AWS CloudFormation vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Progress Software are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8, while Progress Software is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 4.8% mindshare in CM, compared to Progress Software’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between AWS CloudFormation and WhatsUp Gold based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Configuration Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS CloudFormation vs. WhatsUp Gold Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS CloudFormation vs. WhatsUp Gold

June 2026

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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 Intune

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.9%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS CloudFormation is 4.8%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.7%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune	4.9%
AWS CloudFormation	4.8%
WhatsUp Gold	1.7%
Other	88.6%

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

OluwashileAdeniyi

Senior Infrastructure Security Engineer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees

Centralized endpoint security has improved and supports hybrid work and BYOD policies

Regarding what I dislike about Microsoft Intune and its downsides, I would say that more Mac controls are needed because we have limited Mac and Linux control. When comparing controls and policies between Windows, Mac, and Linux, Windows has almost everything you can think of, while Mac and Linux have limited types of control. You cannot implement certain things on Mac and Linux that you can on Windows. The limited controls are a major issue. Additionally, if Microsoft could find a way to embed servers into Microsoft Intune, that would be beneficial. Microsoft Intune is not really designed for servers or Windows servers. It is more tailored towards Windows 11 and Windows 10 operating systems. Windows servers are not fully supported. Enterprise organizations usually have both servers and endpoints, which are users' workstations. For servers, most people look for other solutions such as SCCM, which is Configuration Manager. However, SCCM is what Microsoft Intune is trying to replace. Both SCCM and Microsoft Intune belong to Microsoft. Microsoft is trying to transition organizations into Microsoft Intune, the native cloud solution. However, because this update is still in process, servers are not fully compatible with Microsoft Intune and cannot be managed by it. The current policy that has emerged from issues with clients is what they call co-management, which is relatively new, and I do not know if adoption is significant. Many legacy or older customers who have been using these products for decades still have SCCM. When it is time for them to manage their Windows devices, they use what is called cloud attach. Cloud attach is a term whereby your SCCM is connected to your Microsoft Intune. Most people do not know about it, but I have deployed it for several organizations. Cloud attach and co-management work together so that your device is in SCCM, but some policies are pushed from Microsoft Intune. It is like two different solutions working hand in hand. That is what they call co-management. Microsoft Intune does not bring all of your endpoint and security management tools into one place, which is the goal and how it should be. However, as I mentioned, servers are not included. If we talk about end users, Microsoft Intune does bring all your devices together. In a typical enterprise environment, you have end users with workstations, laptops, company-issued phones, and bring your own devices. You can create policies for all of these. However, for the backend, your servers do not have much coverage. Servers are not really covered by Microsoft Intune in that way.

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Sridivya Chillappa

application security engineer at Hyperspace IT India

Automation and consistency in infrastructure deployment provide a robust foundation

When it comes to the challenges with AWS CloudFormation, I faced a few challenges. One challenge is associated with large infrastructures; the template can become very long and hard to manage. Sometimes, the error messages during stack creation or update can be very hard to troubleshoot. Managing the correct order of resource creation and some updates can be tricky, especially with interdependent resources. If a stack update fails halfway and rolls back, it sometimes leaves the resources in an inconsistent state. AWS imposes a limit on stack size and the number of resources per stack, which can be quite constrained for large deployments. Despite all this, once we have experience, we can overcome these challenges very easily. Stack creation or updates can be slower than expected, especially with large and complex resources, and certain resource types or dependencies can add to the wait time. Nevertheless, AWS offers a way to optimize performance by breaking large templates into nested stacks. It's very capable, but there is room for improvement in speed.

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Erik Cheng

Technical Manager at Quan Hung Gourmet

Efficient monitoring with detailed customization, yet complexity remains

The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless. I have used the automated device discovery with this topology feature. The interactive map feature helps me manage the topology because sometimes we cannot draw the topology correctly, so we need to manually edit the connections. The alerting system is very tunable and customizable, but it's a little complicated to use. Many customers cannot manage it by themselves and need support from us, the provider. We always use the dashboards in the SOC, where we constantly display a dashboard or multiple dashboards. This allows us to know immediately if the connection or bandwidth is full or if the connection is broken.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is that we don't need to worry about downtime. We don't need to worry about the network connections of our office or the virtual private network. Everything is being done through the internet. Using Intune Autopilot, we can configure and deploy everything to the devices."

