The configuration management landscape has shifted dramatically toward Ansible in recent years, and the Puppet/Chef book market reflects that. Chef has not had a new book from a major publisher since 2015. Puppet fared better with a 2023 title covering Puppet 8. If your organization runs Puppet or Chef in production, these are the books worth having. If you are choosing a configuration management tool for a new project, Ansible books are the better investment.
For a hands-on Puppet installation walkthrough, see our guide on installing Puppet 8 Server and Agent on Rocky Linux.
Last reviewed: March 2026. All links and availability verified.
Puppet Books
Puppet 8 for DevOps Engineers
David Sandilands’ Packt title (July 2023, 416 pages) is the most current Puppet book available and the only one covering Puppet 8. It covers the Puppet language, platform architecture, module development, Hiera for data separation, PuppetDB for node inventory, and Bolt for agentless task execution. The foreword is by Nigel Kersten (Puppet’s former Chief Product Officer), which signals that Puppet’s own team considers this a legitimate resource.
If you manage Puppet infrastructure in production, this is the one book to own. It covers everything from writing your first manifest through enterprise-scale module design patterns.
- Author: David Sandilands (foreword by Nigel Kersten)
- Published: July 2023 (Packt)
- Pages: 416
- Best for: All Puppet users, from beginners through enterprise-scale deployments
- Amazon: Buy on Amazon
Chef Books
Learning Chef
Mischa Taylor and Seth Vargo’s O’Reilly guide (2014, 340 pages) remains the best introduction to Chef despite its age. It covers recipes, cookbooks, roles, environments, Test Kitchen for testing, and Berkshelf for dependency management. The fundamentals of Chef’s resource model and convergence-based approach have not changed, so the core concepts still apply. Specific tool versions and CLI syntax have evolved, so cross-reference with the current Chef documentation for any commands that look unfamiliar.
No other Chef-specific book from a major publisher has been released since 2015. If you need Chef training, this book plus the official docs is the practical option.
- Authors: Mischa Taylor, Seth Vargo
- Published: November 2014 (O’Reilly)
- Pages: 340
- Best for: Learning Chef fundamentals (supplement with current docs)
- Amazon: Buy on Amazon
The honest assessment
| Tool | Book situation | Market trajectory |
|---|---|---|
| Puppet | One solid current book (Puppet 8, 2023) | Stable in enterprise, declining in new adoption |
| Chef | No books newer than 2015 | Declining significantly, most teams migrating to Ansible |
| Ansible | Multiple current books (2022-2025) | Growing, dominant for new projects |
If you are maintaining an existing Puppet deployment, Sandilands’ book is essential. If you are maintaining Chef, Taylor/Vargo’s book plus official docs is the best you can do. If you are choosing a tool for a new project, the market has spoken: Ansible has won the configuration management category. Our Docker and Ansible books post covers the best resources for that path.
