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AWS CloudFormation vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
250
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
7.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Configuration Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (6th), Patch Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS CloudFormation is 1.1%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 12.8%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
Mbula Mboma - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates efficient infrastructure deployment with visibility into resource connections
I primarily use AWS CloudFormation for deploying infrastructure efficiently. For instance, if I want to create load balancers with target groups and EC2 instances, I find CloudFormation simplifies the process of deployment and configuration, reducing the possibility of errors AWS CloudFormation…
MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements
While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Intune has helped us by improving our security posture, leading to fewer security problems, and helping us understand where we have issues."
"Microsoft Intune is very stable due to its cloud-based infrastructure and its reliability in performance."
"If I assess Intune's user experience, I would say it is perfect and simple."
"I am easily able to manage devices and assets, especially laptops and desktops."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"The most important thing for me is the autopilot feature."
"We can securely manage both company-owned devices and personal devices enrolled in our BYOD program."
"There are no complaints about the stability. It works one hundred percent of the time."
"It allows defining the infrastructure as code using templates, which describe the desired state of the infrastructure."
"I love CloudFormation as it's a great tool for infrastructure as code. This makes my job very easy."
"The CloudFormation template can be reused to create multiple stacks, reducing duplications and improving our infrastructure."
"Automations make it pretty easy to provision AWS, development, or deployment environments."
"It is easy to work from the console and deploy new database services."
"The integration of the solution is very good."
"CloudFormation has helped automate the infrastructure in AWS, making the process more efficient."
"I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. We use it every day."
"I like the data collection."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to deploy patches to nearly all applications."
"Technical support was helpful and responsive."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the software deployment. Additionally, Microsoft integrates most of the other solutions well with one another."
"Software deployment and WSUS are most valuable."
"The major features of this product are the reporting tools. The most valuable features are package deployment and application deployment. Security management is also good because any vulnerability will be identified, and you can fix it. It's the best tool because you never know what kind of client you will have. For example, you may have your offices in low bandwidth remote areas. But it's achievable because it accommodates the bandwidth that you have available. Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is an excellent reporting tool for your environment. If you want to know the details about the hardware configuration, software configuration, what is causing a problem, or when a new feature update comes in for Windows, even that goes on SCCM itself. A lot of deployment stuff."
"I like Mircosoft's technical support. Microsoft has a few updates, like some of the critical KBs. They are published within the interval time, and in case of an escalation on the client missions, we will raise a ticket with the Microsoft team. They will create a hotfix or a critical update. They will chat with us, and that is one thing I like about Microsoft. Whenever any issues occur at my organization, they will help you out soon as possible within the SLA."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to learn."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, it takes time to synchronize the policies between the portal and the devices, you don't have a way to estimate how long it will take to deploy. You have some kind of gray area, where it can deploy in 30 minutes or three days."
"The security aspect could be more effective. We are using other applications to manage network devices and groups, so if Microsoft Intune could improve in this area, especially on a network level, it would be a real advantage."
"Intune could be improved by expanding its third-party patching capabilities for a more comprehensive solution."
"The solution could improve its flexibility."
"The most significant challenge is reporting and monitoring. The reporting accuracy for deploying applications and all aspects of Intune needs to be improved."
"Intune has limited integration with non-Microsoft solutions."
"We had an APNS certificate set to expire last week. We tried to renew it two days before it expired. We logged in to the APNS portal but could not find that certificate. We didn't know where it went. All the iOS devices stopped working. We contacted the Apple and Microsoft teams, and each blamed the other. This is something that Microsoft should take care of. Last week, we had so many escalations from high-profile users who couldn't access corporate data on their devices."
"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"The speed of the replication process could improve. It can take some time to replicate that could use a speed increase."
"For improvement, it's crucial that AWS provides options in terms of computing services, DB related services, and machine learning solutions. If I'm not hands-on with a particular service, like machine learning applications, I struggle to write the CloudFormation code."
"I prefer Terraform over AWS CloudFormation because AWS CloudFormation is specific to just AWS. But if I want to use a multi-cloud or hybrid setup, then Terraform works better. It uses a simple language, HCL. So, if you learn HCL, you can manage your infrastructures across different cloud providers. You don't need to be specific to one cloud provider."
"The conditions that can be added in AWS CloudFormation are not as powerful as any programming language."
"Splitting CloudFormation into multiple formations results in changes to resources like API gateway URLs and Cognito pools, which causes issues, especially when trying to maintain consistency across resources."
"There is less support for on-premise environments."
"If Amazon could extend CloudFormation to other cloud platforms, that would be good. Currently, it is only limited to AWS."
"There could be better error handling. It would be a good way to improve the solution."
"Devices like smartphones and tablets are managed very well on VMware, however, they are absent in SCCM. I could configure iPad from the VMware site and it was done very easily. It should be just as possible on SCCM."
"The reports are too busy. They could be simpler. I'm a technician, so I don't care how pretty the reports look. They should be easy to read. I'm designing this for production folks. They need to read the reports quickly when they're patching in the middle of the night."
"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."
"The solution can be improved by speeding up the synchronizing of the policies on the devices."
"Management of Linux devices could be improved."
"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."
"I would like to see an agentless version of the solution."
"In spite of us being a premier customer we find the support unsatisfactory."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license needed for this solution and it is either included in one of the enterprise license agreements. Microsoft licensing is a mathematical institute, it could be quite complex. We tend to ask specialized organizations to research what the most profitable way it would be for us to use licenses in the organizations."
"Previously the price was $4 per month per user. Now it's $2.25 per user per month."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"We work with the subscription rather than a server license. I think it's economical this way because we don't have to have a server license for that, and I think that works in our favor."
"We work in the charity sector, so a lot of our clients get Microsoft Premium licenses or Business Premium for free. They get ten licenses free, and a lot of our clients do not have more than ten staff members. They are getting the tool for free, so its cost is not an issue."
"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."
"They have categorized the licenses according to the size of the business. So, if it's a smaller organization, we can choose the license accordingly. If it's a big organization, then we can choose accordingly. Everything is clearly mentioned, and we can decide. It's suitable for all kinds of infrastructure, and that's very goo"
"I have no comment on pricing of the solution."
"If you compared serverless and container-based, serverless is less expensive. If you use certain instances the price can increase and become too expensive."
"The product is free."
"The solution's cost is normal, neither cheap nor expensive."
"There's no cost for launching any template using CloudFormation."
"The tool is free for the AWS environment."
"In general, pricing within AWS is relatively affordable."
"AWS CloudFormation doesn't have any cost because it's only the resources that you deploy with the solution that'll incur costs."
"The price of the solution is good because it is scalable."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"There is not a license needed to use the solution."
"The price is competitive and reasonable."
"We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."
"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."
"SCCM comes with its own version of SQL Server. If you use that SQL Server with SCCM and don't use it for another applications than you get an SQL Server for free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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?
AWS CloudFormation is free. However, there may be unexpected costs if developers deploy services incorrectly without ...
What needs improvement with AWS CloudFormation?
Improvements are needed for sharing resources between template files, especially when using AWS ( /products/amazon-aw...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. Wh...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
CloudFormation
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Nextdoor, Coinbase, Expedia
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudFormation vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.