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

Chef vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

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
240
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 (12th)
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 (4th), Patch Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.1%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 13.2%, down from 14.3% 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

"A great solution for anyone wanting a modern endpoint device management solution."
"For the price, the features included with Microsoft are appealing."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is patching-related capabilities."
"The ability to manage devices with different sets of policies is most valuable."
"Microsoft Intune has been a time saver and reduces the time and effort IT admins have to invest."
"The ability to send configurations to our systems is valuable, particularly as we don't have a regular Windows AD server. Our current environment doesn't have a Windows AD, which limits our ability to push GPOs. However, this is where the solution can step in and help us push policies."
"The standout features of Intune are its excellent mobile device management and highly effective application management capabilities."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Intune include providing visibility into devices and the ability to manage them remotely."
"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."
"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice."
"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"The most valuable feature is automation."
"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."
"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."
"I like a lot of the reporting capabilities and baseline configurations."
"I like the data collection."
"Microsoft is being very competitive right now, and they are really investing in a lot of new features to be more competitive in the marketplace."
"We have found the scalability to be quite good."
"The tool's most valuable features include security updates and patch management, which are critical functions for maintaining security. The automated software distribution and the ability to manage deployments are also highly useful. Enforcing compliance with set policies on systems is another key functionality we leverage."
"It is a very well-rounded product. It is a complete package with all the features using which we are able to manage our PCs very efficiently."
"The dashboards have information about our assets."
"We are happy with the collaboration of SCCM with Patch My PC, which allows us to do patch work."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Intune's app deployment presents challenges for non-MSI and non-store apps, particularly EXEs, requiring the use of a Win32 wrapper tool and adding overhead to the process."
"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."
"They can improve their MAM policies a little bit more and make them more granular. They should include more granular group policies. They are there, but they need to be more granular. Its stability should also be improved. It is not very stable. Sometimes, it shows some inconsistencies across tenants."
"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."
"Improvements can be made by allowing server integrations since it is an area where the product currently has shortcomings."
"Technical support is not that great."
"China blocks Google and Google Play Store, which makes installation challenging. Microsoft Intune is a company software, which has to be installed to the app portal or Microsoft Software Center."
"It should be simplified. I've worked with many different mobile device management solutions, and Intune is one of the more complex ones. It could be more simplified, and some of it is related to the wording that is being used, such as a configuration profile versus a policy. They really should have had different names to make it less confusing."
"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."
"It is an old technology."
"I would also like to see more analytics and reporting features. Currently, the analytics and reporting features are limited. I'll have to start building my own custom solution with Power BI or Tableau or something like that. If it came with built-in analytics and reporting features that would be great."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"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."
"I would like to see an agentless version of the solution."
"Initial setup was complex. There's a lot that goes into it."
"I currently need to increase my compliance level in the patching processes which this solution could improve on."
"The time the solution takes for updating systems could be quicker. For example, the system information status is not updating as it should. Additionally, the database synchronization querying is slow and could be improved."
"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."
"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."
"With Microsoft Premier Support, you get what you pay for. There's Third Tier Support that you pay for. If you pay for that, you get excellent support, and if you don't pay for that, then you get the less experienced staff."
"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Intune is often included as part of a bundle with other Microsoft licenses, which makes it somewhat cheaper."
"The product is expensive."
"Intune's pricing is competitive. For example, the license of Blackberry's Enterprise Mobility Suite was costly, but Intune is affordable. It is included as an additional feature when you buy security enhancements for your organization. For example, let's say I have fifty users in my organization and all of them are using Microsoft cloud services, like Teams, Office 365, and OneDrive."
"If you're subscribing to Premium or E3, there are no additional costs for Intune, it's included."
"It is average. Some of the costs are quite high depending on what the customer currently uses, but overall, it is not bad. I would not say that I would not recommend Intune based on the cost. I definitely would, but they can definitely improve on the cost. So overall, its cost is not bad."
"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."
"Intune is included with our F3 and E5 licenses."
"The tool is cheaper than our company's other MDM tools."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"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."
"The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it."
"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."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"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."
"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."
"The price is competitive and reasonable."
"The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive."
"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."
"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."
"The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive."
"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."
"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
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: January 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.