Chef vs Perforce Puppet comparison

Progress Software and Perforce are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Progress Software is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.2, while Perforce is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0. Progress Software holds a 3.4% mindshare in CM, compared to Perforce’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Perforce users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

Puppet and Chef compete in the configuration management category. Chef appears to have the upper hand in feature richness and long-term value, while Puppet is favored for pricing and support.

Features: Puppet features cross-platform management, robust reporting tools, and a wide array of pre-built configurations, making it suitable for diverse environments. Chef, however, offers flexibility, scalability, and seamless management of complex infrastructures, appealing to larger organizations. Chef's use of Ruby and its integration capabilities are highlighted for automating detailed configuration workflows.

Room for Improvement: Puppet could benefit from enhanced automation capabilities and reducing complexity in large-scale deployments. Improving the learning curve and integration with cloud platforms might also add value. Chef could focus on easing the initial setup process and simplifying its automated deployment model, while also enhancing rollback functionalities and resource utilization efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Puppet is known for its quick setup and strong support framework, offering detailed documentation and a dedicated support team. Chef provides highly automated deployment with scalability but requires a steeper learning curve initially. Its active community and comprehensive support resources help balance initial complexities over time.

Pricing and ROI: Puppet offers competitive pricing with an appealing initial setup cost, providing quick ROI for small to mid-sized projects, attracting budget-conscious organizations. Chef's higher upfront costs demonstrate a solid ROI in complex deployments due to its extensive feature set, making it a worthwhile investment for large-scale operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Chef vs. Perforce Puppet Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Perforce Puppet

March 2026

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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 March 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 6.9%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 3.4%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 3.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune	6.9%
Chef	3.4%
Perforce Puppet	3.8%
Other	85.9%

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble

Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24

Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license

The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.

Read full review

Walter Ochieng Odhiambo

Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom

Automation has transformed daily infrastructure work and now frees teams to focus on new challenges

One thing that Chef needs to improve on is making it available in as many languages as possible. There should be a focus on how to make it understandable, not just to infrastructure people, but also to those working in monitoring. How can we ensure that it is part of their daily input? That is something that still has a small missing link. We are almost there, but it can help us achieve outcomes in the future in terms of objectives, not just workflows and visibility. How can we make real-time interactive dashboards more available? Look at what kind of tools can be integrated with them, not just working with the ones like Chef Kitchen and Habitat, but trying to make it even more flexible than what we have right now. On support, I think there should be more focus on how we can achieve AI automations in answering questions for beginners and addressing deep concerns without general manual management.

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reviewer2284542

Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Automated configuration management ensures consistent server setups

The strength of Puppet is in automated configuration management. We can configure a server once and set rules with Puppet so that future server configurations are automatic and consistent with company requests. Puppet is declarative, meaning it finds the best state for itself and corrects any deviations in the configuration.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is easy to use."

"The main value of Microsoft Intune is better asset management from a security perspective, ensuring that the security baseline is enforced on all devices, including mobile devices."

"The best features of Microsoft Intune include helping to know if computers are configured correctly and if users have access to apps or the platform."

"One of the biggest advantages of Microsoft Intune is that it brings the management of Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even Linux under a single pane of glass."

"Intune provides a centralized management solution, although its suitability depends on specific needs and comparisons with alternatives like Jamf, Kandji, or ManageEngine."

"The performance of Microsoft Intune is good."

"Mobile device management is most valuable."

"The navigation, the keys, and the settings are easy to find. It is easy to understand."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."

"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."

"Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them."

"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."

"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."

"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."

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

"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."

More Chef pros

"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."

"The agent-based feature helps me by being stable."

"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."

"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."

"The versatility is great."

"Puppet Enterprise has good functionalities."

"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."

"I rate the stability of Puppet as ten out of ten."

More Perforce Puppet pros

Cons

"I wanted to check if there is any provision at the Intune level to restrict certain things, such as a website, but unfortunately, that feature is available only in Microsoft Defender. Intune has web filtering capabilities, but they are only useful for protection from malicious websites, whereas we would like to be able to restrict a website. For example, YouTube is a clean website. No one would identify it as a malicious website, but if we want to stop the end-users from going to that website, we have to go for another product, such as Microsoft Defender or another third-party proxy solution. It would be great if this capability is included in Intune."

"The closest Microsoft Intune can be to GPOs, the better. There needs to be more granularity on application deployments. However, they have done better recently with the application deployments."

"Microsoft Intune could be faster with client to server communication. Whenever I push something, it takes time; sometimes it takes more than one hour to deploy on the Windows side."

"I switched away from Microsoft Intune because it cannot manage the MacBook very well."

"The time we have to wait to deploy policies has room for improvement."

"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."

"When somebody has a customized application or their own company's application, we cannot deploy that application."

"Intune could be improved by expanding its third-party patching capabilities for a more comprehensive solution."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"It is an old technology."

"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."

"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."

"The learning curve is steep due to Chef's Ruby-based DSL and the complex components of cookbooks and recipes, which can be challenging for new users, especially those without programming backgrounds."

"In terms of revenue, I have not observed much because it is holistically depending on the project."

"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."

"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."

More Chef cons

"Clients with less technical expertise may find Puppet complex to configure. Our team may struggle if technical team members leave the organization, leaving others uncertain about using the tool."

"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."

"It's a bit of a pain point to make sure that everything works once we've upgraded it because Puppet has been evolving pretty fast."

"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."

"The solution has really complex code, you have to understand the Ruby language. However, once you know the code then you can move ahead without any problems."

"There's a lot of scope for enhancement on the DevSecOps side. They should definitely include features for compliance, for both the Linux and Windows side of the devices, as well as for network devices. Compliance is something they need to work on."

"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."

