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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs vCenter Configuration Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

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
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
238
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Configuration Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (3rd), Patch Management (1st)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.1%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 13.2%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Q&A Highlights

Ariel Lindenfeld - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 26, 2015
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
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.
Nikhil Nikhil - PeerSpot reviewer
Compliance management has improved efficiency but licensing changes pose challenges
I am not using any advanced features or AI. I am employing a basic VMware vCenter setup for my infrastructure. Scalability has no major limitations, and the solution is efficient. Overall, it's satisfactory. I would rate the vCenter experience as seven out of ten due to concerns regarding license, pricing, and AI features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's really easy to access."
"I like the tool's integration with Apple. Anyone who creates an ID in Intune will get an Apple ID."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is patching-related capabilities."
"Our main use is Intune's management of mobile devices, like Android or iPhone devices. The application performs quite well for both types. We successfully managed almost 3,000 endpoints."
"We can implement a MAM policy in this Intune and protect the device through mobile application development without touching it. The interface is easy to use and understand."
"The solution is scalable. We currently have tens of thousands of users within our organization using the solution."
"Stable product that's easy to set up compared to other MDM products."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Intune include providing visibility into devices and the ability to manage them remotely."
"Microsoft has done a good job with authentication solutions, such as single sign-on, or open authentication."
"It lets you know what your infrastructure is like and what state you are in."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the software deployment. Additionally, Microsoft integrates most of the other solutions well with one another."
"The product is useful for patch management."
"What's valuable is the basic management of the systems, being able to control who can access the systems."
"The cloud account management is a valuable feature."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward."
"vCenter has some good user experience, and the initial setup is straightforward."
"I would rate the scalability quite good. You can extend your environment effectively with appropriate investment."
"vCenter Configuration Manager is a stable solution that is very easy to manage and deploy."
"I particularly appreciate the reporting capabilities, as they allow for in-depth analysis of logs and the ability to interpret alerts effectively, enabling informed responses."
"My primary use case is for migration"
"The most valuable features of this solution are the ability to manage all of our environments allowing us to have better functionality and high availability."
"My experience managing virtual environments using vCenter Configuration Manager has been quite smooth. Over time, I've observed that there's been a significant local competency built around the product, especially in India, where ESXi and VMware dominate the market. It's evident that vCenter Configuration Center is the preferred management tool in this context, and it's relatively easy to find expertise in the market."
"Reliable, stable and scalable."
 

Cons

"China blocks Google and Google Play Store, which makes installation challenging. Microsoft Intune is a company software, which has to be installed to the app portal or Microsoft Software Center."
"The security features should be improved."
"Although Intune is from the same provider, its integration with other Microsoft products, like Microsoft Defender or Microsoft Purview, could be improved."
"There are a lot of small use cases where we realized that some technical solution was missing in Microsoft in comparison to other products. For example, it lacks something similar to sensing or location-based rules and configurations."
"Once it's configured it is unobtrusive, but it does take some hands-on to configure and deploy it properly."
"The add-ons must be integrated into the solution."
"I rate Microsoft customer service six out of 10. While some technicians go above and beyond, there is inconsistency, and connecting with the most helpful representatives is occasionally challenging."
"We've faced significant pushback with Copilot as our clients aren't seeing a favorable cost-benefit analysis."
"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."
"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could improve the integration."
"SCCM does not scale well, which is one of the reasons we are not going to continue to use it."
"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."
"The analysis is something that can be integrated. Their report analysis can be improved a little bit due to the fact that most of the time complaints policies are saved by the admins. It's something that we need to look into and search for."
"They need to improve the support for the Mac operating system."
"Regarding this, I'd like to mention the agent situation. When the agent on an end-user device is not functioning correctly, it can be quite problematic. It would be highly beneficial if there were a self-healing mechanism in place. Essentially, if the agent becomes corrupted or encounters issues, it should be able to rectify itself autonomously. This is particularly critical because, in order to utilize a tool like MECM (assuming you're referring to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager), we need to deploy agents, known as AsMs, on all the devices we use, such as Windows 10 or Windows Server. Sometimes, when we deploy configurations or updates, they don't apply properly due to agent issues. This issue has been present since we began using MECM around 23 years ago. Unfortunately, there is currently no built-in mechanism for the agent to detect its own problems and initiate self-repair. Microsoft doesn’t have any feature to scan vulnerabilities and hence, they could include those."
"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."
"The cost of this solution should be improved."
"I would like there to be support for this solution in Iran."
"I think the logging side should be improved because it's pretty difficult to keep up to date VMware and with vCenter."
"Regarding the licensing part, previously I was able to acquire the license with an eight-core configuration. Now it requires a 16-core setup, which is difficult for customers who have fewer connections to the servers."
"The solution's pricing is very high and could be improved."
"The solution could be more integrated with the Microsoft environment."
"It can take a long time for the first information to become available. On the other hand, that's normal. It has to collect a lot of information before it can predict future needs. But it would be nice if there was some kind of base level to get started."
"The pricing and security could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune has been incorporated into our Microsoft E5 licenses."
"Intune's pricing is reasonable considering its benefits and the high costs it helps avoid."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"For organizations that are a Microsoft shop, the pricing is compelling."
"In terms of the product price and licensing costs, my company finds the product to be reasonably priced."
"It's affordable. It's cheaper if you have an Office 365, E5, or E3 subscription because everything is there."
"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."
"Intune is included in the Microsoft 365 licensing package that we have."
"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."
"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."
"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive."
"We have to pay for a license."
"SCCM comes with its own version of SQL Server. If you use that SQL Server with SCCM and don't use it for another applications than you get an SQL Server for free."
"The product is highly-priced."
"It is on a yearly basis."
"It's a large application. It consumes a lot of resources. Sometimes the price is too high for our customers. If they buy it directly from VMware, its hard to convince the customer that we will bring down the total cost of ownership, in the end."
"While the pricing is reasonable for large corporations, it presents a substantial financial challenge for medium-sized businesses."
"vCenter's pricing is reasonable, but nowadays, they are drastically increasing their prices, which is pathetic."
"It is an expensive product."
"Price-wise, the product is an affordable one. The additional expenses, apart from the licensing costs of the solution, are attached to the support a user wants to receive from vCenter Configuration Manager's end."
"Their licensing costs are high. But I think for the scale that we are using, it's suitable. If you use it on a larger scale with many servers, you have to pay a lot of money for them. I think it's suitable for organizations that don't need expert people that want more money each year or each month because it's a straightforward solution. We prefer to pay for these products that are integrated and straightforward."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 ...
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 do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...
What do you like most about vCenter Configuration Manager?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Configuration Manager?
Nowadays, it is a bit expensive. It's costly, primarily due to the licensing aspect.
What needs improvement with vCenter Configuration Manager?
Regarding the licensing part, previously I was able to acquire the license with an eight-core configuration. Now it r...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
vCM
 

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
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.