Chef vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

Progress Software and Microsoft are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Progress Software is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.0, while Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0. Progress Software holds a 2.0% mindshare in CM, compared to Microsoft’s 11.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Microsoft Configuration Manager and Chef compete in IT management and automation. Chef has an upper hand with its cross-platform capabilities and scalability, appealing to diverse environments, while Microsoft Configuration Manager is optimal for Windows-specific operations due to its pricing and integrated support.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager includes comprehensive inventory tracking, software deployment, and endpoint protection, making it ideal for large Windows environments. It also enables remote control and simplifies compliance management through a centralized console. Chef offers infrastructure automation, continuous automation, and cloud service integration for exceptional flexibility and scalability. Its language support like Ruby, and reuse capabilities across environments make it a versatile tool.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager might benefit from enhanced cross-platform support, improved deployment speed, and better user interface design. Moreover, Cloud integration features could be expanded. Chef could improve its user documentation, reduce complexity in setup for new users, and enhance GUI options to facilitate a more intuitive user experience. Also, addressing rollback issues could significantly improve user satisfaction.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Configuration Manager is smoothly deployed within Windows ecosystems, leveraging integration with Microsoft products and experienced support through Microsoft's frameworks. Chef supports cloud-based deployment across many operating systems, beneficial for diverse IT infrastructures. Its customer service excels in maximizing automation efficiency but could include more comprehensive onboarding assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager is cost-effective, especially for organizations already using Microsoft infrastructure, providing a strong ROI through efficient Windows management. Chef's higher setup costs are offset by its automation advantages, producing long-term savings by minimizing manual configurations and reducing errors across platforms. Both solutions offer competitive ROI with Chef potentially yielding higher returns in varied IT environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager

June 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 Intune

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 Chef is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 11.9%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Aaron P

DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation

In terms of improvement, Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation. There is also an issue with shared resources like cookbooks lacking context, which could lead to problems when multiple companies use them. Chef should aim for wider availability, better flexibility, clearer documentation, and improved management of shared resources to prevent conflicts. Many companies are now moving to Ansible, so I would recommend better documentation, easier customer use, and simpler integration. I have concerns about the complexity of migrating to different servers and would prefer a simpler process.

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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.

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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 main benefit for us with Microsoft Intune is centralized management of all devices, allowing us to apply one policy across the company from one location."

"The feature I find most valuable in Microsoft Intune is being able to configure policies and push them directly to mobile phones."

"Configuration profiles, remediation, scripts, and auto-pilot features are very good."

"The policy and compliance monitoring of devices and the software deployment are most valuable."

"I would rate Microsoft Intune a nine out of ten."

"It works well if you have a Microsoft environment."

"This solution saves us a lot of time once it's implemented."

"I would rate the overall solution as a 10."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"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 wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles."

"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."

"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."

"The most valuable feature is automation."

"This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time."

"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."

"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."

More Chef pros

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is it's incredibly simple to configure and execute changes in bulk, allowing for seamless deployment. With this solution, you can easily track the status of all modifications and send them with ease, making it a comprehensive and efficient solution for any necessary adjustments."

"The dashboards have information about our assets."

"This solution helps us by automating the patching of our system."

"It does the job and meets our needs. With everybody working remotely these days, we are using this solution to deploy everything. The deployment of PCs is easy."

"With the SCCM inventory, we found a lot of rogue applications. We were able to identify them, find out who was running them, and either put them on our application list or remove them."

"I manage software updates and operating systems for devices, and within seconds, we can remotely deploy a system for, say, 2,000 devices. Not only that, but we can also deploy scripts and create comprehensive compliance rules."

"This solution has made life easy with respect to patching, compliance, and OSD."

"We are happy with the collaboration of SCCM with Patch My PC, which allows us to do patch work."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

Cons

"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."

"The reporting causes problems because we're trying to gather data to present to the management, but we can't get the data they request. If a user has removed an application from his device, but it won't report it at exactly the right time. It takes time to sync from the device to the portal. Let's say we are preparing a list or deck for the number of compliant devices that meet all of the organization's requirements. In a real-time scenario, that device could be compliant, but it is showing as non-compliant on the portal. It sometimes hampers the overall decisions that we make on our end."

"Intune should improve the management of non-Microsoft devices. It would be better to manage Mac, Android, and other non-Microsoft operating system devices within the same Intune interface."

