We performed a comparison between Chef and SaltStack 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's normally able to meet 100% expectations of our customers."
"I like how Microsoft Intune lets me lock down the email profile and make it accessible only on certain devices."
"Configuration profiles, remediation, scripts, and auto-pilot features are very good."
"Stable solution at a good price."
"Great for software update needs, operating system version updates, and security policy enforcement."
"It's easy to manage."
"Stable product that's easy to set up compared to other MDM products."
"One of the standout features of Intune is its seamless accessibility to work data, eliminating the need to be tied to an office or a desktop."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"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."
"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."
"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."
"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."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice."
"The automation functionality has been most valuable. With a click of a button, we are able to automate provisioning, the build of new hardware and apply patches. These are all extremely important and differentiated tasks that can be automated in SaltStack."
"We monitor the configurations against CIS standards. We run CIS benchmarks and maintain configurations with higher CIS values for each server."
"The ability to programmatically describe the desired state of a single, or an entire fleet of servers, on-premises, and in a cloud environment."
"I want to build automation that is intelligent, part of the fabric of our environment, and is somewhat self-sustaining. I think SaltStack can help me do this."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to provide environmental security."
"SaltStack has given us the ability to deal with systems at scale and rectify issues at scale."
"The backend of Microsoft Intune needs to be improved. We have seen a little bit of delay as compared to other MDM solutions. That needs to be improved. A little bit more granularity should also be added"
"They should make it easier to order it, however, that's generally true for everything from Microsoft."
"The feature that allows us to import the business application from the configuration manager to Intune is not very good at this time."
"The most important thing is reporting. They should improve their reporting. They should give a free hand to users. In SCCM, I can create my own reports. For example, in SCCM, I can create an inventory report for my PC or for all PCs, but in Intune, we don't have an option to create any report. Microsoft claims that Intune is a successor of SCCM, but SCCM is more powerful than Intune. So, they should develop Intune more and make it equivalent to SCCM. Then, their product will be great in the market."
"Having a dedicated configuration server that assists in modifying the configuration service, and creating personalized structures, interfaces, and web services could enhance usability."
"Additional application deployment options e.g. MSI deployment with more complex parameters or additional side-by-side files, and non-MSI deployment options."
"There is still a gap between SCCM and Intune, especially in the reporting, inventory, and software deployment areas."
"We faced issues with macOS support. The product should have better inventory and asset management."
"There appears to be no effort to fix the command line utility functionality, which is definitely broken, provides a false positive for a result when you perform the operation, and doesn't work."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"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."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"Support and pricing for Chef could be improved."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"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 difficult to set up."
"SaltStack's features are minimal."
"A hardened set of tests would be much appreciated."
"Web UI."
"This solution could be integrated with more hardware for an improved offering."
"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."
"Its configuration process could be better."
Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews while SaltStack is ranked 14th in Configuration Management with 33 reviews. Chef is rated 8.0, while SaltStack 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 SaltStack writes "Orchestration tool that powers automation of processes with the click of a button". Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Microsoft Configuration Manager and BigFix, whereas SaltStack is most compared with VMware Aria Automation, Microsoft Configuration Manager, HashiCorp Terraform, Red Hat Satellite and ServiceNow. See our Chef vs. SaltStack report.
See our list of best Configuration Management vendors.
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