Chef vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

Progress Software and Microsoft are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Progress Software is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.0, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.0. Progress Software holds a 1.6% mindshare in CM, compared to Microsoft’s 12.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Microsoft Configuration Manager and Chef are key players in IT management and automation. Microsoft Configuration Manager shows advantages in pricing and support, whereas Chef demonstrates superiority in feature-rich capabilities that justify its cost.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager provides comprehensive lifecycle management, efficient software updates, and device compliance monitoring. Chef offers infrastructure as code, advanced cloud integration, and superior configuration management, allowing for versatile automation of complex workflows.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager could enhance its support for non-Windows environments and expand automation capabilities. Improvements in user interface design and cloud-native features are also areas to consider. Chef may require refinement in its ease of use for beginners and could improve pricing transparency. Enhancements in integration capabilities with simpler environments would make it more accessible to smaller teams.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Configuration Manager excels with a straightforward deployment in Windows ecosystems and robust Microsoft support. Chef, with its platform-agnostic nature, integrates well across diverse infrastructures and benefits from a supportive open-source community and professional services. Microsoft offers seamless integration within its environment, while Chef provides flexibility and adaptability in varied setups.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager is cost-effective for organizations with existing Windows infrastructure, providing consistent ROI through operational efficiencies. Chef's higher initial investment is offset by significant returns due to comprehensive automation, which reduces manual effort and increases productivity. Microsoft's pricing aligns well with Windows ecosystems, while Chef benefits environments that require extensive automation and flexibility over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager

April 2025

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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

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 Chef is 1.6%, up from 1.4% 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

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Aaron P

DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation

In terms of improvement, Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation. There is also an issue with shared resources like cookbooks lacking context, which could lead to problems when multiple companies use them. Chef should aim for wider availability, better flexibility, clearer documentation, and improved management of shared resources to prevent conflicts. Many companies are now moving to Ansible, so I would recommend better documentation, easier customer use, and simpler integration. I have concerns about the complexity of migrating to different servers and would prefer a simpler process.

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MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For the price, the features included with Microsoft are appealing."

"Intune makes our organization more secure and flexible. We can onboard new employees faster and more securely. We are a governmental organization with strict regulations, and Intune helps us comply with those requirements."

"I like how Intune deploys the policies and makes them customizable. You can deploy it through Intune and forget about it."

"Microsoft Intune helps us avoid issuing everyone company-owned devices. We provide a stipend, allowing users to bring their own devices. This approach gives us leverage against other MSPs. It also enhances collaboration because clients already covered by specific licensing can optimize their usage of Microsoft Intune."

"Among the most valuable features are the Company Portal that is built into Intune, and the update rings so that we can manage what types of future updates the devices get."

"If you need only to load a specific profile and you don't have deep security functionalities, et cetera, Intune is very nice and good."

"Microsoft Intune is easy to use, and it is able to enforce policies towards multiple devices. It is able to bring multiple classes of devices into the same security posture. I found that very useful."

"Third party integrations are very convenient to use with Microsoft Intune."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We have had less production issues since using Chef to automate our provisioning."

"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."

"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast. Chef-docker enabled us to have fewer sets of source code for different purposes. Configuration management was a breeze and all the servers were as good as immutable servers."

"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."

More Chef pros

"I find the product valuable for deployment recovery and it has done much more than that."

"Provides great insight into the functionalities of the data scope."

"The product is suitable for our size, handling 800 devices."

"It gives us the ability to set up schedules, according to what our security requirements are, to automate the patching of our servers and desktops."

"The scalability to deploy the package."

"SCCM is a stable solution."

"Microsoft Configuration Manager helps with patch management."

"The tool's most valuable features are easy patch management and software deployment."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

Cons

"Microsoft Intune's support for Mac devices is lacking and could be improved."

"The tool's tunnel gateway is not very good, making it an area where improvements are required."

"In terms of what can be improved, I am looking for better enhancements regarding Apple management, not only on the mobile device, but also on the laptop."

"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."

"Microsoft Intune is currently overpriced."

"The biggest problem we ever have is when something goes out of date after 30 days when nobody has logged into it. We do have a problem trying to get those back online. We've been working with Microsoft to resolve that problem, but that's been the only issue that we've had in the last few years."

"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."

"One drawback of Intune is that we cannot find devices based on a user's region or location."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."

"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."

"There appears to be no effort to fix the command line utility functionality, which is definitely broken, provides a false positive for a result when you perform the operation, and doesn't work."

"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."

"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."

"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."

"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."

More Chef cons

"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."

"Could do with some cosmetic improvements on the user interface."

"In spite of us being a premier customer we find the support unsatisfactory."

"The assets have reached their end-of-life, and patching them is a complex and laborious task. It would be highly advantageous if there were an integrated solution that provided distinct options for each end-of-life asset, streamlining the process and facilitating comprehension."

"Based on my experience with SCCM 2016, the main, big issue is not having a good user-friendly environment. It needs much better GUI."

"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."

"I would like to see some improvements in WSUS and control of other, non-Microsoft, product updates."

"The configuration of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could be improved, it is a bit complicated."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost is not my department, but the product is included in the E5 license that we already pay for every user, so no additional cost is incurred."

"Its licensing model is not complex, but it is very expensive compared to other solutions. They can bring more models and reduce the pricing. They should allow customers to select the features they want and price it accordingly."

"My team members bundled it together with their Microsoft solutions, including Microsoft 365 and related products."

"While Microsoft charges for actual usage, it lacks discount options."

"Microsoft Intune is available for individual purchase at a low per-device cost."

"I am satisfied with the pricing."

"While Microsoft Intune boasts a wide range of features, its user-friendliness and bundled licensing cost are key considerations for me."

"The Intune license model is costly."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"The price per node is a little weird. It doesn't scale along with your organization. If you're truly utilizing Chef to its fullest, then the number of nodes which are being utilized in any particular day might scale or change based on your Auto Scaling groups. How do you keep track of that or audit it? Then, how do you appropriately license it? It's difficult."

"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."

"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."

"Pricing for Chef is high."

"Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market."

"When we're rolling out a new server, we're not using the AWS Marketplace AMI, we're using our own AMI, but we are paying them a licensing fee."

"I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up."

"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."

More Chef pricing and cost advice

"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."

"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."

"There is not a license needed to use the solution."

"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."

"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."

"I rate the price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten."

"We have to pay for a license."

"Presently, I am using a free trial version."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

18%

University

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

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 ...

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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...

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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 ...

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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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?

Chef is priced based on the number of nodes.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Chef?

Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 14% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

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BigFix vs Chef

Compared 28% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Chef

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Chef

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Chef

Compared 9% of the time

More Chef Competitors

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

BMC Client Management vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

April 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Chef

April 2025

Download Chef product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

April 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

No data available

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Chef, is the leader in DevOps, driving collaboration through code to automate infrastructure, security, compliance and applications. Chef provides a single path to production making it faster and safer to add value to applications and meet the demands of the customer. Deployed broadly in production by the Global 5000 and used by more than half of the Fortune 500, Chef develops 100 percent of its software as open source under the Apache 2.0 license with no restrictions on its use. Chef Enterprise Automation Stack™, a commercial distribution, is developed solely from that open source code and unifies security, compliance, infrastructure and application automation with observability. Chef provides an unequaled developer experience for the Coded Enterprise by enabling users to express infrastructure, security policies and the application lifecycle as code, modernizing development, packaging and delivery of any application to any platform. For more information, visit http://chef.io and follow @chef.

Progress Software

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager

April 2025

Free Report: Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager

Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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