"I like how Intune deploys the policies and makes them customizable. You can deploy it through Intune and forget about it."

"I have seen a return on investment right from the start of the tool's usage."

"One valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is the enrollment process, which is user-based, making it easier to manage compared to AirWatch."

"The solution is easy to use and it has good performance."

"Microsoft Intune brings all endpoint and security management tools into one place, and for app discovery, deployment, and automatic updating, it's reliable."

"One of our clients migrated the model workplace based on Intune, achieving a 78 percent cost reduction, which is quite a lot."

"We handle the distribution software, collect metrics for app usage, and create policies to make the device compliant for Microsoft Intune."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The time to market is really good, I would say, because you can quickly set up a blueprint and deploy it, and the initial setup is simple."

"The integration of the solution is very good."

"CloudFormation drives most of our AWS configuration; it is the configuration engine for our whole footprint, and literally everything that we configure in AWS is configured in CloudFormation."

"Using AWS CloudFormation has given us the ability to automate and optimize our infrastructure, reducing manual efforts and improving efficiency, particularly in cost optimization and management of our cloud resources."

"If you want to deploy thousands of components - not only virtual machines, but, also, users, roles and services, in any of the AWS regions — it's not a problem."

"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation include the import and export functionality, and pseudo parameters, which reduce our coding efforts by managing parameterization at the account level."

"CloudFormation has helped automate the infrastructure in AWS, making the process more efficient."

"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation are all the resources documentation is located in one location, simple resource reverting, and ease of use of the full package for new users."

More AWS CloudFormation pros

"This product has aided us in procurement and is overall a well-priced solution."

"The solution effectively monitors network devices and servers."

"The documentation is very good."

"NetFlow monitoring, real-time monitoring, and surveys have been the most valuable features for our business."

"The most important features of WhatsUp Gold are the server health and uptime it provides. Additionally, WhatsUp Gold is a Windows-based solution which is a benefit."

"There is a flow monitor option, so we can trace the source IP, the destination IP, and top talker feature in this."

"We primarily use the solution to check the state of the network, monitoring thousands of devices and all of the internal network, and it is the first tool we use to see the state of the network for real-time monitoring."

"It is stable."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"The reporting and troubleshooting experience for Microsoft Intune could be more detailed and easier to navigate, especially when diagnosing policy sync or device compliance issues across large environments."

"The mobile management is good for iPhone and iPad, but the Apple Mac management needs improvement. That is probably because Microsoft does not have low-level access to Apple Mac hardware. If you are doing basic things, it is okay, but if you want to image Apple Macs and do things like that, then Jamf is much better."

"An issue we have run into with Microsoft Endpoint Manager is that we cannot patch third-party products like Adobe and Chrome with it."

"Integrating certain group policies can be challenging and may necessitate using on-premises systems to integrate them with Microsoft Intune."

"If you have a reporting-extensive company, for example, then you may need to look for other products."

"Intune's server management could be better. If it could incorporate more features from System Center into Intune's Configuration Manager, it would be beneficial."

"Microsoft Intune is a very strong platform, but there are still some areas where it could improve."

"It could offer more attributes for authentication."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"For improvement, it's crucial that AWS provides options in terms of computing services, DB related services, and machine learning solutions. If I'm not hands-on with a particular service, like machine learning applications, I struggle to write the CloudFormation code."

"What could be improved in AWS CloudFormation is its user interface, in terms of graphical design, I prefer WYSIWYG."

"I prefer Terraform over AWS CloudFormation because AWS CloudFormation is specific to just AWS. But if I want to use a multi-cloud or hybrid setup, then Terraform works better. It uses a simple language, HCL. So, if you learn HCL, you can manage your infrastructures across different cloud providers. You don't need to be specific to one cloud provider."

"The cost of licensing could be reduced."

