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Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Jamf Pro
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Device Management (MDM) (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (2nd)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (6th), Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Jamf Pro and Microsoft Configuration Manager aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Jamf Pro is designed for Mobile Device Management (MDM) and holds a mindshare of 29.5%, up 28.7% compared to last year.
Microsoft Configuration Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 6.0% mindshare, down 8.6% since last year.
Mobile Device Management (MDM)
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Pete C - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable with a self-service portal and a good security posture
Policies enabled for self-service should have keywords attached, so that multiple search terms can direct to a single preferred result, without having to clutter the description field. The new remote support tool is still lacking features compared to other industry solutions. There is no built-in functionality for tracking changes over time for multiple devices. All patch reporting is only a current snapshot. The password management tools are fairly outdated. The web console (GUI) is slow with maddening UI/UX inconsistencies.
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 user interface is great."
"Zero-touch deployment is the most valuable feature because many organizations have employees working from home. This feature allows devices to be configured and ready for use without needing physical handling by IT staff, making it important for remote work environments."
"Jamf is stable, reliable, secure and you have lots of customization options."
"Being able to easily deploy apps and patches to our client computers with minimal hands-on time from our techs has been huge."
"Some of the most valuable features for us include remote management, DEP enrollment, and zero-touch deployment."
"The self-service portal enables standard users to install and update software, change settings, and open organizational URLs."
"Jamf Pro is primarily a device management solution designed to manage and configure devices."
"Automated Device Enrollment workflows are great for zero-touch deployments, vital in the current global context. With Automated Device Enrollment workflows, we can deploy new Apple devices directly to end-users without help from the IT support team."
"SCCM is a stable solution."
"I have found the solution to be scalable. We have around 50,000 users using the solution."
"Patching is very effective and reporting is very good."
"It is a very good solution. It has a good interface and is easy to use. On top of that, it is very reliable in terms of distribution as well as getting the report."
"With the SCCM inventory, we found a lot of rogue applications. We were able to identify them, find out who was running them, and either put them on our application list or remove them."
"It is a good choice for deployment that performs very well."
"It's a stable product."
"One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined process has significantly improved our software distribution workflows."
 

Cons

"The new remote support tool is still lacking features compared to other industry solutions."
"The reporting needs to be improved so that generating them is more user-friendly."
"I would love to see more integration with ASM and ABM."
"I think there's room for improvement on the automation. For example, uploading a package to Jamf Pro and then updating the policy and other aspects, should be automatic. For instance, if I put a new version of the software, version 11 and the previous one was 10, Jamf Pro should be able to recognize if there's an update and update the policy automatically. It's not a big deal, but I think there's room for improvement."
"Jamf doesn't make the Cloud file system visible so there are rare occasions where the local repository and Cloud repository get out of sync."
"The solution needs cheaper training."
"Jamf Pro should be standardized into one MDM product to make it more affordable and accessible."
"Some improvement can be made in the customer service realm, while also making additional training level courses available for online study and exam-taking."
"The reports are too busy. They could be simpler. I'm a technician, so I don't care how pretty the reports look. They should be easy to read. I'm designing this for production folks. They need to read the reports quickly when they're patching in the middle of the night."
"On some hardware, we'd like an easier way to get peripherals attached."
"The main thing is that SCCM has to become an appliance instead of a server. When I say appliance, it has to come preconfigured so that it is drop-shipped into the enterprise and then you activate the feature sets that you want. It should pull down all the latest binaries. Once that is all there, it should have a discovery tool which goes out and discovers the assets within an enterprise. If the server, workstation, and applications are all coming from the same vendor, why not have the vendor do this work for us and automate it as much as it possibly can?"
"The solution should incorporate AI. It should also incorporate real-time capabilities. If we could get real-time information about challenges or issues, it would allow us to take immediate action. For example, with the recent outage caused by the Windows issue, having a real-time warning system could have helped us avoid or reduce the downtime we experienced."
"It would be better if automation options were available. For example, in Nexthink or SysTrack, there is an analytical tool. Creating dashboards would be very easy if you implement the same thing in Microsoft. That report will be a daily cost to the customers and good revenue for our organization. The price also could be better. In the next release, we need to include some features like tables, dashboards, surveys, services, and metrics in the dashboard. Whatever we are implementing will be downloaded by a report. Apart from the report, we will telecast from the dashboard. It's very easy to compare, and it will be easy to telecast to the end-users."
"There were misconfigurations by our team rather than issues with the product itself. However, it does seem a bit buggy from time to time, based on what I have heard."
"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."
"Devices like smartphones and tablets are managed very well on VMware, however, they are absent in SCCM. I could configure iPad from the VMware site and it was done very easily. It should be just as possible on SCCM."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is surely worth the cost of implementation."
"JumpStart is available at an additional cost."
"The setup is pricey upfront for support and setup."
"The price of a training pass for five people was $18,000 USD."
"With respect to pricing, Jamf Pro is the better bet."
"The price difference between Jamf Pro and VMware Workspace One is not very much, but when counting the cost of my time, Jamf Pro is clearly much better."
"I know that as a school we get a discounted price, which is good because without it we would not be able to afford it."
"It seems fair. It could be a little bit less, but you have to pay for a product. You can't get something for free. You get what you pay for, so if you put in a little bit of money, you're going to get a good quality product."
"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."
"The price model is different for every client."
"We have to pay for a license."
"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."
"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."
"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."
"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Jamf Pro?
The most valuable features of Jamf Pro for me are the device locator, which helps find missing iPads, and the ability to remotely manage and disable devices.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jamf Pro?
The pricing structure is one of the cons. However, the licensing model is simple and easy to manage from an MSP perspective. Licenses are annual, and any changes are communicated effectively.
What needs improvement with Jamf Pro?
The biggest area for improvement is the price and the structure of Jamf's onboarding process, especially the mandatory JumpStart consultation, which can be costly for small organizations. The solut...
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 the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
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. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
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 efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...
 

Also Known As

JAMF Software Casper Suite
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Xero, National Geographic, Oxford University, Via, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Fallon, Cabela's
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 JAMF, Microsoft, Cisco and others in Mobile Device Management (MDM). Updated: March 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.