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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Configuration Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (2nd), Server Monitoring (4th), Patch Management (2nd)
OpenText ZENworks Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.4%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 7.1%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.4%
Microsoft Configuration Manager7.1%
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management1.8%
Other86.7%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
NS
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized endpoint control has streamlined deployments and improved security compliance
In my experience, the best features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are software deployments and updates, OSD, hardware and software inventory, compliance and configuration baseline, reporting and monitoring, and integration with Intune hybrid management. These features make endpoint management efficient and scalable. The feature I rely on the most day-to-day is software deployment and patch management. It keeps endpoints updated and secure with minimal manual effort. Inventory and compliance monitoring are also important, but daily deployments are critical. Microsoft Configuration Manager has had a significant positive impact on our organization in several ways: improved efficiency, enhanced security and compliance, standardization, scalability, and visibility reporting. Overall, Microsoft Configuration Manager has helped us save time, reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain strong control over our endpoints. One of the biggest impacts Microsoft Configuration Manager has had on efficiency is the reduced manual work for software deployment and patching. For example, deploying a new application or security updates to hundreds or thousands of devices previously required several days of manual effort, including running scripts, checking devices individually, and validating installation. With Microsoft Configuration Manager, these tasks are automated and managed, allowing deployments to complete in hours rather than days. We also have automated reporting for deployment success and compliance which saved the IT team significant time that used to be spent gathering and reconciling inventory data from multiple tools.
it_user1272306 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at DoITWise
Helpful impact analysis and the discovery capability is quite good
This tool works hand-in-hand with RPA technology. RPA will allow you to control your servers by deploying the server automation agent. You don't have the discovery, but then you can deploy the policies that maintain the authorized versus current state. On top of that, you can use server automation to deploy patches or remediate configuration issues on the operating system. My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to ensure that the process is set up properly, first. Once the process is set up, the tool will do the rest for you. Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF. I would rate this solution a nine 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 honest truth is that Microsoft Intune is the future."
"Microsoft Intune saves eight hours per day, and during my work hours, I use my time to study and run tests on configurations I'm curious about and try them out in my environment."
"Microsoft Intune has broad capabilities, particularly with mobile device management, with excellent management features like the ability to push configuration policies to all devices across the company and manage them effectively, strong configuration and compliance capabilities, and valuable application management that centralizes applications in one place and makes configuring or deploying them much easier."
"It is quite policy-enabled, so you can build pretty much any policy to manage remote endpoints."
"Internet-based access with security is what I have found to be most valuable. It is also a stable and scalable solution."
"The dashboards, the security, and the customization capabilities work very well for us."
"The features of Microsoft Intune that I appreciate the most are its user-friendly interface and robust security options."
"Microsoft Intune has had a very positive impact on our organization, especially in terms of security and efficiency."
"This solution helps us by automating the patching of our system."
"I find the product valuable for deployment recovery and it has done much more than that."
"Overall, Microsoft Configuration Manager has helped us save time, reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain strong control over our endpoints."
"Using SCCM has sped up PC deployment, made it much more consistent through automation, and provided a self-service application portal that users can go to and install software themselves without admin rights."
"Microsoft has done a good job with authentication solutions, such as single sign-on, or open authentication."
"I have found the solution to be scalable. We have around 50,000 users using the solution."
"The most valuable features are application deployment and task-sequenced imaging."
"It's a stable product."
"Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
"Automatic Spiral Discovery: This feature enables deep and dynamic configuration and change management."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"We use it for managing our desktops; we have 350,000 desktops and it allows us to manage and control them relatively easily."
 

Cons

"However, Autopilot enrollment is not available for Mac devices yet, which would be a great addition if implemented."
"One thing I would suggest is that servers are not getting managed through Microsoft Intune."
"This limitation in Microsoft Intune is a significant drawback; we cannot produce overall reports on an organizational level."
"The biggest improvement could be in the implementation, the ease of the implementation of it."
"There could be some kind of feature that supports a workgroup environment or a separate environment without the Entra ID."
"One big problem with Microsoft is that they're changing the names of the products quite often, or they're quite consistently doing so. Intune is now Endpoint administration. Constantly switching the user interface or the administrative interface makes it quite hard to keep pace. If you are on a two-week holiday and you come back and look at the same screen you have looked at for the last couple of months, it looks different, which is annoying. Changing things around all the time doesn't make it easy."
"In the past, I raised some tickets for the enhancement feature, which was missing in Intune."
"The interface is easy, but it is not user-friendly when evaluating the overall user experience of Microsoft Intune."
"Sometimes the time it takes to find the fault is a bit too long. The resolution time needs to be shortened quite a bit."
"The ability to integrate MDM would be great."
"Overall, Microsoft Configuration Manager is a powerful and reliable platform. However, there are a few areas where it could be improved: user interface and usability, cloud and remote device management, reporting analysis analytics, performance on large environments, automation, and proactive guidance."
"The tool's deployment can be cumbersome."
"Microsoft should extend support for additional platforms."
"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?"
"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."
"Its client interface should be more accessible, and the notifications should be more customizable from the console. It should be more user friendly and have some kind of customized notifications so that we can use it on the client side. These are the reasons why we restricted its use only for the server environment and didn't use it on the client side."
"It needs dashboards."
"The infrastructure itself is stable, but the agent has a lot of problems."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Its price is fair. It's a normal price. It isn't too expensive or too cheap."
"It is expensive. The cost depends on the license that we choose."
"No one can compete with Microsoft when it comes to price, and the features it is offering."
"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"The price for Intune is fair."
"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."
"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."
"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."
"There is not a license needed to use the solution."
"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."
"Along with buying a license for MECM, we also have to buy a service called CMG (Cloud Management Gateway) which is a virtual machine in the cloud with which you can link your MECM to the Azure tenant so as to manage teleworkers."
"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."
"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."
"It comes free with the Microsoft account. We have a yearly agreement, and all products are covered under it."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
30%
Construction Company
9%
Government
9%
Transportation Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise69
No data available
 

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 ...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCCM?
The setup cost is considered sufficient. It is not significant enough for us to consider a change at the moment.
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Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,753 professionals have used our research since 2012.