We performed a comparison between AWS CloudFormation and AWS Systems Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Configuration Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It is helpful for managing devices anytime and any place without requiring dependency on the local networks."
"The Microsoft Windows Autopilot and Defender policies are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The solution is easy to use, simple to understand for those new to using it, and combined with the other Microsoft products it makes for an overall good package."
"Conditional access has helped us tailor and enforce our security policies in the mobile space."
"The most valuable feature of Intune is the central dashboard for compliance and policy management."
"It is user-friendly, and the performance is also good. It is a convenient product"
"The initial setup is not complex."
"The central administration con dashboard is very easy to use and provides very good oversight on all that needs to be monitored."
"Scripting does what we need to reinstall something from scratch."
"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation are all the resources documentation is located in one location, simple resource reverting, and ease of use of the full package for new users."
"CloudFormation gives us control of AWS and any Cloud infrastructure. It creates the whole stack for Cloud services technologies so it's easy to manage the whole system."
"Versioning makes our work easy."
"What I found most valuable in AWS CloudFormation is its configurability. The solution is easy to configure. I also like its change management configuration because that's also good."
"AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources."
"The most beneficial aspect lies in its capability to handle input acquisition and assessment."
"The integration of the solution is very good."
"Systems Manager has a feature where it analyzes the logs and gives us a performance overview in the form of a graph. We know when it's taking up more resources and when there are spikes, so we can predict the usability."
"When we do the automation in the cloud, we use the SSM agent. This helps us to test our automation and documents, and monitor the cloud."
"AWS provides Auto Scaling groups."
"The solution's ability to scale is good."
"Has a variety of automation options."
"With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems manually."
"The solution is user-friendly"
"Sometimes, updating a client policy is very difficult. This needs to be improved."
"The reporting needs to be a bit more interactive."
"I think that there is room for improvement with the reporting. If this is done, it will be a better product."
"It would be better if I could integrate it with my core group policy. I would like to have a group policy in my current environment, which has strict control, but those things are still missing. Although it has maximum compliance and security, it's not available on-premise."
"The documentation about the custom image setup could be better. Although Microsoft provides the steps to configure Intune or set up or deploy Intune, it doesn't have much information related to custom images. If you ask, "how can we deploy the custom image?" There is no information. The steps they mention ask you to connect to your on-premises environment or create your own image on the cloud itself once there is connectivity. But I needed to go to multiple websites to get all this information. I had to figure out how to upload the custom image if you want to use the on-premise custom image for Cloud PC. If you have the proper subscription, you must have the right access, like global admin or owner. Then you can add your custom image to that. There are no steps mentioned over there. Microsoft Intune doesn't have Chrome browser support. I would like to have that support because they will want it if we pitch the product to clients."
"What would make this product better is adding more security policies and features in the next upgrade."
"There is room for improvement in integrating additional features such as Purview and SharePoint activities into Intune."
"The synchronization could be improved."
"AWS CloudFormation allows you to use the code templates written in JSON and YAML, but not directly in Python. Adding this feature would be beneficial."
"There could be better error handling. It would be a good way to improve the solution."
"The speed of the replication process could improve. It can take some time to replicate that could use a speed increase."
"CloudFormation is not particularly good at handling cross-account dynamic references. If you try to refer to an object that CloudFormation has created in a separate AWS account, it tends to fall apart. That's because it is a byproduct of the multi-tenant configuration. This is the most glaring shortcoming in my perspective because you can't dynamically reference objects in other accounts that CloudFormation has created, but it is not a shortcoming that you can't overcome. This is the only pain point that I've come across that didn't have a workaround natively. Sometimes the confirmation is slow, and it could be faster. The downside to CloudFormation when you're fully embracing it is that the AWS services do not get released immediately fully CloudFormation enabled. If you need to use the latest AWS service that just got announced or reinvented, you're not going to be able to continue with CloudFormation for the first X number of months. This is because they develop the products separately, and then they hand it to the CloudFormation team, which later on develops a CloudFormation integration. So, if you need to be on the newest thing AWS has, CloudFormation is often going to be a constraint that prevents you from doing that."
"The product should be made cloud-agnostic, allowing users to deploy the same environment with minimal tweaks across different cloud platforms, similar to Terraform. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have the ability to manage templates outside of the AWS environment."
"For a beginner, it's kind of difficult to set up. So, the user does need some knowledge in order to do it."
"If you are a developer or a more technical person, it's very difficult to learn the complete syntax or because CloudFormation includes a new way to write infrastructure code."
"Creating the inline policies is not great."
"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."
"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."
"Lacks sufficient integrations."
"AWS does not have EKS cluster backup."
"The fact that AWS Systems Manager takes time to complete the patching process, makes it an area where improvements are required."
"We formerly used third-party products to analyze the log, give us information, and find bottlenecks. Systems Manager could provide more tools that conduct this analysis, so we don't have to do it ourselves."
"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."
AWS CloudFormation is ranked 8th in Configuration Management with 28 reviews while AWS Systems Manager is ranked 6th in Configuration Management with 7 reviews. AWS CloudFormation is rated 8.4, while AWS Systems Manager is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of AWS CloudFormation writes "Pretty easy setup with great automations for provisioning that save time and money". On the other hand, the top reviewer of AWS Systems Manager writes "Offers a variety of automation options; simplifies governance and administration ". AWS CloudFormation is most compared with Spring Cloud, Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Microsoft Configuration Manager and Chef, whereas AWS Systems Manager is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat Satellite, BigFix and Chef. See our AWS CloudFormation vs. AWS Systems Manager report.
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