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."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 ability to wipe data from and reset devices is one of the most important and valuable features. If a device is reported stolen, we can freeze it or wipe the data from it, preventing data leakage."
"It is very easy to use. It has a very easy interface."
"It's easy to manage."
"The ability to manage devices with different sets of policies is most valuable."
"The standout features of Intune are its excellent mobile device management and highly effective application management capabilities."
"The policy and compliance monitoring of devices and the software deployment are most valuable."
"The Microsoft Windows Autopilot and Defender policies are the most valuable features of this solution."
"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."
"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."
"Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed."
"It has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves."
"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."
"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."
"We have had less production issues since using Chef to automate our provisioning."
"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."
"SaltStack has given us the ability to deal with systems at scale and rectify issues at scale."
"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."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to provide environmental security."
"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."
"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."
"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."
"The scalability could be improved, and like most other MDM products, Intune is good but not 100% there yet."
"Intune's third-party patch management could be better. It should be easier for the average system admin to keep non-Microsoft applications updated."
"They should improve its compatibility with other operating systems such as iOS and Linux. It supports Linux but they still need to work on the iOS part."
"The policies we had in SCCM and AD offered features that are missing from Microsoft Intune."
"Intune lags all of its competitors in terms of report generation."
"Data leak prevention can be integrated into it. Currently, it does not have data leak prevention."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"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."
"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."
"Its configuration process could be better."
"Web UI."
"It is difficult to set up."
"A hardened set of tests would be much appreciated."
"SaltStack's features are minimal."
"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."
"This solution could be integrated with more hardware for an improved offering."
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, Microsoft Configuration Manager and BigFix, whereas SaltStack is most compared with VMware Aria Automation, Microsoft Configuration Manager, HashiCorp Terraform, Red Hat Satellite and ServiceNow. See our Chef vs. SaltStack report.
See our list of best Configuration Management vendors.
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