We performed a comparison between Chef 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."Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"One of the biggest advantages of Microsoft Intune is that it brings the management of Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even Linux under a single pane of glass."
"Based on my experience, I find Intune very flexible for managing Windows devices. We can use scripting, and we can make use of the self-service portal or the company portal to publish some of the applications for Windows."
"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."
"It has a useful device management feature."
"The initial setup is not overly complex or difficult."
"Remote Wipe and Autopilot is one of the best features."
"This product works very well for companies already using the full Microsoft suite."
"We have had less production issues since using Chef to automate our provisioning."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice."
"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."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
"If you're handy enough with DSL and you can present your own front-facing interface to your developers, then you can actually have a lot more granular control with Chef in operations over what developers can perform and what they can't."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"The most valuable feature is the graphical-based reports of software updates that have been successful, the ones that have failed, and a summary of where the failures are what security breaches may occur."
"We're a Microsoft-centric organization, so we are happy with the integration between products."
"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."
"It is a very well-rounded product. It is a complete package with all the features using which we are able to manage our PCs very efficiently."
"With the SCCM inventory, we found a lot of rogue applications. We were able to identify them, find out who was running them, and either put them on our application list or remove them."
"The scalability to deploy the package."
"The solution effectively handles inventory management, deployment, and reporting."
"What's valuable is the basic management of the systems, being able to control who can access the systems."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in terms of compatibility, extending beyond the well-known major brands."
"The current Intune reporting functionality could benefit from some improvements."
"In future releases, I would like to see better integration with Apple products."
"There are some issues using the solution with macOS and iOS, and it offers limited granular control with them. Intune works better on Windows and Android."
"In the past, I raised some tickets for the enhancement feature, which was missing in Intune."
"One area for improvement is app deployment. Another is the Windows update rollout. If you're rolling out an object to a device that's offline, Intune stops trying to reach this device after it sits idle for a bit. We are forced to find a workaround that could help manage that."
"The difficulty of the the roll out is surprisingly difficult considering this product is supposed to be an integrated part of the 365 suite."
"I'd suggest adding more features for macOS in Intune. There should be more functionality for managing macOS. There should be a better capability for pushing things down on macOS. Currently, Intune is not capable of managing macOS at the same level as Windows."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"There appears to be no effort to fix the command line utility functionality, which is definitely broken, provides a false positive for a result when you perform the operation, and doesn't work."
"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."
"The time that it takes in terms of integration. Cloud integration is comparatively easy, but when it comes to two-link based integrations - like trying to integrate it with any monitoring tools, or maybe some other ticketing tools - it takes longer. That is because most of the out-of-the-box integration of the APIs needs some revisiting."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"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."
"There is no asset management package included."
"The tool's deployment can be cumbersome."
"The main thing is that SCCM has to become an appliance instead of a server. When I say appliance, it has to come preconfigured so that it is drop-shipped into the enterprise and then you activate the feature sets that you want. It should pull down all the latest binaries. Once that is all there, it should have a discovery tool which goes out and discovers the assets within an enterprise. If the server, workstation, and applications are all coming from the same vendor, why not have the vendor do this work for us and automate it as much as it possibly can?"
"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could improve the integration."
"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."
"On some hardware, we'd like an easier way to get peripherals attached."
"The solution does not support remote devices so the CMG is still required."
"It would be better if automation options were available. For example, in Nexthink or SysTrack, there is an analytical tool. Creating dashboards would be very easy if you implement the same thing in Microsoft. That report will be a daily cost to the customers and good revenue for our organization. The price also could be better. In the next release, we need to include some features like tables, dashboards, surveys, services, and metrics in the dashboard. Whatever we are implementing will be downloaded by a report. Apart from the report, we will telecast from the dashboard. It's very easy to compare, and it will be easy to telecast to the end-users."
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Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews while Microsoft Configuration Manager is ranked 2nd in Configuration Management with 78 reviews. Chef is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Chef writes "Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Configuration Manager writes "Affordable, easy to use, and easy to understand". Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, BigFix and CFEngine Enterprise, whereas Microsoft Configuration Manager is most compared with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, ManageEngine Endpoint Central, BigFix, Tanium and AWS Systems Manager. See our Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager report.
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