We performed a comparison between Chef and SaltStack 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.
"Microsoft Endpoint Manager is not expensive overall, especially for small environments."
"If the product works, remote access will be a benefit. To this point we have not had reason to have confidence in achieving that access."
"I believe that the solution is actually in Gartner's top quadrant at the moment for mobile device management."
"It's easy to manage and easy to configure."
"Its direct integration with all the other products that we have from Microsoft is valuable. We're using the E5 license, and we have a whole wealth of different products available. It just makes it easier to have everything from one provider."
"The solution is easy to use and it has good performance."
"As the solution is a software as a service, the scalability is unlimited."
"We have not experienced any bugs or glitches with this solution."
"One thing that we've been able to do is a tiered permission model, allowing developers and their managers to perform their own operations in lower environments. This means a manager can go in and make changes to a whole environment, whereas a developer with less access may only be able to change individual components or be able to upgrade the version for software that they have control over."
"The product is useful for automating processes."
"Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them."
"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."
"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."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"The automation functionality has been most valuable. With a click of a button, we are able to automate provisioning, the build of new hardware and apply patches. These are all extremely important and differentiated tasks that can be automated in SaltStack."
"The ability to programmatically describe the desired state of a single, or an entire fleet of servers, on-premises, and in a cloud environment."
"We monitor the configurations against CIS standards. We run CIS benchmarks and maintain configurations with higher CIS values for each server."
"I want to build automation that is intelligent, part of the fabric of our environment, and is somewhat self-sustaining. I think SaltStack can help me do this."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to provide environmental security."
"SaltStack has given us the ability to deal with systems at scale and rectify issues at scale."
"There's quite a lot of development that they can do within their Intune dashboard. I think there are too many lines hyperlinked to move you around. Others, in contrast, give you a simple dashboard and an intuitive administrative walkthrough."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with Apple."
"Microsoft Intune could enhance its patch management for various devices, ensuring regular updates and tracking of device privileges."
"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."
"Integration with Mac devices requires some improvement."
"The main disadvantage seen today is regarding Linux clients. We have a lot of development resources that have Linux on their clients, and we can't manage them on the same platform, as we do with other clients such as macOS and Windows. So, it should have support for Linux clients. It should also have better support for macOS."
"There are a couple of issues with stability."
"There needs to be more support for Mac operating systems."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"It is an old technology."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"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."
"Support and pricing for Chef could be improved."
"Its configuration process could be better."
"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."
"Web UI."
"A hardened set of tests would be much appreciated."
"This solution could be integrated with more hardware for an improved offering."
"SaltStack's features are minimal."
"It is difficult to set up."
Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews while SaltStack is ranked 14th in Configuration Management with 33 reviews. Chef is rated 8.0, while SaltStack 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 SaltStack writes "Orchestration tool that powers automation of processes with the click of a button". Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, BigFix and Microsoft Configuration Manager, whereas SaltStack is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, VMware Aria Automation, HashiCorp Terraform, Red Hat Satellite and ServiceNow. See our Chef vs. SaltStack 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.
