Microsoft Configuration Manager vs VMware Cloud Director comparison

The compared Microsoft and VMware solutions aren't in the same category. Microsoft is ranked #4 in SM , with an average rating of 8.1, and holds a 6.6% mindshare in the category. VMware is ranked #5 in CM , with an average rating of 7.8, and holds a 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Read 81 Microsoft Configuration Manager reviews

2,467 Views
1,942 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

VMware Cloud Director

Read 68 VMware Cloud Director reviews

2,565 Views
1,958 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Microsoft Configuration Man...

VMware Cloud Director

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Configuration Manager and VMware Cloud Director based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, ServiceNow, Oracle and others in Server Monitoring.

To learn more, read our detailed Server Monitoring Report (Updated: February 2025).

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Server Monitoring

February 2025

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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 Configuration Man...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (4th), Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (1st)

VMware Cloud Director

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (5th)

Mindshare comparison

Microsoft Configuration Manager and VMware Cloud Director aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Microsoft Configuration Manager is designed for Server Monitoring and holds a mindshare of 6.6%, down 8.7% compared to last year.
VMware Cloud Director, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud Management, holds 6.9% mindshare, up 6.7% since last year.

Server Monitoring

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

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.

Read full review

NiteshKumar1

Principle consultant at Infosys

Provides crystal clear dashboarding and allows you to manage and monitor your infrastructure

The overall dashboarding is very crystal clear. The ability to switch from one infrastructure to another infrastructure and get into detailed information, whether it is compute, storage network, or whatever. That helps you get a holistic view of the overall infrastructure running in your landscape. This also helps the leadership and management be aware of the right potential investment strategy by looking at the potential utilization. vCloud Director also provides ways and means through which you can make a prediction or a forecast of the infrastructure that would be needed in the future, depending on what you are currently running. That does not take away the fact that we have to be completely aware of our pipeline projects in our schedule so that you can plan your infrastructure requirements accordingly. vCloud Director provides multifold features that have been beneficial to the end users.

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

"What's valuable is the basic management of the systems, being able to control who can access the systems."

"The solution doesn't require any maintenance from our end because it is a cloud-based solution and Microsoft takes care of everything."

"The product is useful for patch management."

"There is a faster time to rollout. If we get a new PC, it can be ready for productivity right away."

"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."

"It is easy to install, and quick to deploy."

"Technical support was helpful and responsive."

"Offers good patching."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

"vCloud Director requires less knowledge to get into in the first place. Therefore, when we bring in new members of staff, we can always give them the customer experience straightaway, and they can pick it up quite easily."

"The initial setup was complex. There's a lot of things you have to factor in, like security, backup, disaster recovery, monitoring, and how to maintain the platform. It's something we still struggle with, but it's getting better."

"They can do any provisioning for the virtual machines. For instance, they will only see those resources if we allocate 10 Ghz database storage. The limitation is due to our setup: we need to ensure customer isolation, as vCloud Director supports multi-tenancy."

"VMware Cloud Director is quite scalable; I would rate it nine out of ten."

"We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center."

"The compatibility with vSAN and NSX is the greatest feature of vCloud. It also has integration with vROps, which is quite nice."

"We consider it intuitive and user-friendly. It offers a variety of functions for the customer to control the networking, virtual workloads, disk snapshots, and all of vSphere's core features."

"The most valuable feature of vCloud Director for me is its user-friendly UI, which is much easier compared to other platforms."

More VMware Cloud Director pros

Cons

"Could do with some cosmetic improvements on the user interface."

"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."

"The time the solution takes for updating systems could be quicker. For example, the system information status is not updating as it should. Additionally, the database synchronization querying is slow and could be improved."

"The cost of the product can be improved."

"The main room for improvement is the on-screen display. I think it would be good if some improvements were made."

"Initial setup was complex. There's a lot that goes into it."

"Some of the capabilities aren't fully developed yet. It's an ongoing work in progress. I think they are making some steps in the right direction as far as managing workstations centrally, like Intune."

"They need to improve the support for the Mac operating system."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"We have had very minor problems with it when we've been upgrading."

"We use vCloud Director along with Terraform, and it's difficult to make them work together. It takes a long time to deploy virtual machines with Terraform in vCloud Director. For example, it can take about one or two hours to create 10 machines. It takes up a lot of our DevOps' and engineers' time in comparison to that with other solutions. This is an area that they should work on and improve."

"vCloud Director's pricing is high. Its integration with open-source technologies is limited."

"There didn't seem to be any type of integrated path on how to do the initial setup. There seemed to be different bits of paperwork or instructions available from various places. We always had to go looking for what to do next."

"I would like to see mode accessory recovery and integration with SD-WAN."

"I had issues with the support, but I also learned from the support. There is room for improvement in the response time."

"vRealize Orchestrator is an expensive tool."

"Initially, the setup was complex."

More VMware Cloud Director cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."

"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 price model is different for every client."

"Overall, I think it's fine. It's pretty much in-line because there are ways to offset it with the Office 365 licensing."

"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."

"I rate the price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten."

"We have to pay for a license."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage."

"This is an expensive solution."

"It's a costly product. The licenses may not be costly, but with every new development in their product, we need to purchase deployment services, and the deployment services are quite costly."

"I believe the pricing is reasonable."

"It is better than other solutions out there when it comes to cost."

