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AWS Config vs AWS Systems Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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
7.2
Number of Reviews
277
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS Config
Ranking in Configuration Management
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Systems Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Config is 2.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Systems Manager is 10.7%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

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.
Dineshkumar Thulasiraman - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for vulnerability scanning and data encryption
AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources. AWS Config integrates with the existing security infrastructure of our company, and it is an easy process that is not at all complicated. AWS Config is a security product. The tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats. The product helps with data encryption. You can have your data on AWS KMS, which helps with data encryption. For areas like SSL/TLS encryption, the tool offers data protection between AWS services and endpoints. As I need to learn the components of the product, I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.
Ambe Frankline - PeerSpot reviewer
Tracks every action on AWS accounts in a centralized way
Setting up AWS Systems Manager to monitor and control other services is easy. You need to link the services you want to observe and track. The time it takes to deploy depends on factors like connectivity, latency, and the complexity of the services. For example, setting up a simple application is faster than setting up a more complicated three-tier or multi-tier system. Using the solution for batch updates varies depending on the number of servers involved and the commands needed. Personally, when I do small projects at home, deploying a few servers doesn't take long. But at work, where we handle larger deployments with hundreds of servers, it's faster due to better connectivity and resources.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The device profiling which uses the official Outlook email enabled us to control the screenshot feature and prevent copying outside of the organization's application."
"Microsoft Intune is far more efficient and faster than MECM."
"The most valuable feature is the UEM capabilities."
"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."
"A valuable feature is user enrollment, where users can enroll their devices in their organizations themselves."
"Intune helps the organization manage access to its internal apps, data, and resources."
"Dynamic groups allow us to set conditions for automatic membership, eliminating the need for user intervention or manual review and ensuring a seamless workflow."
"We like Intune's Autopilot functionality, which enables one-touch deployment. Dynamic grouping is another feature we find valuable working in academia. We have people in buckets based on their roles in the university, such as faculty, staff, alum, or grad. Sometimes, they will fit into multiple places, and dynamic grouping helps with that."
"The tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats."
"AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources."
"Installing the instances and performing upgrades is smooth and clean."
"The solution is scalable and provides over 100 rules."
"The scalability is a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment."
"I use AWS Systems Manager primarily for infrastructure management and automation. One of its key benefits is managing patches and updates for our EC2 instances, including both Windows and Linux workloads. It can perform compliance checks on all managed workloads, identifying which systems aren't compliant or haven't been patched."
"When we do the automation in the cloud, we use the SSM agent. This helps us to test our automation and documents, and monitor the cloud."
"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts."
"The solution's ability to scale is good."
"The solution is user-friendly"
"Has a variety of automation options."
"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts"
"It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, updating a client policy is very difficult. This needs to be improved."
"The most significant challenge is reporting and monitoring. The reporting accuracy for deploying applications and all aspects of Intune needs to be improved."
"The pricing could be improved."
"I find the price for Microsoft Intune too high, which represents an area for improvement in Microsoft's pricing model."
"I would like to see micro VPN. I like the way that some of the other providers have done something similar where, as you open that app on an end-point device, it creates a micro VPN straight into your device, which is quite a nice little feature. Also, Microsoft Intune relies heavily on its fellow products in the suite. It would be nice if Microsoft Intune could stand on its own two feet."
"Lacks the ability to deploy more ways of management, managing devices and processing the policies."
"We would like to see support for Chrome and/or devices for Chromebooks."
"The add-ons must be integrated into the solution."
"The reboot process for AWS instances could be improved. Microsoft Azure does not have this problem, so AWS could consider making their instances more robust. You would not need to reboot your instances frequently to replace the hardware and stuff. They can look for a better approach or mechanism to improve in the future. The concern is that you need to plan for the outage when you reboot an instance. You need to have a maintenance window where you can properly reboot the instance without affecting your application. When Amazon announces that you need to reboot an instance and are not ready, this becomes a problem."
"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"There is room for improvement in built-in tools, they are not up to the mark."
"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."
"Lacks sufficient integrations."
"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."
"One area that could be enhanced is dynamic configuration management. Additionally, improving integration with other AWS services like Lambda and CloudFormation would be beneficial."
"I'd like to see more automation for monitoring and managing things like AWS CloudWatch and AWS Config. It would be a significant improvement if it could automatically handle these tasks and address issues as they arise."
"Ensuring broader OS coverage in patch management could be beneficial for the product."
"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."
"AWS does not have EKS cluster backup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pricing can be improved."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"There are licenses required for this solution. We enable licenses on the devices we need to manage."
"The tool is cheaper than our company's other MDM tools."
"Microsoft Intune is a cost effective choice. It is less expensive than other products on the market."
"Microsoft Intune is expensive."
"I don't have any problem as far as cost is concerned. It is bundled with our license."
"It is a very expensive tool. AWS pricing for Config is not fixed and depends on your organization's size and complexity."
"The solution charges us per hour. There's no license."
"An AWS cloud engineer can bring down the costs."
"The platform provides excellent value for the capabilities it offers when compared to third-party tools for similar tasks."
"As we were doing a government project so the government got the project at a very nominal cost."
"Most of the features are free. I'm not entirely certain, but I believe the pricing is generally very low. Some services that are part of Ops Manager might have associated costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Photography Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 ...
What do you like most about AWS Config?
The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment.
What needs improvement with AWS Config?
Improvements are needed as per customer requirements.
What is your primary use case for AWS Config?
I use the solution in my company to check the vulnerabilities for all the resources, including tools like S3, EC2 Ins...
What do you like most about AWS Systems Manager?
With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Systems Manager?
Every AWS service comes with some associated costs. While using AWS Systems Manager, we continually monitor to optimi...
What needs improvement with AWS Systems Manager?
There isn't anything specific I remember at the moment.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
No data available
Amazon Elastic Container Registry
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Flatiron, Prezi, iZettle, British Gas, Burt, Autodesk, FanDuel
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Config vs. AWS Systems Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.