We performed a comparison between AWS CloudFormation 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."Conditional access helps me control uncontrolled access."
"The most valuable feature for us is the security, including risk analysis and patch management."
"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."
"The security-related tools are excellent; these features allow us to secure devices, lock them down, and ensure compliance."
"It's easy to deploy a configuration or policy to a system, especially when you don't have Azure AD. Now we are talking to all these small and medium-sized customers who don't necessarily have an on-premise Windows Active Directory. If they have invested in Office 365 Premium, this functionality becomes available to them."
"Intune's most valuable features are the device, compliance, and configuration policies."
"We have found the solution is capable of scaling."
"In terms of technical support, you will get an immediate response."
"CloudFormation itself is free to use. You will be charged for the resources you deploy using CloudFormation."
"The integration of the solution is very good."
"Versioning makes our work easy."
"The most valuable feature of AWS CloudFormation is the simple tracking of infrastructure."
"It is easy to work from the console and deploy new database services."
"The solution has helped with automation. I don't have to worry about provisioning machines and ensuring everything is set up. AWS CloudFormation takes care of the entire infrastructure for me."
"Scripting does what we need to reinstall something from scratch."
"The CloudFormation template can be reused to create multiple stacks, reducing duplications and improving our infrastructure."
"This solution captures all the devices in our infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature of SCCM is the application distribution."
"I manage software updates and operating systems for devices, and within seconds, we can remotely deploy a system for, say, 2,000 devices. Not only that, but we can also deploy scripts and create comprehensive compliance rules."
"The product is useful for patch management."
"Provides great insight into the functionalities of the data scope."
"You can remote control or RDP. That has been the most valuable because we can go into one console and can get to anything we want. Instead of going to all these different consoles, we centralized everything."
"Technical support was helpful and responsive."
"The ease of usability is the most valuable feature. It's user-friendly."
"Microsoft Intune has a latency response time issue. The latency has room for improvement."
"Lacks the ability to deploy more ways of management, managing devices and processing the policies."
"They should improve its compatibility with other operating systems such as iOS and Linux. It supports Linux but they still need to work on the iOS part."
"Intune does not provide real-time visibility."
"We haven't really gone through all the features of Intune. We are just discovering them. Every day, we see a new feature that we want to apply, but what will be great for Intune is to be able to deploy apps in a simple fashion. We should be able to easily install various apps on the Windows platform, iOS, and Android. Currently, we have to write some scripts. It's not as straightforward as we would like it to be. It should be simplified so that we can do it just with three clicks—next, next, finish—without needing to write a script."
"I'm still playing around with it and haven't had any issues with the product yet, but support can definitely be improved."
"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."
"The mobile and tablet-based versions need improvement because they are not completely user-friendly, compared to the web version. Also, data synchronization with our existing asset manager, the synchronization between multiple assets and multiple devices, takes a lot of time due to the security scanning. It should be reduced."
"What could be improved in AWS CloudFormation is its user interface, in terms of graphical design, I prefer WYSIWYG."
"Error-handling features can be improved."
"This tool is not intuitive and there are others that are easier to understand."
"One area where AWS CloudFormation could improve is by offering more flexibility in creating custom templates."
"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."
"The solution must enable more hands-on designing of the templates."
"They could improve the product's capability to handle circular dependencies more effectively."
"If you are a developer or a more technical person, it's very difficult to learn the complete syntax or because CloudFormation includes a new way to write infrastructure code."
"Not everything is readily available, and there are a lot of commands that are only executable via PowerShell."
"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."
"Our company would prefer not rebooting computers while people are using them. There seems to be no strategy behind it."
"It is a bit of an old and outdated product."
"The solution is on-premises. The cloud version of the product, if a person needs to be on the cloud, would be InTune, which already exists as an option. SCCM doesn't need to offer cloud features for this reason."
"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."
"Management of Linux devices could be improved."
"Regarding this, I'd like to mention the agent situation. When the agent on an end-user device is not functioning correctly, it can be quite problematic. It would be highly beneficial if there were a self-healing mechanism in place. Essentially, if the agent becomes corrupted or encounters issues, it should be able to rectify itself autonomously. This is particularly critical because, in order to utilize a tool like MECM (assuming you're referring to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager), we need to deploy agents, known as AsMs, on all the devices we use, such as Windows 10 or Windows Server. Sometimes, when we deploy configurations or updates, they don't apply properly due to agent issues. This issue has been present since we began using MECM around 23 years ago. Unfortunately, there is currently no built-in mechanism for the agent to detect its own problems and initiate self-repair. Microsoft doesn’t have any feature to scan vulnerabilities and hence, they could include those."
More Microsoft Configuration Manager Pricing and Cost Advice →
AWS CloudFormation is ranked 8th in Configuration Management with 28 reviews while Microsoft Configuration Manager is ranked 2nd in Configuration Management with 78 reviews. AWS CloudFormation is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Configuration 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 Microsoft Configuration Manager writes "Affordable, easy to use, and easy to understand". AWS CloudFormation is most compared with AWS Systems Manager, Spring Cloud, Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, whereas Microsoft Configuration Manager is most compared with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, ManageEngine Endpoint Central, BigFix, Tanium and AWS Systems Manager. See our AWS CloudFormation 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.