"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with the E5 plan. We bought the E5 plan from Microsoft."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"We spend a lot of money on Intune licensing, and some of our users have to be double licensed just because of how our dev and corporate environments are segmented."

"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."

"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."

"Its pricing seems reasonable."

"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."

"We have a limited budget for security investments, so Microsoft should consider reducing pricing in our region. This would make investment more viable, especially since larger businesses in other countries can afford it easily."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Chef pricing and cost advice

"Depending on the size of the organization there is a point when the price of Puppet Enterprise should be lower. However, they provide really good functionality, features, and capabilities."

"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."

"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."

"The main thing that we noticed when we switched from the enterprise version to the community version was the difference in cost — the infrastructure is pretty expensive."

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Comparison Review

it_user185772

Senior Software Architect with 5,001-10,000 employees

Oct 27, 2015

Docker v. CFEngine v. Puppet Data Center Automation v. Chef v. Ansible

Originally posted at http://technologyconversations.com/2015/08/26/configuration-management-in-the-docker-world/ Anyone managing more than a few servers can confirm that doing such a task manually is a waste of time and risky. Configuration management (CM) exists for a long time and there is no…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Comms Service Provider

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Outsourcing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	123
Midsize Enterprise	50
Large Enterprise	165

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we sidestepped it by using Cinc because none of the fun...

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What needs improvement with Chef?

I would add that Ruby is a domain-specific language in the Chef dialect, which is a learning curve, but so is Terrafo...

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What is your primary use case for Chef?

My main use case for Chef is configuration and deployments. We receive blank servers and use Chef to build predefined...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Puppet Enterprise?

Regarding the cost, I find it expensive, always. I don't know how much the license would cost per year or per user ap...

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What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?

I don't know what could be improved in Perforce Puppet to make this tool better for the next release. I can't think o...

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What is your primary use case for Puppet Enterprise?

My main use case for Perforce Puppet is for configuration management.

See all answers

Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 10% of the time

IBM MaaS360 vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 4% of the time

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BigFix vs Chef

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 7% of the time

Jenkins vs Chef

Compared 6% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs Chef

Compared 6% of the time

GitLab vs Chef

Compared 4% of the time

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AWS Systems Manager vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 11% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 8% of the time

BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 7% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 7% of the time

More Perforce Puppet Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Chef

March 2026

Download Chef product report

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet

February 2026

Download Perforce Puppet product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

No data available

Puppet

Overview

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service designed for device management, security, and compliance. It supports automation and facilitates endpoint management for Windows, iOS, and Android devices, ensuring data protection and efficient policy enforcement.

Microsoft Intune offers seamless integration with tools like Windows Autopilot to automate device setup and deployment. Integrated with Azure Active Directory, it enhances policy management while providing robust reporting and analytics tools for compliance tracking. Despite its intuitive interface aimed at simplifying navigation and device security management, there are challenges such as compatibility issues with Linux and Mac, limited policy support for Android, and demands for better third-party integration. It's widely used for both corporate-owned devices and BYOD scenarios in dynamic IT environments.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Windows Autopilot: Automates device setup for rapid deployment.
Azure Active Directory Integration: Enhances user policy management.
Reporting and Analytics: Improves compliance visibility.
Mobile Application Management: Ensures app security without compromising personal data.
Cloud-Based Management: Allows management from any location.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Time Efficiency: Automation reduces time in policy enforcement and configuration updates.
Enhanced Security: Ensures data protection across corporate-owned and BYOD devices.
Improved Compliance: Advanced reporting tools enhance compliance visibility.
Flexible Management: Cloud-based nature supports management from any location.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure data protection and compliance with regulatory standards. Manufacturing sectors utilize Intune for managing a distributed workforce across global locations, while educational institutions employ it to secure and manage devices in learning environments supporting both students and faculty.

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

Perforce Puppet offers automated configuration management and diverse platform support through agent-based functionality, enhancing systems with real-time reporting and efficient process automation.

Perforce Puppet provides comprehensive management for both infrastructure and applications, primarily on-prem servers, enabling automation of server updates, security compliance, and IT operations. It supports Linux and is expanding to Windows, facilitating continuous checks and compliance monitoring. With robust Internet-based features, scalability, role-based access control, and exemplary community support, it streamlines processes like remote package installation, file distribution, and user creation. Using Puppet Forge modules enhances its capabilities despite its steep learning curve and reliance on Ruby and DSL. While GUI limitations necessitate command line proficiency, its integration features and high cost can be a deterrent, prompting some to consider alternatives or the community version.

What are the key features of Perforce Puppet?

Agent-Based Functionality: Provides real-time system management and reporting.
Automated Configuration Management: Streamlines server and network processes with a declarative approach.
Scalability: Adapts to changing infrastructure needs efficiently.
Puppet Forge Modules: Extends capabilities for enhanced performance.
Role-Based Access Control: Ensures secure and organized access control.

What benefits do users gain from Perforce Puppet?

Versatility in Platform Management: Supports diverse environments for seamless integration.
Efficiency in Automation: Reduces manual server configuration tasks.
Community Support: Access to a strong network of developers and users.
Enhanced Security Compliance: Facilitates continuous monitoring and compliance checks.

Perforce Puppet is widely adopted in industries requiring rigorous configuration management and provisioning for on-prem servers. Enterprises automate IT operations and security compliance, applying it initially to Linux servers and progressing to Windows. It aids in public configurations for nodes, enabling efficient network, package, and software integrations while automating configuration and patch management processes.

Perforce

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

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

Los Alamos National Laboratory, GitHub, IP Commerce, Cedexis, Spiceworks, Server Density, Swisstopo, Chockstone, Constant Contact, NICS, Citrix

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Perforce Puppet

March 2026

Free Report: Chef vs. Perforce Puppet

Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Perforce Puppet and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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