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Chef vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Intune's support is mixed, with varied responsiveness and knowledge depending on service level and complexity of issues.
No sentiment score available
Customers commend Chef for its responsive support, active community, comprehensive documentation, and efficient issue resolution despite occasional delays.
No sentiment score available
In the last couple of years, support has not been very good, even with Premier and Premium support.
Microsoft's service and technical support for Intune have been good.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
4.3
Microsoft Intune needs improvements in reporting, interface, integration, security, and standalone capabilities, along with better pricing and third-party integration.
Sentiment score
5.6
Chef needs better support, pricing, role management, flexibility, documentation, integration, and improved automation to compete with Ansible.
No sentiment score available
Workspace ONE operates in real-time, whereas Intune has a noticeable delay when deploying policies or apps.
The report updating period is very slow, taking upwards of over an hour to confirm if a policy is deployed after check-in.
If my organization has sensitive data we don't want to leak, deploying the policies can present technical challenges and potential loopholes.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Intune excels in adaptability and scalability for large organizations, though users desire more competitive features.
Sentiment score
8.4
Chef is highly scalable, efficiently managing infrastructures of all sizes and accommodating numerous clients based on server capacity.
No sentiment score available
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Intune's pricing is cost-effective in bundles, but standalone can be expensive for smaller businesses.
No sentiment score available
Chef offers subscription plans with valuable automation features, but enterprise pricing is high and requires contacting sales for quotes.
No sentiment score available
I know what's included in 365 Premium offering, and it's a good deal.
The pricing is integrated with Entra, making it better than paying for a separate platform.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Intune impresses users with high stability, effective device management, and security, despite occasional bugs and Azure-related performance impacts.
Sentiment score
8.5
Users rate Chef's stability 8-9/10, comparing it favorably to competitors like Ansible, and find it stable for various use cases.
No sentiment score available
If Intune is not available, the 365 environment might not be available, causing a major ordeal.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Intune provides integration with Azure AD for seamless device management, enhancing security, compliance, and cost-efficiency in organizations.
Sentiment score
8.7
Chef offers compliance, easy configuration management, and automation for IT infrastructure, integrating with CI processes and supporting multiple clouds.
No sentiment score available
Intune has improved our asset management from a security standpoint and has consolidated vendors, enhancing our security posture.
The biggest asset is the range of device management options available with Intune, whether it is a Windows device, a Linux device, a Mac device, or mobile devices.
Intune's most valuable feature is its centralized management capability.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
213
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
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (16th), Release Automation (7th)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Configuration Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
169
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (1st), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Chandola - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Arun S . - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
NiteshKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Good stability, supports a hybrid model and easy to use
There is an area of improvement. For example, you are migrating from a customer's existing data center to a new target data center. To facilitate this transition, you'll initially need to evaluate the customer's aging hardware hosting VMware, which is nearing the end of its operational life. The customer expresses the intention to upgrade to a newer version, necessitating an overhaul of everything in the new data center. As a Systems Integrator (SI), consultant, or architect, your recommendation would be to acquire the latest hardware with a specified configuration and then install VMware on top of it. However, there's a crucial aspect related to the infrastructure requirements for VMware to run seamlessly on that hardware. If there's an opportunity to potentially reduce these infrastructure prerequisites, it would be highly beneficial. This is because a higher number of VMware licenses requires more infrastructure capacity from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) or Colocation partners. Consequently, when discussing the operation of this virtualized environment from VMware over a contractual period of five years, the overall cost to the customer is influenced by the infrastructure requirements. If there's a feasible way to decrease these prerequisites for the infrastructure supporting the virtualization layer, it would be advantageous in terms of cost for the customer. Any customer in today's world exists or wants to exist in a hybrid model, so in future releases, we would like to see this. So, going forward, if this virtualized environment would exist, it has to be a combination of on-premise plus public cloud Azure/AWS. It should be more seamless when your interface or when you are interacting with workloads running on-premise VMware/AWS VMware. So it is only there in some capacity and space, and I'm aware of it. And Azure and VMware already have a tie-up on the same lines, but at the same time, if it is more seamless, if it is more interchangeable, if you could move your workloads, or if you can access your workloads or your virtual machines irrespective of whatever platform it is running, whether it is on-premises, or cloud or public cloud, it'll be a lot more comfortable for a user than the user to consume that infrastructure. Firstly, it needs to have a combination of deployment and be more seamless for the customers. Secondly, more software-defined features, more in terms of managing the infrastructure pool in a software-defined way. Managing the infrastructure pool in a more optimized fashion is going to be the key in the upcoming times. It's not just on-premise, but at the same time, it should also be the public cloud as well. Probably because when I meet my customers, this is one thing that I always tell them. I have seen people moving from on-premise public cloud only to realize at the end of the month that they end up paying a higher bill compared to what they were paying when they were running their business on-premise. The reason is that they do not understand or do not realize the full potential of the public cloud, and the way it should be consumed, the way it should be used, and the way it should be scheduled to ensure that the billing at the end of the month is very optimal. You pay for what exactly you need, not everything that you have from the cloud. That's not a way to use the cloud, whether it is on-premise or from the cloud. For example, an enterprise has over 100 applications. Out of that 100 applications, only 25 applications are running the production instances, and the remaining 75 are running non-production instances. It can be a development environment, a test environment, a sandbox, etc. In this case, you need to run only the 25 applications on the public cloud 24/7. You do not need to run your remaining 75 applications 24/7. Because, eventually, your developers, testers, quality managers, and whoever will use the non-production environment only when they're in the office and working on those applications. Then why do we need to have those applications, which are non-production in nature, lower environments? So we're running on the public cloud all the time because, for a cloud provider, it is a virtual machine; whether you are consuming it for production work or non-production work, it is going to charge you the same bill. And if you are not optimizing, if you're not scheduling workloads, you are actually wasting money. You're wasting your money, and your bills, which you are going to pay with the public cloud provider provided, are going to be bad. It's going to be crazy. And then customers do not know what to do in this situation. And you cannot fight with the public cloud provider because they would say, "I had given you all the possibilities, all the opportunities to learn about it, the way you should be functioning it, the way you should be utilizing it. If you are not using it the way it should be used, That's not my problem."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

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...
What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything y...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A fre...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of compa...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
No data available
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.