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."Technical support, in general, has been quite helpful."
"We have one MDM that works with Windows, iOS, and Android."
"I can reach devices or computers over the internet. I don't need to worry about the network connectivity between the offices. I can manage any device. That is the most important part."
"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."
"Configuration profiles, remediation, scripts, and auto-pilot features are very good."
"In terms of technical support, you will get an immediate response."
"The solution appears to be stable and scalable."
"The ability to switch between Affinity and non-Affinity enrollment is great."
"The product is useful for automating processes."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"The most valuable feature is automation."
"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."
"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."
"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."
"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."
"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."
"Microsoft Configuration Manager gives different tools in one solution."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the availability of being able to manage the Microsoft estate. It handles many areas, such as asset management and tracking."
"The most valuable feature of SCCM is the application distribution."
"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."
"Offers good patching."
"We're a Microsoft-centric organization, so we are happy with the integration between products."
"I like the data collection."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability."
"Integration with Mac devices requires some improvement."
"The configuration could be better by consolidating options and making it simpler."
"An area for improvement is the absence of seamless integration, particularly with external dashboards."
"There is still a gap between SCCM and Intune, especially in the reporting, inventory, and software deployment areas."
"Microsoft needs to enhance device-level security, as sometimes when using Microsoft Intune, the device's operating system becomes stuck and requires a full uninstall to remove the Intune bug."
"It's only good for a Microsoft environment."
"There can be some added features, such as an improved dashboard. Any new feature that could be a benefit to our customers would be good."
"Enhancements for managing MacOS more comprehensively would be beneficial."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"It is an old technology."
"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."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"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."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"The database should be made to be more stable and robust, but not so much the configuration."
"I'm looking for a single solution for all discovery needs. It fulfills about 40% of the requirements, and I'd like to see the other 60% so that I don't have to keep doing this."
"One area of improvement is regarding the patching of Office 365 products. We have some difficulties on this side, and it can be improved."
"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."
"Management of Linux devices could be improved."
"The setup was complex and I faced a lot of problems initially because I was new to the solution."
"The solution could improve the functionality for automating, license management. Additionally, more and better-looking reports are needed."
"We'd like the solution to make it easier to manage remote 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 "Seamless system updates, useful integration, and reliable". Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, SaltStack and BigFix, 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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