Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS CloudFormation vs Chef comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Intune support receives mixed reviews; premium users report better experiences, while standard support often faces delays and inefficiency.
Sentiment score
7.3
AWS CloudFormation support is praised for speed and efficiency, but response times vary by subscription and environment type.
No sentiment score available
Customers commend Chef for its responsive support, active community, comprehensive documentation, and efficient issue resolution despite occasional delays.
In the last couple of years, support has not been very good, even with Premier and Premium support.
Microsoft's service and technical support for Intune have been good.
While this might be acceptable for some, it can be lengthy depending on the urgency of the issue.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
4.3
Microsoft Intune users seek better deployment, reporting, cross-platform support, and enhanced security, interface simplicity, and mobile device management.
Sentiment score
5.4
AWS CloudFormation faces usability challenges, needing cross-cloud support, better customization, performance, integration, and more intuitive documentation.
Sentiment score
5.6
Chef needs better support, pricing, role management, flexibility, documentation, integration, and improved automation to compete with Ansible.
You have to use something like Power BI and Graph to get better reporting.
If my organization has sensitive data we don't want to leak, deploying the policies can present technical challenges and potential loopholes.
It presents challenges for users unfamiliar with coding, posing as a barrier to fully utilizing CloudFormation.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Intune offers seamless scalability and integration, supporting businesses of all sizes with flexible management across global locations.
Sentiment score
7.6
AWS CloudFormation offers scalable, flexible infrastructure management, earning high ratings for its speed and adaptability across various user types.
Sentiment score
8.4
Chef is highly scalable, efficiently managing infrastructures of all sizes and accommodating numerous clients based on server capacity.
Adjusting capacity and functionality is a fundamental use.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Intune is cost-effective within Microsoft bundles, offering integration and flexible licensing, though some features may add costs.
Sentiment score
7.9
AWS CloudFormation is cost-effective, charging only for used resources, with affordable pricing compared to other cloud solutions.
No sentiment score available
Chef offers subscription plans with valuable automation features, but enterprise pricing is high and requires contacting sales for quotes.
I know what's included in 365 Premium offering, and it's a good deal.
The pricing is integrated with Entra, making it better than paying for a separate platform.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Intune is praised for its stability and reliability, despite occasional minor issues like sync delays.
Sentiment score
7.7
AWS CloudFormation is highly stable, reliable, and efficient with minor challenges, praised for visual verification and ease of use.
Sentiment score
8.5
Users rate Chef's stability 8-9/10, comparing it favorably to competitors like Ansible, and find it stable for various use cases.
If Intune is not available, the 365 environment might not be available, causing a major ordeal.
It has been reliable and efficient in all my deployments.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Intune integrates with Microsoft 365 and Azure, offering security, scalability, and efficient management for seamless user experiences.
Sentiment score
8.3
AWS CloudFormation simplifies deployment with templates, infrastructure as code, and integration, enhancing scalability and usability across regions.
Sentiment score
8.7
Chef offers compliance, easy configuration management, and automation for IT infrastructure, integrating with CI processes and supporting multiple clouds.
Intune has improved our asset management from a security standpoint and has consolidated vendors, enhancing our security posture.
The biggest asset is the range of device management options available with Intune, whether it is a Windows device, a Linux device, a Mac device, or mobile devices.
Autopilot allows bulk enrollment of devices, making it easy for end users, even those without technical expertise, to use their devices immediately.
I can see the entire infrastructure and its connections through code.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS CloudFormation
Ranking in Configuration Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (16th), Release Automation (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 11.8%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS CloudFormation is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.2%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Chandola - PeerSpot reviewer
We can manage all aspects of our devices from a single console, easy to scale, and quick to deploy
Intune has many benefits from the Microsoft perspective. This solution can manage Windows 10 devices, app management, and provide security solutions. We don't need to worry about our network connection, and we'll be more secure with regular security patches and compliance. Since everything will be deployed through the internet and users will log in using the internet only, the risks have been mitigated. Security updates, security patching, and the application will be targeted from Intune. The location tracker will be available to track where the device is and the user's location. The user will be restricted from accessing certain applications using compliance policies. Conditional access policies will be based on the reason why the user needs access to the application. Microsoft Intune is one of the best products in the industry for managing Windows devices. The solution has more feature restrictions. The conditional access policies also eliminate the dependency on the on-prem network for the devices. The solution also manages our security settings and a lot of other beneficial features such as Microsoft Purview which gives us the compliance portion. We can manage all aspects of our device from a single console, including M365 services. This allows us to configure data classification types, such as public, private, internal, confidential, and highly confidential.
Subash Banala - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation boosts efficiency with parameter management and a cost-effective pricing model
Our primary use case involves using numerous AWS services, including EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, and all databases. We are focused on migrating our Oracle on-premises systems to AWS cloud to optimize costs. A dditionally, we are leveraging automation infrastructure as code practices using AWS…
Arun S . - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for large infrastructure, reliable, but steep learning cureve
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. The solution is good to manage multiple large infrastructures. We can have 10 to 10,000 users using this solution and it manages them well.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Retailer
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What do you like most about AWS CloudFormation?
AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudFormation?
CloudFormation itself doesn't cost anything. It depends on what you are launching. For AWS as a whole, it depends on ...
What needs improvement with AWS CloudFormation?
Everything in AWS has room for improvement. I haven't come across any major issues to where I wasn't able to launch a...
What do you like most about Chef?
Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code.
What needs improvement with Chef?
Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
CloudFormation
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Nextdoor, Coinbase, Expedia
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudFormation vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.