Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS Config vs AWS Systems Manager comparison

Sponsored
 

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
294
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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.9%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Config is 2.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Systems Manager is 10.4%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license
The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.
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

"I appreciate Intune's autopilot feature, which allows us to enroll devices and install applications to meet corporate requirements seamlessly."
"There are many features in Microsoft Intune. For personal mobile devices, MDM is what I most prefer."
"The solution appears to be stable and scalable."
"We use a local Active Directory, but we weren't able to manage all our on-site systems without a solution like Intune, and we needed to deploy software like VPNs and other things. It's seamless now to to this through Intune."
"The ease of applying security policies to applications we deploy is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"The most valuable features in Microsoft Intune for me are application deployment, Defender deployment, and asset management."
"While I don't think you can ever have full visibility and control, Intune certainly allows us to see the applications being used and tells us if things like Windows patches aren't applied to machines. It does a good job. That visibility makes life a little easier."
"Fortunately, now everything is streamlined into a single, unified platform."
"The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment."
"Installing the instances and performing upgrades is smooth and clean."
"AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources."
"The scalability is a ten out of ten."
"The tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats."
"The solution is scalable and provides over 100 rules."
"The store organizes parameters hierarchically, making it easier to configure and control versions. It also ensures scalability and high availability, automatically scaling to handle increasing workloads and providing reliable access to configuration data across multiple AWS availability zones."
"With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems manually."
"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."
"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts."
"The solution is user-friendly"
"Has a variety of automation options."
"It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the change management option. It tracks every action on my AWS accounts in a centralized way, acting like a control tool for me. This is especially useful when working with Kubernetes and AWS ECS services. Additionally, my colleagues and clients often use the application management tools for configuration, parameters, and installations."
 

Cons

"I find the price for Microsoft Intune too high, which represents an area for improvement in Microsoft's pricing model."
"Reporting needs improvement."
"It would be great to see on-premises mailboxes and for the solution to have geofencing capabilities."
"Due to the abundance of features, there's a lot to organize, which makes managing and setting up the solution challenging. The setup is immense, and it would be good to see improvement in this area."
"Sometimes, customers compare it with AirWatch, but the concept of Intune is different from other solutions. It's an application management app. It gets a bit difficult to explain it to customers, but it's not a product limitation. It takes a presale document or presentation to explain it to customers."
"Intune endpoint analytics can be challenging."
"For autopilot, there should be more granularity on the settings that they offer at this stage."
"The solution's app deployment needs to be improved."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in built-in tools, they are not up to the mark."
"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"Ensuring broader OS coverage in patch management could be beneficial for the product."
"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."
"We formerly used third-party products to analyze the log, give us information, and find bottlenecks. Systems Manager could provide more tools that conduct this analysis, so we don't have to do it ourselves."
"Lacks sufficient integrations."
"The cost is a very important factor to keep in mind because the cost of cloud services, not just AWS cloud, can be substantial if not controlled."
"One area that could be enhanced is dynamic configuration management. Additionally, improving integration with other AWS services like Lambda and CloudFormation would be beneficial."
"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."
"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing needs improvement."
"Our enterprise agreement includes Microsoft Intune at no additional cost."
"Its price is quite okay. I wish they provide certain additional features with the same license."
"Microsoft's licensing is more flexible and adaptive than its competitors."
"Intune's pricing is competitive. For example, the license of Blackberry's Enterprise Mobility Suite was costly, but Intune is affordable. It is included as an additional feature when you buy security enhancements for your organization. For example, let's say I have fifty users in my organization and all of them are using Microsoft cloud services, like Teams, Office 365, and OneDrive."
"The pricing for Intune and the competitor products are all within the same range, there is no true advantage when it comes to cost."
"The product is expensive."
"There is a cost benefit of using Microsoft Intune because of the packaging with other Microsoft products."
"The solution charges us per hour. There's no license."
"It is a very expensive tool. AWS pricing for Config is not fixed and depends on your organization's size and complexity."
"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."
"As we were doing a government project so the government got the project at a very nominal cost."
"The platform provides excellent value for the capabilities it offers when compared to third-party tools for similar tasks."
"An AWS cloud engineer can bring down the costs."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Photography Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Media Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.