We performed a comparison between BMC TrueSight Server Automation 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."This product works very well for companies already using the full Microsoft suite."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"It helps implement conditional access policies to restrict mobile users from accessing potentially dangerous emails."
"I like that it's very good and very simple. I found that we just needed to have a proper subscription for an Intune tenant, and from the subscription, if we have the right role assigned, like the global admin role or the owner role, we can use Microsoft cloud resources. With the help of that, we can do many things like setting up Microsoft Intune in the cloud to create our virtual machines. All these can be done, and the steps are very simple. I really liked it. I like features like Windows Auto-Enrollment. I like it very much because whenever you supply it to the end-user, it will be ready to use immediately. The end-user only needs to provide the user credentials, and then they are good to go. I also really like Cloud PC, which was recently launched on Azure."
"It's normally able to meet 100% expectations of our customers."
"The ability to (somewhat) manage full Windows 10 computers including EXE-based or MSI-based application deployments using Azure Active Directory as Identity."
"It is a comprehensive security solution that not only controls access to enterprise resources but also tracks and prevents unauthorized access, ensuring the protection of sensitive data and preventing potential data loss scenarios."
"The solution is easy to use, simple to understand for those new to using it, and combined with the other Microsoft products it makes for an overall good package."
"As this solution provides strong support and has multiple use cases, it is worth the cost."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to remediate quickly and efficiently across a number of IT assets at the same time. It takes away manual efforts from the team to go out and fix those vulnerabilities through patching, conflict updates, etc."
"It gives us more speed to deliver services and applications, and we rely on security."
"Server Automation's best feature is automated patching. It also helps us automate compliance and report generation. We can even integrate TrueSight Server Automation with a vulnerability management solution to remedy vulnerabilities by applying patches, deploying scripts, or changing registry entries."
"The ability to script and create BL packages to perform various functions. This makes automating our environment relatively easy to do."
"Can standardize patching and deployments across affiliates."
"Technical support is good."
"Among the most valuable features is its flexibility and ability to work across multiple operating systems. Being able to execute some form of data collection and not have to worry about whether I'm working on a Linux box, or a Windows box, or the underlying OS, I can do these collections, get these results, and put them together in a uniform format which makes it easier to present back to management."
"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 scalability of the product is quite nice."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."
"The most valuable feature is automation."
"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."
"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."
"There is room for improvement in integration and security as well."
"Intune doesn't provide much control over Windows servers. It's something we struggle with."
"More integration with monitoring tools is needed."
"It needs certificate provisioning for S/MIME purposes."
"The scalability could be improved, and like most other MDM products, Intune is good but not 100% there yet."
"I would like to see micro VPN. I like the way that some of the other providers have done something similar where, as you open that app on an end-point device, it creates a micro VPN straight into your device, which is quite a nice little feature. Also, Microsoft Intune relies heavily on its fellow products in the suite. It would be nice if Microsoft Intune could stand on its own two feet."
"Reporting needs improvement."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with Apple."
"We would like to see this solution handle more multitasking."
"We've had to increase RAM and CPU processing in order to alleviate some of the sluggishness during patching."
"There is no other functionality available to patch the containers that we need to include."
"The setup of this suite is very complicated. It needs to be simplified."
"Provisioning needs to be more user-friendly. We were using BladeLogic for provisioning, but due to a lot of issues and complications, we had to stop using provisioning with this tool."
"I would like to see a better methodology for handling REST calls and integration into the APIs. They add new APIs as they add functions, but they've missed some from older components which they still haven't added in. Some of the APIs are there but the CLI calls are not there."
"Needs more use cases into compliance management and the remediation process."
"Another area for improvement is group scheduling if I'm trying to do all the servers. For example, if I want to do all the 2012 Servers - since the patches are the same for all of them - I can't do so."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"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."
"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."
"I would like them to add database specific items, configuration items, and migration tools. Not necessarily on the builder side or the actual setup of the system, but more of a migration package for your different database sets, such as MongoDB, your extenders, etc. I want to see how that would function with a transition out to AWS for Aurora services and any of the RDBMS packages."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
More BMC TrueSight Server Automation Pricing and Cost Advice →
BMC TrueSight Server Automation is ranked 12th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews while Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews. BMC TrueSight Server Automation is rated 8.2, while Chef is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of BMC TrueSight Server Automation writes "Helps to automate and configure the endpoints of servers ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Chef writes "Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation". BMC TrueSight Server Automation is most compared with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, BigFix, Red Hat Satellite, Microsoft Configuration Manager and HashiCorp Terraform, whereas Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Microsoft Configuration Manager and SaltStack. See our BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs. Chef 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.
