We performed a comparison between AWS Systems Manager and Chef 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."We use a local Active Directory, but we weren't able to manage all our on-site systems without a solution like Intune, and we needed to deploy software like VPNs and other things. It's seamless now to to this through Intune."
"It has improve our organization through the remote management of non-domain joined devices."
"The policy and compliance monitoring of devices and the software deployment are most valuable."
"Its protection policies are most valuable. It protects mobile devices as well as individual apps. It is pretty scalable, and its documentation is also pretty good. It is also pretty straightforward to deploy."
"The best feature is that we don't need to worry about downtime. We don't need to worry about the network connections of our office or the virtual private network. Everything is being done through the internet. Using Intune Autopilot, we can configure and deploy everything to the devices."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"Intune is effective because of the configuration management and endpoint security it provides. The graphical interface makes it easier to configure and deploy devices."
"Intune's feature that I have found most valuable is its auto-pilot feature."
"The solution's ability to scale is good."
"With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems manually."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is user-friendly"
"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 the language that it uses: Ruby."
"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 its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
"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."
"Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"I think that there is room for improvement with the reporting. If this is done, it will be a better product."
"Intune's third-party patch management could be better. It should be easier for the average system admin to keep non-Microsoft applications updated."
"It needs certificate provisioning for S/MIME purposes."
"It doesn't economize when you scale up. We have over 14,000 employees, and we have between 7,500 and 8,000 city-owned or personal devices being used to conduct city business. Its price can be improved. It is not a cheap solution."
"It would be great if Intune offered better data protection controls for BYOD Windows PCs."
"When somebody has a customized application or their own company's application, we cannot deploy that application."
"The installation is very easy. However, to be able to configure it you will need special knowledge, such as training or self-studies to have a proper level of security. There are many settings one has to understand before being able to implement Microsoft Intune."
"Areas for improvement in Intune include expanding support beyond Samsung devices to accommodate other Android manufacturers like Redmi and Motorola."
"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."
"The fact that AWS Systems Manager takes time to complete the patching process, makes it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"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."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"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."
AWS Systems Manager is ranked 6th in Configuration Management with 6 reviews while Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews. AWS Systems Manager is rated 8.2, while Chef is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of AWS Systems Manager writes "Offers a variety of automation options; simplifies governance and administration ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Chef writes "Useful for large infrastructure, reliable, but steep learning cureve". AWS Systems Manager is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat Satellite, AWS CloudFormation and SaltStack, whereas Chef is most compared with Jenkins, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Microsoft Configuration Manager, SaltStack and CFEngine Enterprise. See our AWS Systems Manager vs. Chef report.
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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.
