We performed a comparison between Chef and Microsoft Configuration 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."The most valuable feature for us is the security, including risk analysis and patch management."
"Fortunately, now everything is streamlined into a single, unified platform."
"The reporting and analytics features in Microsoft Intune have been a lifesaver."
"I like the tool's integration with Apple. Anyone who creates an ID in Intune will get an Apple ID."
"I like that we can implement conditional access."
"At the moment, Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"It has helped with compliance. It has helped to ensure that devices comply with the organization's policy. If they are not compliant and secure, they cannot access the resources."
"It's not working perfectly, but Microsoft's Autopilot offers great visibility into automated deployment solutions."
"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."
"It has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves."
"The product is useful for automating processes."
"This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time."
"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"I wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"Endpoint Manager is valuable to our organization because it allows us to connect to our enterprise from remote locations securely. The most useful feature is its robustness and scalability. It is highly scalable and flexible, allowing us to use it in various environments. Additionally, we can specialize the policies related to each device group. This ensures that each group has access to the applications they need for their work and non-work hours."
"It uses detailed descriptions of the workstations, and that is good for me."
"What's valuable is the basic management of the systems, being able to control who can access the systems."
"Patching is very effective and reporting is very good."
"The tool's most valuable features are easy patch management and software deployment."
"Microsoft Configuration Manager helps with patch management."
"Microsoft is being very competitive right now, and they are really investing in a lot of new features to be more competitive in the marketplace."
"One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined process has significantly improved our software distribution workflows."
"The reporting and cost have room for improvement."
"It needs incorporation of Knox, ZeroTouch, etc."
"Reporting and troubleshooting for the application deployment could be better. It's very difficult to understand."
"Intune has limited integration with non-Microsoft solutions."
"I have a lot of Apple products in my environment. It would be nice to have an improved integration of Apple products with Microsoft Intune without Jam."
"There could be more wizard-driven policy development or creation. Some of the policies can get quite complex. If they have a wizard that assists the administrators in creating the policy, that will be a great job."
"It should be simplified. I've worked with many different mobile device management solutions, and Intune is one of the more complex ones. It could be more simplified, and some of it is related to the wording that is being used, such as a configuration profile versus a policy. They really should have had different names to make it less confusing."
"Cost is the biggest factor for us right now. Microsoft Intune and AD P1 together in a bundle is a good thing to have, but it is very costly compared to other products in the market. Otherwise, Microsoft Intune is the best."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."
"The time that it takes in terms of integration. Cloud integration is comparatively easy, but when it comes to two-link based integrations - like trying to integrate it with any monitoring tools, or maybe some other ticketing tools - it takes longer. That is because most of the out-of-the-box integration of the APIs needs some revisiting."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."
"Could do with some cosmetic improvements on the user interface."
"The assets have reached their end-of-life, and patching them is a complex and laborious task. It would be highly advantageous if there were an integrated solution that provided distinct options for each end-of-life asset, streamlining the process and facilitating comprehension."
"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."
"On some hardware, we'd like an easier way to get peripherals attached."
"One area of improvement is regarding the patching of Office 365 products. We have some difficulties on this side, and it can be improved."
"I'm looking for a single solution for all discovery needs. It fulfills about 40% of the requirements, and I'd like to see the other 60% so that I don't have to keep doing this."
"Based on my experience with SCCM 2016, the main, big issue is not having a good user-friendly environment. It needs much better GUI."
More Microsoft Configuration Manager Pricing and Cost Advice →
Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews while Microsoft Configuration Manager is ranked 2nd in Configuration Management with 78 reviews. Chef is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Chef writes "Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Configuration Manager writes "Seamless system updates, useful integration, and reliable". Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, SaltStack and BigFix, whereas Microsoft Configuration Manager is most compared with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, ManageEngine Endpoint Central, BigFix, Tanium and AWS Systems Manager. See our Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager report.
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