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AWS Config vs Chef 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
6.7
Number of Reviews
355
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS Config
Ranking in Configuration Management
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (13th), Release Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 5.4%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Config is 2.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 3.5%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune5.4%
Chef3.5%
AWS Config2.1%
Other89.0%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Varun Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Collaboration Support Engineer at a retailer with 11-50 employees
Centralized device management has transformed security and streamlined remote provisioning
One area where Microsoft Intune can improve is the user interface. Sometimes the portal feels a bit complex and not very intuitive, especially for new users, and it can take time to find specific settings. Another point is troubleshooting. While logs are available, the diagnostic policies and sync issues can still be time-consuming and not very straightforward. I also feel that reporting could be more detailed and customizable. The built-in reports are helpful, but for deeper insights, I often need to rely on additional tools. Overall, it is a strong solution, but improving usability and troubleshooting experience would make it even better. While Microsoft Intune works very well within the Microsoft ecosystem, the integration of some third-party tools could be smoother and require less customization. Support is another area that could improve, as sometimes response times can be slow, and resolving complex issues may take longer than expected. In terms of features, I think more advanced automation and built-in remediation options would be helpful since common issues can be fixed automatically without manual intervention.
Dineshkumar Thulasiraman - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at cloudifyops
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.
Walter Ochieng Odhiambo - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer and Tester at Safaricom
Automation has transformed daily infrastructure work and now frees teams to focus on new challenges
One thing that Chef needs to improve on is making it available in as many languages as possible. There should be a focus on how to make it understandable, not just to infrastructure people, but also to those working in monitoring. How can we ensure that it is part of their daily input? That is something that still has a small missing link. We are almost there, but it can help us achieve outcomes in the future in terms of objectives, not just workflows and visibility. How can we make real-time interactive dashboards more available? Look at what kind of tools can be integrated with them, not just working with the ones like Chef Kitchen and Habitat, but trying to make it even more flexible than what we have right now. On support, I think there should be more focus on how we can achieve AI automations in answering questions for beginners and addressing deep concerns without general manual management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is good."
"The stability of Microsoft Intune is good."
"Intune's most valuable features are its device management capabilities, particularly its centralized integration with other Microsoft stack components."
"The solution is scalable, and we currently have tens of thousands of users within our organization using the solution."
"Intune simplifies compliance. The ability to manage software updates and policies on endpoints has helped us meet contract requirements."
"Microsoft Intune is a core product, and it's very stable"
"The best features in Microsoft Intune include secure authentication, which I find very favorable, and the fact that we can remotely push applications."
"The most valuable feature is probably mobile device management. Small businesses are coming under greater scrutiny and requirements for compliance as time goes on. We don't have to worry about a VPN because we can manage these devices, control company data, and lock users out. If needed, we can remotely wipe devices and deadman-switch them."
"AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources."
"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."
"The tracking, history logs, and security alert features are valuable because they are critical features that assist us."
"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."
"One thing that we've been able to do is a tiered permission model, allowing developers and their managers to perform their own operations in lower environments. This means a manager can go in and make changes to a whole environment, whereas a developer with less access may only be able to change individual components or be able to upgrade the version for software that they have control over."
"I would rate this solution a nine because it's simple, easy to use, more versatile, and most importantly, it can handle the hundred thousand servers at the same time very easily and almost in no time."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"The scalability of the product is quite nice; we have deployed it across six to seven organizations."
"Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed."
"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."
"If you're handy enough with DSL and you can present your own front-facing interface to your developers, then you can actually have a lot more granular control with Chef in operations over what developers can perform and what they can't."
"My clients are happy, which is the most important thing."
 

Cons

"From a new user's perspective, it may be a little overwhelming because there are quite a few things to look at in the console, however, once you are sort of acclimated and are familiar with your core functions, it's fairly simple and straightforward."
"There are challenges with Intune, specifically in reporting. Many third-party companies offer single-pane-of-glass reporting that shows you what your update environment looks like, how your patch is doing, application status, etc., but Intune's reporting is not intuitive. You can connect to Azure, monitoring, and the workbooks, but it's not streamlined."
"We need the capabilities of the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) to be enhanced through Intune instead of Azure."
"The MacBook management could be better."
"They could also make it easier to use because there are some other products that may be easier to use in terms of the look and feel of the dashboard."
"Cost is the biggest factor for us right now. Microsoft Intune and AD P1 together in a bundle is a good thing to have, but it is very costly compared to other products in the market. Otherwise, Microsoft Intune is the best."
"To make it a perfect ten, it would be helpful if there was a better way to troubleshoot user issues, as I've had a few users with corrupt files before and had to redeploy it without knowing the root cause."
"Microsoft Intune fails a lot when it comes to device compliance."
"There is room for improvement in built-in tools, they are not up to the mark."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."
"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."
"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 time that it takes in terms of integration. Cloud integration is comparatively easy, but when it comes to two-link based integrations - like trying to integrate it with any monitoring tools, or maybe some other ticketing tools - it takes longer. That is because most of the out-of-the-box integration of the APIs needs some revisiting."
"Chef has a very steep learning curve, especially for beginners."
"Other things would be the need to use Cinc if you want to use the open-source version because Progress Software's policy on copyright is confusing for new users and it puts a barrier in the way to adoption because many small, medium enterprises, startups, and non-profits who might want to use Chef would find the whole Cinc versus Chef situation confusing and the fact that there is not an easy path to install Chef and then go to a paid version without having to change from Cinc to Chef or Chef to Cinc."
"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."
"There appears to be no effort to fix the command line utility functionality, which is definitely broken, provides a false positive for a result when you perform the operation, and doesn't work."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Intune comes with the licensing that is common for large organizations. However, Microsoft has recently released many add-ons that are very expensive, especially for large organizations or corporations."
"The price could be better."
"Any bundle package, such as Security E3, covers multiple things, such as AAP, BitLocker, etc. If you go for them individually, they would be more expensive. Bundling makes the price more attractive and competitive."
"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."
"It's affordable. It's cheaper if you have an Office 365, E5, or E3 subscription because everything is there."
"Microsoft Intune has a user-based subscription model. You can go for a monthly or a yearly payment."
"Microsoft Intune is a cost effective choice. It is less expensive than other products on the market."
"The product is offered as part of a Microsoft standard bundle. The pricing can be competitive to Airwatch, and Maas360."
"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."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market."
"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."
"When we're rolling out a new server, we're not using the AWS Marketplace AMI, we're using our own AMI, but we are paying them a licensing fee."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up."
"The price per node is a little weird. It doesn't scale along with your organization. If you're truly utilizing Chef to its fullest, then the number of nodes which are being utilized in any particular day might scale or change based on your Auto Scaling groups. How do you keep track of that or audit it? Then, how do you appropriately license it? It's difficult."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business149
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise177
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise19
 

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 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 advice do you have for others considering AWS Config?
AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources. AWS ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we sidestepped it by using Cinc because none of the fun...
What needs improvement with Chef?
I would add that Ruby is a domain-specific language in the Chef dialect, which is a learning curve, but so is Terrafo...
What is your primary use case for Chef?
My main use case for Chef is configuration and deployments. We receive blank servers and use Chef to build predefined...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Flatiron, Prezi, iZettle, British Gas, Burt, Autodesk, FanDuel
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Config vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.