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."Agile and easy to deploy MDM solution that covers the maximum number of policies. Stable, scalable, and with knowledgeable technical support."
"I believe that the solution is actually in Gartner's top quadrant at the moment for mobile device management."
"I like the tool's integration with Apple. Anyone who creates an ID in Intune will get an Apple ID."
"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."
"I like that we can implement conditional access."
"Intune enables us to manage our devices from anywhere."
"The central administration con dashboard is very easy to use and provides very good oversight on all that needs to be monitored."
"One of the most valuable aspects of Microsoft Intune is its seamless integration with Azure Active Directory, offering capabilities akin to Group Policy Objects."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"If you're handy enough with DSL and you can present your own front-facing interface to your developers, then you can actually have a lot more granular control with Chef in operations over what developers can perform and what they can't."
"We have had less production issues since using Chef to automate our provisioning."
"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."
"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast. Chef-docker enabled us to have fewer sets of source code for different purposes. Configuration management was a breeze and all the servers were as good as immutable servers."
"Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them."
"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"The product is useful for automating processes."
"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."
"We are happy with the collaboration of SCCM with Patch My PC, which allows us to do patch work."
"Patching is the main feature because SCCM is made to control the entire environment without manually interpreting. So it is good to use for patching."
"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is valuable in keeping our systems updated. We are able to send updates to all the systems. Additionally, the Intune integration is helpful."
"The tool's most valuable features are easy patch management and software deployment."
"The most valuable features are Remote Connect, SUP, Cloud functionality, Report, Query, and third-party patching."
"It is easy to install, and quick to deploy."
"The technical support is good."
"The security features should be improved."
"I'd suggest adding more features for macOS in Intune. There should be more functionality for managing macOS. There should be a better capability for pushing things down on macOS. Currently, Intune is not capable of managing macOS at the same level as Windows."
"I would like to see micro VPN. I like the way that some of the other providers have done something similar where, as you open that app on an end-point device, it creates a micro VPN straight into your device, which is quite a nice little feature. Also, Microsoft Intune relies heavily on its fellow products in the suite. It would be nice if Microsoft Intune could stand on its own two feet."
"Sometimes, updating a client policy is very difficult. This needs to be improved."
"I would like to see the ability to deploy custom packages as a Windows 64-bit package, as opposed to the Windows 32-bit, which is the only one available now."
"Due to the abundance of features, there's a lot to organize, which makes managing and setting up the solution challenging. The setup is immense, and it would be good to see improvement in this area."
"There are a few security features that are not available in Microsoft Intune, when compared to other products."
"The initial setup is a little bit complex."
"I would also like to see more analytics and reporting features. Currently, the analytics and reporting features are limited. I'll have to start building my own custom solution with Power BI or Tableau or something like that. If it came with built-in analytics and reporting features that would be great."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"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."
"It is an old technology."
"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."
"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."
"It should provide the ability to remotely connect to mobile devices. There are some solutions that are doing that, but with Microsoft Intune, the only way to remotely connect to devices outside the organization and mobile devices is by using TeamViewer. It is pretty strange for a big company like Microsoft to not have something for that."
"The solution could improve the functionality for automating, license management. Additionally, more and better-looking reports are needed."
"It would be nice to have everything in one place. Now they have Intune for the desktops and SCCM to handle their servers."
"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."
"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."
"The cost of the product can be improved."
"The main thing is that SCCM has to become an appliance instead of a server. When I say appliance, it has to come preconfigured so that it is drop-shipped into the enterprise and then you activate the feature sets that you want. It should pull down all the latest binaries. Once that is all there, it should have a discovery tool which goes out and discovers the assets within an enterprise. If the server, workstation, and applications are all coming from the same vendor, why not have the vendor do this work for us and automate it as much as it possibly can?"
"This solution needs to be supported on all Operating systems."
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 "Affordable, easy to use, and easy to understand". Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, BigFix and CFEngine Enterprise, 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.
See our list of best Configuration Management vendors.
We monitor all Configuration Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
