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Chef vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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
247
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (20th), Release Automation (11th)
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 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 - 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.
Aaron  P - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"The most valuable feature is Intune's ability to push out updates for the security and antivirus. I also like Intune's copilot and the ability to automate processes. For example, if you have 5,000 employees who are issued new PCs and you need to set them up with everything they need."
"The many policies available in Microsoft Intune for managing our devices are valuable."
"The most valuable features are the ones that make sure that the deployment is of a standard operating system and the Zero Touch deployment, which is very useful. This allows users to have an out of box experience."
"I would say the biggest benefit is the single-pane view. There's no jumping around multiple UI's to do your overall management."
"It is a stable solution."
"Autopilot is a feature I really like."
"I can see that the patch management process is much improved with the bundled patch management option available in Microsoft Intune compared to the KPI deployment required by the other deployment solutions."
"The stability of Microsoft Intune is ten out of ten."
"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time."
"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"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."
"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."
"It's helped us solve problems surrounding patching, installing, and reporting different patches, etc., on the virtual machines."
"The main, clear valuable feature is updating the latest, patches and updates from Windows. This is the main feature we really utilize a lot."
"I find the product valuable for deployment recovery and it has done much more than that."
"The solution effectively handles inventory management, deployment, and reporting."
"The scalability to deploy the package."
"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."
"I like the data collection."
 

Cons

"Data leak prevention can be integrated into it. Currently, it does not have data leak prevention."
"There are a couple of issues with stability."
"Microsoft Intune could improve by being more user-friendly and having it geared toward device management. The graphic interface is not very good."
"An issue we have run into with Microsoft Endpoint Manager is that we cannot patch third-party products like Adobe and Chrome with it."
"There can be more logs. I do not have any other requirements."
"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."
"There could be more competent processes and improvements in the policy space."
"The solution's app deployment needs to be improved."
"Support and pricing for Chef could be improved."
"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."
"A lot of experience is needed in terms of troubleshooting, as this is one of the most difficult tasks in MECM. We were seven people in a group and I was the only one that had the patience to do the troubleshooting at times."
"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."
"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager can improve by allowing us to schedule the scripts, we don't have a script scheduling option and have to do it manually."
"The solution can be improved by speeding up the synchronizing of the policies on the devices."
"The product needs to improve scalability."
"This solution should be simpler, and more consistent across modules/sections."
"Management of Linux devices could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Intune is available as an individual product, but it also comes with Office 365 Premium or an Enterprise license, and the price varies for each version."
"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"
"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."
"The pricing for Intune and the competitor products are all within the same range, there is no true advantage when it comes to cost."
"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."
"The pricing is competitive, but it is not cheap."
"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."
"I recently got to know that the AD P1 license is compulsory to use Intune Autopilot, which was surprising for me. Earlier, this was not the case. It is the wrong thing to do. We now need to purchase AD P1 licenses for us and for our customers. I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing."
"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."
"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."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"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."
"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."
"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."
"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."
"The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive."
"The price model is different for every client."
"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."
"There is not a license needed to use the solution."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
18%
University
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
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 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...
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
No data available
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.