"It runs our company in the millions of rand every month."

"If ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as a four out of ten."

"The license could be less expensive and we are on a perpetual license."

More VMware Cloud Director pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Would you change anything about VMware vCloud Director if you could?

VMware vCloud Director works very well and there are not many things that I would like to see changed. However, a single thing comes to mind when I think of improvements and that is integration. In...

See all answers

What is the biggest improvement you saw at your company after you started using VMware vCloud Director?

For my company, VMware vCloud Director noticeably increased operational efficiency. When I started working here a few years ago, my organization was using another cloud management tool. We switched...

See all answers

Is vCloud Director convenient for building applications?

When it comes to building applications, vCloud Director offers you various methods to create cloud-ready ones. For example: Your DevOps team is supported through Infrastructure as Code services w...

See all answers

Comparisons

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 6% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 25% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 22% of the time

OpenNebula vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 7% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware Cloud Director Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

March 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Cloud Director

March 2025

Download VMware Cloud Director product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )

vCloud Director

Overview

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

VMware Cloud Director, also known as vCloud Director, is a cloud management tool that offers secure, flexible, and efficient cloud resources to thousands of enterprises and IT teams across the world. The solution serves as one of the leading cloud service-delivery platforms for businesses that want to manage and operate their services effectively. By deploying this solution, companies can benefit from virtualized networking, computing, security, and storage. These benefits can be received in a timely manner, as the infrastructure of the product is operationally ready within minutes and clients do not need to install and configure physical infrastructure.

One of the biggest advantages of vCloud Director is that it allows users to build cloud-ready applications. In several ways, it facilitates the process for developers, including:

Open to DevOps: The product addresses the needs of DevOps teams by providing Infrastructure as Code services with vCD Terraform Provider. This allows developers to deliver infrastructure directly from code. Additionally, it provides capabilities from Python and vCD API as well as Object Storage API and App Launchpad APIs.
Customization: This solution is very customizable and extensible for cloud providers to deliver their own branding, themes, and services to their clients.
Dev-ready cloud: vCloud Director offers support for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid for vSphere and multicloud with a plugin for container service extension. Through these, native K8s Clusters or Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Clusters can be delivered and managed through a user interface (UI) and application programming interface (API).

vCloud Director Features

This VMware product has various features through which users can virtualize their data and benefit from quality management solutions. Among the popular capabilities of vCloud Director are:

Elastic secure virtual data centers: This vCloud Director feature provides tenants with securely isolated virtual resources, fine-grained control of their public cloud services, and independent role-based authentication.
Multi-site management: This feature allows companies to stretch data centers across sites and geographies as well as connect to existing dedicated vCenters for access and management or on-broad into VMware vCloud Director.
ISV ecosystem: This feature integrates leading cloud service vendors into the product using an open extensibility framework. Some of the partners of vCloud Director include Dell Data Protection, Veeam, Cloudian, AWS S3, and Dell ECS.
DRaaS workload protection: This feature allows users to deliver self-service tiered disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) on-premises to cloud and cloud to cloud.
Cloud migration: Part of this feature is the plugin VMware Cloud Director Availability, which enables simple migration to cloud, offering self-service cold or warm migration to users' vCloud Director clouds.
Operational visibility and insights: The product includes an accessible dashboard and a single pane of glass to provide centralized multi-tenant cloud management views.
Cloud-native applications and development: This feature makes the platform suitable for developers to sandbox or deploy apps as it natively supports Tanzu Basic, native K8s, and PKS.
Automation: Through various tools and deep integration, the solution allows users to automate complex infrastructure-as-code and tile UI-driven workflows. This allows them to deploy X-as-a-Service and maintain full access control and visibility at the same time.
Application Platform as a Service: This feature enables users to deliver their own catalog-based applications or VMware Cloud Marketplace-certified third-party cloud applications through the plugin App Launchpad VMware Cloud Director.
GPU as a Service: Utilizing Nvidia AI Enterprise, this feature provides support for GPU as a Service and delivers multi-tenant GPU services for customers who require high-performance compute for GPU-specific applications.
Secure cloud: The solution supports multiple security-centric features to deliver an enterprise-class cloud service, including NSX-T distributed firewalling, workload encryption, and integrated disaster recovery replication.

vCloud Director Benefits

VMware vCloud Director offers various benefits to its users. Some of these include:

The solution provides a highly efficient self-service model which consists of a virtual data center compute, network, storage, and security.
VMware vCloud Director offers its users multi-tenancy infrastructure with deep automation which facilitates their daily tasks.
The product is cost-efficient, as it is service-ready on its very first day and offers a high revenue from services.
Businesses can deliver services to their clients in a timely manner through this product, benefitting from its natively integrated solutions.
VMware vCloud Director provides users with high flexibility, as it allows businesses to stretch networks across virtual data centers globally.
The solution provides load-balancing capabilities, which facilitate the creation of new hybrid applications and digital transformation initiatives.

Reviews from Real Users

Ajit Y., a cloud architect at a computer software company, likes VMware vCloud Director because it is a stable, truly multitenant software and the go-to tool for infrastructure as a service.

Kashif F., a divisional engineer at National Telecom Corporatio, rates vCloud Director highly because the product can be used for infrastructure provisioning without using a platform service.

VMware

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, ServiceNow, Oracle and others in Server Monitoring. Updated: February 2025.

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