"Intune could be improved by organizing different solutions, like Defender and Sentinel, into a single package. This would allow us to focus on security while Microsoft manages other areas. Having a unified solution would drive better management of various sectors. Although the Intune user experience is good, we should continue enhancing it."

"Microsoft Intune's support for Mac devices is lacking and could be improved."

"Lacks the ability to deploy more ways of management, managing devices and processing the policies."

"It should be easier to define policies and comply with those policies."

"The reporting functionality of Microsoft Intune is limited compared to Microsoft System Center, which offers many more reporting options."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."

"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."

"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."

"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."

"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."

"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."

"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."

"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."

More Chef cons

"The database should be made to be more stable and robust, but not so much the configuration."

"I would like to see an agentless version of the solution."

"A lot of experience is needed in terms of troubleshooting, as this is one of the most difficult tasks in MECM. We were seven people in a group and I was the only one that had the patience to do the troubleshooting at times."

"The solution should be more compatible with different versions of Linux."

"Microsoft should extend support for additional platforms."

"The downside of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is it's an on-premise-based solution. With the pandemic coming on board the need to support users across the globe has increased. For a while, we would use the in-built Microsoft Teams screen sharing feature but the disadvantage of that is you cannot perform privileged access. Microsoft does not give you access to that. That's where you need cloud-based tools, such as BeyondTrust or Freshservice."

"The solution is crowded with information."

"Regarding this, I'd like to mention the agent situation. When the agent on an end-user device is not functioning correctly, it can be quite problematic. It would be highly beneficial if there were a self-healing mechanism in place. Essentially, if the agent becomes corrupted or encounters issues, it should be able to rectify itself autonomously. This is particularly critical because, in order to utilize a tool like MECM (assuming you're referring to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager), we need to deploy agents, known as AsMs, on all the devices we use, such as Windows 10 or Windows Server. Sometimes, when we deploy configurations or updates, they don't apply properly due to agent issues. This issue has been present since we began using MECM around 23 years ago. Unfortunately, there is currently no built-in mechanism for the agent to detect its own problems and initiate self-repair. Microsoft doesn’t have any feature to scan vulnerabilities and hence, they could include those."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune is a cost effective choice. It is less expensive than other products on the market."

"The price of Microsoft Intune is reasonable."

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

"The clients pay for a license and each can have a different type of license, such as an E3 or E5."

"Microsoft offers some licensing where it's included at no extra cost when customers are already using the licenses. In such a case, it's a really good value. If you have to buy the licensing for it, it's probably on par with other solutions. It isn't substantially more or less expensive. The great thing is that it is included in some of Microsoft's licensed packages. So, some customers don't have to spend additional money for it. Typically, most providers that support Intune do charge a management fee of some sort or some fee. Certainly, we're no exception."

"The Intune license model is costly."

"Intune's pricing is reasonable considering its benefits and the high costs it helps avoid."

"We use Defender ATP and E5 licenses."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it."

"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."

"Pricing for Chef is high."

"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."

"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."

"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."

"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."

More Chef pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."

"The price is competitive and reasonable."

"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."

"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."

"Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works."

"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."

"The price model is different for every client."

"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

University

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 ...

See all answers

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 do you like most about Chef?

Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?

Chef is priced based on the number of nodes.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Chef?

Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container...

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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 ...

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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. Wh...

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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 effi...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 11% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 45% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Chef

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Chef

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Chef

Compared 8% of the time

More Chef Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 11% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

PDQ Deploy vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

June 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Chef

June 2025

Download Chef product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

June 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

No data available

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

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Chef, is the leader in DevOps, driving collaboration through code to automate infrastructure, security, compliance and applications. Chef provides a single path to production making it faster and safer to add value to applications and meet the demands of the customer. Deployed broadly in production by the Global 5000 and used by more than half of the Fortune 500, Chef develops 100 percent of its software as open source under the Apache 2.0 license with no restrictions on its use. Chef Enterprise Automation Stack™, a commercial distribution, is developed solely from that open source code and unifies security, compliance, infrastructure and application automation with observability. Chef provides an unequaled developer experience for the Coded Enterprise by enabling users to express infrastructure, security policies and the application lifecycle as code, modernizing development, packaging and delivery of any application to any platform. For more information, visit http://chef.io and follow @chef.

Progress Software

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

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap

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

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager

June 2025

Free Report: Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager

Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. Microsoft Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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