"There are some limitations with JSON, as the code is written in JSON, which doesn't support commands, looping, or conditionals. This can make the code difficult to read and share across teams. Moreover, the tool only supports AWS."

"If Amazon could extend CloudFormation to other cloud platforms, that would be good. Currently, it is only limited to AWS."

"Provisioning a large environment or a large number of services takes a bit more time than with Terraform."

"The code we write in AWS CloudFormation is pretty big compared to Terraform. We need to have more modules in the solution. A library should also be there where we can save code lines. A dashboard feature would be good for designers."

More AWS CloudFormation cons

"The interface needs some work."

"We can never achieve or get a good picture of the network topology."

"This product should add other options for monitoring. It does not currently meet the broader needs of the banking industry in the version we have deployed."

"I would like to see them do an enhancement to the application monitoring. A lot of other products do better application monitoring so they should do some improvements to the application monitoring."

"One of the biggest things that made us start to look at another product is we're not able to have an end to end monitoring from a user perspective throughout the system and back to the user. All the monitoring is from inside out, we need something that also can give us from outside in."

"The new release cadence needs to be improved. It takes a while for them to add new features and functionality. There should be a quicker turnaround with new versions."

"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."

"Users want SMS available via Whatsapp Gold. They don't want to go through third party SMS servers. The solution should work to make this possible."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"For organizations that are a Microsoft shop, the pricing is compelling."

"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."

"Licensing depends on how you are providing support to your enterprise, whether it's device-based or user-based."

"It is reasonable for the features it has."

"I rate Intune five out of 10 for pricing. It's expensive."

"It's a part of Microsoft 365 and E5 licenses. Microsoft's strategy of making every feature in Microsoft Intune paid needs optimization. Remote control is one of the basic features, not a luxury feature, yet we must pay for it. I"

"Microsoft Intune's costliness stems from licensing fees and the overhead associated with its management, user experience, and device remediation."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"There's no cost for launching any template using CloudFormation."

"The solution's cost is normal, neither cheap nor expensive."

"If you compared serverless and container-based, serverless is less expensive. If you use certain instances the price can increase and become too expensive."

"In general, pricing within AWS is relatively affordable."

"The tool's pricing depends on the page model."

"The price of the solution is good because it is scalable."

"The product is free."

"This solution is free to use and does not require a license."

More AWS CloudFormation pricing and cost advice

"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."

"This is a well priced solution."

"Pricing is reasonable compared to other products."

"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	192
Midsize Enterprise	62
Large Enterprise	185

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

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 ...

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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...

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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 ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudFormation?

AWS CloudFormation is free. However, there may be unexpected costs if developers deploy services incorrectly without ...

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What needs improvement with AWS CloudFormation?

When it comes to the challenges with AWS CloudFormation, I faced a few challenges. One challenge is associated with l...

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What is your primary use case for AWS CloudFormation?

I have experience with AWS CloudFormation. I use it to automate the provisioning of the entire environment by spinnin...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?

Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information fir...

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What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?

It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complic...

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What is your primary use case for WhatsUp Gold?

My use case for WhatsUp Gold includes all device availability checks, bandwidth usage, CPU, and memory usage, as well...

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Comparisons

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Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 4% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

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HashiCorp Terraform vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 8% of the time

Chef vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 7% of the time

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LibreNMS vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

SCOM vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs WhatsUp Gold

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

June 2026

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Buyer's Guide

AWS CloudFormation

June 2026

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Buyer's Guide

WhatsUp Gold

May 2026

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

CloudFormation

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service designed for device management, security, and compliance. It supports automation and facilitates endpoint management for Windows, iOS, and Android devices, ensuring data protection and efficient policy enforcement.

