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."The solution is easy to use and it has good performance."
"I like the fact that it's integrated with the rest of the Microsoft products, so customers can manage it from their Office 365 portal or Azure portal."
"The biggest thing for us is enforcing logins only from devices that are managed by Intune."
"Configuration profiles, remediation, scripts, and auto-pilot features are very good."
"The stability of Microsoft Intune is good."
"The one feature we find most useful is the Mobile Application Manager. There are two types, we have the complete MDM and the Mobile Application Manager(MAM). We don't give our users phones, it is their own personal phone, and we need to allow them to have access to the company detail on their phone. We need to create a balance between their own personal data and the company data. We deploy the Mobile Application Manager for them so that we won't be able to interfere with their own personal data."
"It is user-friendly, and the performance is also good. It is a convenient product"
"I like that it's very good and very simple. I found that we just needed to have a proper subscription for an Intune tenant, and from the subscription, if we have the right role assigned, like the global admin role or the owner role, we can use Microsoft cloud resources. With the help of that, we can do many things like setting up Microsoft Intune in the cloud to create our virtual machines. All these can be done, and the steps are very simple. I really liked it. I like features like Windows Auto-Enrollment. I like it very much because whenever you supply it to the end-user, it will be ready to use immediately. The end-user only needs to provide the user credentials, and then they are good to go. I also really like Cloud PC, which was recently launched on Azure."
"It allows defining the infrastructure as code using templates, which describe the desired state of the infrastructure."
"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."
"I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. We use it every day."
"The CloudFormation template can be reused to create multiple stacks, reducing duplications and improving our infrastructure."
"I appreciate the flexibility of infrastructure as code. With CloudFormation, we can define ground rules, control usage limits, and scale our infrastructure up or down programmatically. Having this level of control through code on infra is a major benefit. That's the beauty of CloudFormation."
"AWS CloudFormation has automated the resource-building process, thereby removing the scope of human errors. We can tag the resources which help the billing process."
"Scripting does what we need to reinstall something from scratch."
"CloudFormation itself is free to use. You will be charged for the resources you deploy using CloudFormation."
"The solution is user-friendly"
"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."
"The solution's ability to scale is good."
"Has a variety of automation options."
"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."
"With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems manually."
"We only have major classifications for iOS and Android, but there are different brands that have different cycles of updates. If they can fine-tune it to make it more brand-specific, that would be even better."
"The policies we had in SCCM and AD offered features that are missing from Microsoft Intune."
"The installation could be improved to be simplified."
"Enhancements for managing MacOS more comprehensively would be beneficial."
"The reporting could be improved, as it's pretty poor compared to other products of this type."
"Technical support is not that great."
"Microsoft needs to enhance device-level security, as sometimes when using Microsoft Intune, the device's operating system becomes stuck and requires a full uninstall to remove the Intune bug."
"Microsoft Intune fails a lot when it comes to device compliance."
"If Amazon could extend CloudFormation to other cloud platforms, that would be good. Currently, it is only limited to AWS."
"One area where AWS CloudFormation could improve is by offering more flexibility in creating custom templates."
"This tool is not intuitive and there are others that are easier to understand."
"GUI could be improved by adding graphical components."
"What could be improved in AWS CloudFormation is its user interface, in terms of graphical design, I prefer WYSIWYG."
"As soon as they manage to parametrize the whole thing and to implement parameters at all levels, it will become automatically a lot more flexible."
"There is less support for on-premise environments."
"They could improve the product's capability to handle circular dependencies more effectively."
"The fact that AWS Systems Manager takes time to complete the patching process, makes it an area where improvements are required."
"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."
"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."
"Lacks sufficient integrations."
"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."
"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."
AWS CloudFormation is ranked 8th in Configuration Management with 27 reviews while AWS Systems Manager is ranked 6th in Configuration Management with 6 reviews. AWS CloudFormation is rated 8.2, while AWS Systems Manager is rated 8.2. 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.
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.
