We performed a comparison between AWS CloudFormation and AWS Config 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."By using Microsoft Intune we can control which websites the users can go to and it provides a secure environment for our employees using their laptops that are having access from home. We have installed Intune to control the user's environment minimizing the chances of any hacking."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"I can reach devices or computers over the internet. I don't need to worry about the network connectivity between the offices. I can manage any device. That is the most important part."
"The most valuable feature is the UEM capabilities."
"We have not experienced any bugs or glitches with this solution."
"Stable product that's easy to set up compared to other MDM products."
"The most valuable features are the ones that make sure that the deployment is of a standard operating system and the Zero Touch deployment, which is very useful. This allows users to have an out of box experience."
"It's not working perfectly, but Microsoft's Autopilot offers great visibility into automated deployment solutions."
"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."
"The reusability of the solution is valuable."
"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation are all the resources documentation is located in one location, simple resource reverting, and ease of use of the full package for new users."
"The most valuable feature of AWS CloudFormation is the simple tracking of infrastructure."
"The nested stacks would be one of the more valuable features."
"Since AWS CloudFormation integrates well with the AWS platform, it facilitates faster deployment. Building templates for AWS services within the solution is also straightforward, making the process easier."
"It allows defining the infrastructure as code using templates, which describe the desired state of the infrastructure."
"Automations make it pretty easy to provision AWS, development, or deployment environments."
"The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment."
"The solution is scalable and provides over 100 rules."
"Installing the instances and performing upgrades is smooth and clean."
"In the past, I raised some tickets for the enhancement feature, which was missing in Intune."
"It would be nice to have a location tracker for the mobile device management tool. I'm not sure if it exists but hasn't been configured or if it's missing, but we've been unable to utilize the location features."
"Reporting and troubleshooting for the application deployment could be better. It's very difficult to understand."
"They need to add more group policies. Intune currently does not have many group policies that you can deploy. Its reporting, which is very limited at the moment, also needs improvement. It will be great if they can add report customization. Its stability needs to be improved. Sometimes, when you register a device in Intune, it doesn't show up instantly on the engine portal on the admin side. They need to provide better support for complicated issues. They also have a long turnaround time."
"We faced issues with macOS support. The product should have better inventory and asset management."
"It would be better if they can reduce the cost of the license."
"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 solution could be improved by the opportunity to connect third-party application databases, such as Chocolatey or another setup store, to Intune."
"The code we write in AWS CloudFormation is pretty big compared to Terraform. We need to have more modules in the solution. A library should also be there where we can save code lines. A dashboard feature would be good for designers."
"For improvement, it's crucial that AWS provides options in terms of computing services, DB related services, and machine learning solutions. If I'm not hands-on with a particular service, like machine learning applications, I struggle to write the CloudFormation code."
"Provisioning a large environment or a large number of services takes a bit more time than with Terraform."
"There could be better error handling. It would be a good way to improve the solution."
"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."
"CloudFormation is not particularly good at handling cross-account dynamic references. If you try to refer to an object that CloudFormation has created in a separate AWS account, it tends to fall apart. That's because it is a byproduct of the multi-tenant configuration. This is the most glaring shortcoming in my perspective because you can't dynamically reference objects in other accounts that CloudFormation has created, but it is not a shortcoming that you can't overcome. This is the only pain point that I've come across that didn't have a workaround natively. Sometimes the confirmation is slow, and it could be faster. The downside to CloudFormation when you're fully embracing it is that the AWS services do not get released immediately fully CloudFormation enabled. If you need to use the latest AWS service that just got announced or reinvented, you're not going to be able to continue with CloudFormation for the first X number of months. This is because they develop the products separately, and then they hand it to the CloudFormation team, which later on develops a CloudFormation integration. So, if you need to be on the newest thing AWS has, CloudFormation is often going to be a constraint that prevents you from doing that."
"There is room for improvement in built-in tools, they are not up to the mark."
"The reboot process for AWS instances could be improved. Microsoft Azure does not have this problem, so AWS could consider making their instances more robust. You would not need to reboot your instances frequently to replace the hardware and stuff. They can look for a better approach or mechanism to improve in the future. The concern is that you need to plan for the outage when you reboot an instance. You need to have a maintenance window where you can properly reboot the instance without affecting your application. When Amazon announces that you need to reboot an instance and are not ready, this becomes a problem."
"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."
AWS CloudFormation is ranked 9th in Configuration Management with 26 reviews while AWS Config is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 3 reviews. AWS CloudFormation is rated 8.2, while AWS Config is rated 9.0. 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 Config writes "A cloud solution to host application with smooth instance installation and performance upgrade". AWS CloudFormation is most compared with AWS Systems Manager, Spring Cloud, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat Satellite and Chef, whereas AWS Config is most compared with AWS Systems Manager. See our AWS CloudFormation vs. AWS Config 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.
