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Chef vs Microsoft Intune comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (16th), Release Automation (7th)
Microsoft Intune
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Chef is 1.2%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 11.8%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Arun S . - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 14, 2023
Useful for large infrastructure, reliable, but steep learning cureve
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. The solution is good to manage multiple large infrastructures. We can have 10 to 10,000 users using this solution and it manages them well.
Gaurav Chandola - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 22, 2022
We can manage all aspects of our devices from a single console, easy to scale, and quick to deploy
Intune has many benefits from the Microsoft perspective. This solution can manage Windows 10 devices, app management, and provide security solutions. We don't need to worry about our network connection, and we'll be more secure with regular security patches and compliance. Since everything will be deployed through the internet and users will log in using the internet only, the risks have been mitigated. Security updates, security patching, and the application will be targeted from Intune. The location tracker will be available to track where the device is and the user's location. The user will be restricted from accessing certain applications using compliance policies. Conditional access policies will be based on the reason why the user needs access to the application. Microsoft Intune is one of the best products in the industry for managing Windows devices. The solution has more feature restrictions. The conditional access policies also eliminate the dependency on the on-prem network for the devices. The solution also manages our security settings and a lot of other beneficial features such as Microsoft Purview which gives us the compliance portion. We can manage all aspects of our device from a single console, including M365 services. This allows us to configure data classification types, such as public, private, internal, confidential, and highly confidential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."
"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."
"The synchronization of Intune with other Microsoft solutions is a valuable feature."
"Autopilot is a great feature. Most users are looking for a zero-touch deployment."
"It is a stable solution."
"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."
"Intune's unified endpoint management platform is invaluable."
"The Mobile Device Management in Intune is a valuable feature."
"The device profiling which uses the official Outlook email enabled us to control the screenshot feature and prevent copying outside of the organization's application."
"Stable product that's easy to set up compared to other MDM products."
 

Cons

"Support and pricing for Chef could be improved."
"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."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"It is an old technology."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"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."
"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."
"The scalability could be improved, and like most other MDM products, Intune is good but not 100% there yet."
"It would be beneficial to have a more straightforward understanding of Intune's capabilities, presented in a simplified manner."
"The difficulty of the the roll out is surprisingly difficult considering this product is supposed to be an integrated part of the 365 suite."
"The initial setup is a little bit complex."
"The solution could improve its flexibility."
"The solution requires Mac support."
"Setting up Intune Autopilot can be a little complicated."
"Lacking ability to leverage more iOS device management internally."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."
"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."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"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."
"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."
"Most of our clients come to us with licensing already in place. On average, it costs $6 per device per month to add Intune to an Office 365 subscription, but I am not sure."
"Any bundle package, such as Security E3, covers multiple things, such as AAP, BitLocker, etc. If you go for them individually, they would be more expensive. Bundling makes the price more attractive and competitive."
"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."
"If you ask the accountant or the finance department, they'll tell you that it is way too expensive, but when I look at the cost and compare it with the value you actually get, it's more than fair."
"Intune comes with the licensing that is common for large organizations. However, Microsoft has recently released many add-ons that are very expensive, especially for large organizations or corporations."
"We don't get Intune as a separate module. Most of the time, we use it within an enterprise agreement like E3 or E5. Those licenses are at a good price, but what is annoying is that every single year they go higher."
"The pricing of Endpoint Manager is fine. The licensing is not that complex, but small and midsized organizations might have challenges with the pricing plans. There are a lot of categories—E2, E3, E5—to choose from."
"Microsoft licenses are costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 or docker images.
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 it easy to control security and manage the usage of mobile apps when you have a ...
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 the things I like about it: Pros: Protected productivity: Intune gives you th...
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 access to both Microsoft’s user community as well as around-the-clock customer s...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Microsoft Intune and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.