Microsoft Intune offers seamless integration with tools like Windows Autopilot to automate device setup and deployment. Integrated with Azure Active Directory, it enhances policy management while providing robust reporting and analytics tools for compliance tracking. Despite its intuitive interface aimed at simplifying navigation and device security management, there are challenges such as compatibility issues with Linux and Mac, limited policy support for Android, and demands for better third-party integration. It's widely used for both corporate-owned devices and BYOD scenarios in dynamic IT environments.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Windows Autopilot: Automates device setup for rapid deployment.
Azure Active Directory Integration: Enhances user policy management.
Reporting and Analytics: Improves compliance visibility.
Mobile Application Management: Ensures app security without compromising personal data.
Cloud-Based Management: Allows management from any location.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Time Efficiency: Automation reduces time in policy enforcement and configuration updates.
Enhanced Security: Ensures data protection across corporate-owned and BYOD devices.
Improved Compliance: Advanced reporting tools enhance compliance visibility.
Flexible Management: Cloud-based nature supports management from any location.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure data protection and compliance with regulatory standards. Manufacturing sectors utilize Intune for managing a distributed workforce across global locations, while educational institutions employ it to secure and manage devices in learning environments supporting both students and faculty.

Microsoft

AWS CloudFormation provides scalable automation for infrastructure management using infrastructure as code principles while supporting JSON/YAML templates, empowering teams to efficiently manage resources across multiple AWS regions.

Designed to enhance efficiency, AWS CloudFormation simplifies resource management through automation, versioning, and template creation. Its integration within AWS accelerates setup and management of infrastructure by facilitating modular design and parameter management. DevOps teams benefit from these capabilities, easing deployment across complex environments. Despite its strengths, it could improve by enhancing speed, better error handling, user interface improvements, documentation, and integrating new AWS services while addressing licensing costs. Multi-cloud compatibility remains absent, which has some opting for alternatives like Terraform for broader deployment scenarios.

What are the key features of AWS CloudFormation?

Infrastructure as Code: Streamlines deployment using descriptive formats.
Nested Stacks: Allows modular and organized deployment.
Versioning: Facilitates tracking changes and rollback implementation.
Scalability: Supports large-scale operations effectively.
Template Creation: Ensures consistent and repeatable environment setups.
YAML/JSON Support: Simplifies code management across regions.

What benefits or ROI can users expect?

Enhanced Deployment Reliability: Minimizes errors through change tracking and rollbacks.
Automation Efficiency: Reduces manual interventions and speeds setup.
Resource Management Across Regions: Simplifies global deployment processes.
Cost Optimization: Efficient infrastructure usage cuts operational costs.

In industries like finance and healthcare, AWS CloudFormation automates infrastructure deployment, managing resources such as VPCs and EC2 efficiently. DevOps teams use it to ensure consistency through templates, facilitating quick, reliable service deployments while reducing manual error risks and enhancing scalability.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

WhatsUp Gold stands out with its comprehensive network monitoring, dynamic mapping, and real-time alerts, offering essential tools for managing extensive IT infrastructures.

WhatsUp Gold provides robust capabilities in network visibility through dynamic mapping and NetFlow analysis. The platform's interactive topology aids in pinpointing issues effectively. Auto-discovery ensures complete network device tracking. While offering an intuitive interface and integration with Cisco ServiceNow, users find server performance monitoring useful for incident handling. However, improvements are anticipated in application monitoring and Active Directory integration. The pricing model and customization options leave room for enhancement. Despite these, users benefit from its integrated dashboards for immediate device health checks and network updates, making it beneficial for large-scale infrastructure management.

What features does WhatsUp Gold offer?

Network Monitoring: Provides continuous oversight of network components
Dynamic Mapping: Offers visual representation of network topology
NetFlow Analysis: Delivers insights into bandwidth utilization
Threshold Alerts: Notifies users upon reaching set performance thresholds
Auto-Discovery: Detects devices automatically for complete network coverage

What benefits should users expect from reviews?

Comprehensive Visibility: Enhanced understanding of network elements
Real-Time Monitoring: Immediate insights into network and device status
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive solution suitable for expansive networks
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the management of complex networks

Organizations in sectors like telecommunications, education, and healthcare utilize WhatsUp Gold for their network monitoring needs. Telecom companies track switches and routers, educational institutions manage bandwidth usage, and healthcare facilities monitor device availability to ensure seamless operations.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Nextdoor, Coinbase, Expedia

Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof

Buyer's Guide

AWS CloudFormation vs. WhatsUp Gold

June 2026

Free Report: AWS CloudFormation vs. WhatsUp Gold

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