chef-server - chef-solo - vagrant - puppet... which is correct for me?

Question

I have 9 servers in digitalocean.

• one with mysql/mongodb
• one cloudera/hadoop
• one nginx/nodejs/rails
• ...

So, I was read about chef/puppet/vagrant and seems awesome to know I can configure everything in all servers automatically.

All I want is setup more servers automatically with recipes. Maybe this:

• DB-recipe: install mysql and mongodb, configure passwords, users, etc
• LAMP-recipe: install and configure apache, mysql and php automatically
• NodeJS-recipe: install and configure nodeJS and NPM automatically

But I'm still confused. Which of options is the correct for me?

chef-server - chef-solo - vagrant - puppet?

Answer 1

I was also conflicted on this. In the end "Just Get Started" is a good approach. I chose chef-solo and vagrant when deploying a rails app on aws and it has worked well for me. Also this article helped me

he says "If you’re a Rails shop you’d probably go straight to Chef."

https://www.scriptrock.com/blog/puppet-vs-chef-battle-wages/

Answer 2

Or maybe also Ansible? Seems like a few prefer that these days. Over Puppet and Chef. Maybe because of the simplicity. Or Salt? Guess Vagrant is a must for testing your setup locally. Between that, I think Chef and Puppet are just as good and it's up to you who you like best.

And you don't have to do the Puppet-master/Chef-server bit. There are many tutorials with smooth masterless setup. I would do the Getting started for all of the above and then make my choice.