title: Is chef an overkill for my simple IT infrastructure needs?
body: <p>I'm a full stack developer that owns a few Ruby on Rails applications. Currently I use Capistrano to provision the few (~5) VPS where my apps run, but I'm looking for alternatives to have a more reliable automation process (Capistrano is much better suited for deployment).</p>
  
  <p>The obvious choice was chef (because I already know Ruby) but after toying around a few days it's not clear that it's the best choice:
  Chef client-server architecture looks like an overkill for my needs. I don't want to run a server.</p>
  
  <p>I've read a book (Reliably Deploying Rails Applications) that suggest chef-solo, but when then I go to the homepage and it's says it's deprecated and I don't want to learn something that will get out of date fast.
  Still I get it running, I try bundle exec knife cookbook create (version 13) and says that it doesn't work any more, that I should download chefDK.
  I just installed chef by my Gemfile that was fine but ChefDK it's big, I just want something simple to reliable deploy a few boxes.
  It looks like there are a lot of moving parts, stuff that is getting out of date, etc.</p>
  
  <p>So, I know that Chef is great software for managing big infrastructure, but it looks like it's too complex for my use case. What do you think? Do you suggest me to proceed or try for something else (ansible is marketed as being simpler for example)? Thanks</p>