: Training programs including LearnChef certification tracks and professional services for implementation support.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Chef develops and sells infrastructure automation, configuration management, continuous compliance, and DevOps workflow-orchestration software. Its Chef 360 platform unifies infrastructure management, compliance, job orchestration, node management, and AIOps capabilities, with SaaS, self-managed, and marketplace deployment options for cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and air-gapped environments.

Product overview

Chef, Inc. (now part of Progress Software) offers a unified DevOps automation platform with Chef 360 at its core. The platform combines infrastructure management (Chef Infra), compliance automation (Chef InSpec/Chef Compliance), job orchestration (Chef Courier), and cloud security (Chef Cloud Security) into a single control plane. Chef 360 Platform unifies these capabilities with AI-driven operations via Chef Opsmith. Deployment options include SaaS (Chef SaaS), Self-Managed on-premises, and marketplace deployments. Supporting tools include Chef Automate (enterprise dashboard), Chef Workstation (developer toolkit), Chef Habitat (application delivery), Chef Desktop (endpoint management), and Chef Edge Management. The platform follows a Policy-as-Code approach using cookbooks, recipes, and Policyfiles to automate configuration, compliance, and security across hybrid, cloud, and edge environments.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Chef 360: Unified platform that unifies infrastructure, compliance, orchestration and more on one single platform.
• Chef Infra
• Chef Automate
• Chef InSpec
• Chef Habitat
• Chef Workstation
• Chef Compliance
• Chef SaaS
• Chef Courier
• Chef Opsmith
• Chef Edge Management
• Chef Cloud Security
• Chef Desktop

Products and services

• Chef 360 Platform Unified enterprise platform for infrastructure management, continuous compliance, job orchestration, and node management across cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and air-gapped environments.
• Chef Infra Policy-based configuration-management software that converges heterogeneous infrastructure to defined desired state and supports cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
• Chef SaaS Cloud-based deployment option for Chef products, providing centralized governance, automatic upgrades, job orchestration, node management, and compliance automation without customer-managed infrastructure setup.
• Chef Automate Enterprise management and observability platform with visual interfaces, real-time dashboards, role-based access controls, third-party integrations, and data APIs for the Chef ecosystem.
• Chef Workstation Developer toolkit for creating and testing Chef policies, including knife, Chef InSpec, Cookstyle, Habitat, Test Kitchen, and embedded Ruby.
• Chef InSpec Compliance testing software that defines security and compliance policies as code and provides continuous visibility into compliance status across systems and teams.
• Chef Compliance Continuous compliance-management software that runs standards-based audits on schedule or on demand, including CIS and DISA STIG benchmarks.
• Chef Courier Job-orchestration software for automating the sequencing and management of tasks across IT infrastructure.
• Chef Cloud Security Cloud security posture-management software for securing cloud-native assets and edge environments while maintaining compliance.
• Chef Habitat Application-automation platform for packaging and deploying applications together with their dependencies across modern application architectures.

Quantifiable outcome

• 45% reduced annual storage costs
• +7 more outcomes

Named customers12 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration8 records

AI capability4 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• TapHere! TechnologiescoreImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 7 April 2022Federal IT expertise partnership enabling government organizations to achieve DevSecOps successes. TapHere! has deep government sector expertise combined with proven Chef automation technology for continuous secure applications and infrastructure delivery.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreTechnology or IntegrationAWS marketplace partnership providing pre-configured Chef deployments. Chef has partnered with AWS to ensure smooth migration for AWS OpsWorks users to Chef SaaS, with dedicated migration support and integrated tooling.
• Microsoft AzurecoreTechnology or IntegrationAzure Marketplace listing for Chef solutions, enabling customers to deploy Chef Automate and Chef Infra Server directly into Azure subscriptions with streamlined procurement and deployment.
• tecRacer GroupminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerGerman-based consulting partner providing Chef implementation services to European customers since 2016. Actively involved in ecosystem development and customer projects.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Ansible (Red Hat): Ansible, now part of Red Hat/IBM, is the closest direct competitor to Chef, offering agentless configuration management, infrastructure automation, and orchestration with strong open-source community presence and overlapping enterprise DevOps use cases.
• Terraform (HashiCorp / IBM): Terraform is a leading infrastructure-as-code platform for declarative provisioning across cloud and on-prem environments, competing with Chef Infra for configuration and infrastructure automation workloads in enterprise DevOps pipelines.
• CFEngine: CFEngine is one of the original configuration management tools providing automated infrastructure configuration, comparable in approach to Chef Infra with agent-based policy enforcement at scale.
• Puppet (Perforce): Puppet provides agent-based configuration management and compliance automation directly competing with Chef Infra and Chef InSpec, serving similar enterprise IT operations and DevOps teams with policy-as-code capabilities.
• Ansible Tower / AWX: Ansible Tower (commercial) and AWX (open-source) provide enterprise dashboards, RBAC, and orchestration comparable to Chef Automate, targeting similar DevOps and IT operations use cases.
• SaltStack (VMware): SaltStack offers configuration management, remote execution, and orchestration capabilities comparable to Chef Infra, now part of VMware's portfolio for hybrid cloud automation.

Broad incumbents

• AWS CloudFormation: AWS CloudFormation provides native infrastructure-as-code for AWS environments, competing with Chef's cloud provisioning capabilities for AWS-centric enterprises and bundling with the broader AWS ecosystem.
• Microsoft Azure Automation: Microsoft Azure Automation offers configuration management, update management, and process automation for Azure environments, serving as a competing platform for Chef's Azure marketplace deployments.

Emerging players

• Octopus Deploy: Octopus Deploy provides deployment automation and release management for enterprise applications, partially overlapping with Chef's job orchestration (Courier) and application delivery capabilities.
• Pulumi: Pulumi is a modern infrastructure-as-code platform using general-purpose programming languages, emerging as a cloud-native alternative to Chef and Terraform for developer-led infrastructure automation.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/chef
• Xx.com/PrgsChef
• Facebookfacebook.com/progresschef
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/progress-chef

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Chef, Inc.