We performed a comparison between AWS CloudFormation and vCenter 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."For our office workers who are not based in Norway, when we order the PC, we can do some of the settings for them. These are standardized settings. We can set them up exactly as they are in Norway so that they're the same."
"The solution is easy to use."
"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."
"It is helpful for managing devices anytime and any place without requiring dependency on the local networks."
"I like how Microsoft Intune lets me lock down the email profile and make it accessible only on certain devices."
"The Asset Management and Auto Pilot are valuable features."
"The tool's most valuable feature is Autopilot."
"Automations make it pretty easy to provision AWS, development, or deployment environments."
"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."
"The reusability of the solution is valuable."
"It allows defining the infrastructure as code using templates, which describe the desired state of the 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."
"CloudFormation gives us control of AWS and any Cloud infrastructure. It creates the whole stack for Cloud services technologies so it's easy to manage the whole system."
"It is easy to work from the console and deploy new database services."
"The integration of the solution is very good."
"The product's initial setup process is very simple."
"This is the best solution for management for the server administrator. VMware has been on the market for many years, so they have a lot of solutions. For on-premises, VMware is the best available solution."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the ability to manage all of our environments allowing us to have better functionality and high availability."
"The solution is stable and we haven't run into issues with bugs or glitches."
"My experience managing virtual environments using vCenter Configuration Manager has been quite smooth. Over time, I've observed that there's been a significant local competency built around the product, especially in India, where ESXi and VMware dominate the market. It's evident that vCenter Configuration Center is the preferred management tool in this context, and it's relatively easy to find expertise in the market."
"The most valuable features that VMware's vCenter Configuration Manager have, when compared with other solutions, are their disaster recovery and business connectivity capabilities."
"Reliable, stable and scalable."
"There are a lot of useful features, such as DRS, ease of use, and many configuration options."
"One big problem with Microsoft is that they're changing the names of the products quite often, or they're quite consistently doing so. Intune is now Endpoint administration. Constantly switching the user interface or the administrative interface makes it quite hard to keep pace. If you are on a two-week holiday and you come back and look at the same screen you have looked at for the last couple of months, it looks different, which is annoying. Changing things around all the time doesn't make it easy."
"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."
"Lacking ability to leverage more iOS device management internally."
"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."
"It would be beneficial to have a more straightforward understanding of Intune's capabilities, presented in a simplified manner."
"Lacking in features such as Wi-Fi and network security."
"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."
"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."
"Including certain examples of templates would be advantageous."
"The solution must enable more hands-on designing of the templates."
"Provisioning a large environment or a large number of services takes a bit more time than with Terraform."
"One area where AWS CloudFormation could improve is by offering more flexibility in creating custom templates."
"The speed of the replication process could improve. It can take some time to replicate that could use a speed increase."
"It would help all users if AWS improved the auto-generation of the CloudFormation file."
"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."
"For a beginner, it's kind of difficult to set up. So, the user does need some knowledge in order to do it."
"The technical support is not as responsive as it could be. They are slow to respond to our issues with a resolution. There should be online chat support added."
"The solution's pricing is very high and could be improved."
"Users need to pay a licensing fee for the solution, which could be cheaper."
"SAP CRM could improve by adding additional automation features."
"The product's high price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Many major industry players like VMware, Microsoft, and Oracle often fall short in software coding and the smooth release of new versions."
"It should be easier to use alternate storage."
"The licensing model has shifted from socket-based to core-based licensing, resulting in increased customer costs. Moreover, if a customer utilizes software like VMware, which integrates seamlessly with ESXi, it becomes even more challenging to consider replacing ESXi. Hence, many customers, particularly in India, are actively exploring alternatives."
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AWS CloudFormation is ranked 9th in Configuration Management with 26 reviews while vCenter Configuration Manager is ranked 10th in Configuration Management with 50 reviews. AWS CloudFormation is rated 8.2, while vCenter Configuration Manager is rated 8.6. 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 vCenter Configuration Manager writes "A solution with a range of functionalities and several pricing plans that suit your needs". AWS CloudFormation is most compared with AWS Systems Manager, Spring Cloud, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat Satellite and Chef, whereas vCenter Configuration Manager is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, Red Hat Satellite and BigFix. See our AWS CloudFormation vs. vCenter Configuration Manager report.
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