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."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."
"It's not working perfectly, but Microsoft's Autopilot offers great visibility into automated deployment solutions."
"It is a very helpful solution."
"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 ability to switch between Affinity and non-Affinity enrollment is great."
"The Microsoft Windows Autopilot and Defender policies are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The most important thing for me is the autopilot feature."
"It allows our clients to have the confidence to centrally manage policies for security. It helps them in securing the organization from a technology aspect."
"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 is easy to work from the console and deploy new database services."
"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."
"The most beneficial aspect lies in its capability to handle input acquisition and assessment."
"Versioning makes our work easy."
"CloudFormation itself is free to use. You will be charged for the resources you deploy using CloudFormation."
"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."
"With CloudFormation, there is no need to use complicated coding."
"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."
"The scalability is a ten out of ten."
"Due to the abundance of features, there's a lot to organize, which makes managing and setting up the solution challenging. The setup is immense, and it would be good to see improvement in this area."
"It just doesn't handle software updates well at all by itself. You need to be a scripting wizard to make those happen properly, or you use third-party tools. The Windows feature updates are very difficult to implement. I would like to see a proprietary built-in remote control tool. I know that they have Team Viewer integrated, but it is not seamless. It would be nice if they had a seamless remote desktop capability directly from the Intune console."
"It would be good if, in addition to the minimal patching and compliance, we could also use Intune for application deployment. For instance, if a device is not patched, Intune should have the ability to push not only a Microsoft patch but also other patches, such as a browser patch."
"It would be beneficial to have a more straightforward understanding of Intune's capabilities, presented in a simplified manner."
"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."
"We would like to see support for Chrome and/or devices for Chromebooks."
"In the past, I raised some tickets for the enhancement feature, which was missing in Intune."
"Additional application deployment options e.g. MSI deployment with more complex parameters or additional side-by-side files, and non-MSI deployment options."
"The solution needs to offer better support to other cloud vendors."
"What could be improved in AWS CloudFormation is its user interface, in terms of graphical design, I prefer WYSIWYG."
"This tool is not intuitive and there are others that are easier to understand."
"If Amazon could extend CloudFormation to other cloud platforms, that would be good. Currently, it is only limited to AWS."
"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."
"Error-handling features can be improved."
"The solution must enable more hands-on designing of the templates."
"One area where AWS CloudFormation could improve is by offering more flexibility in creating custom templates."
"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."
"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."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
AWS CloudFormation is ranked 8th in Configuration Management with 28 reviews while AWS Config is ranked 15th in Configuration Management with 4 reviews. AWS CloudFormation is rated 8.4, 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 Satellite, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Microsoft Configuration Manager, 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.
