


Microsoft Configuration Manager and Chef are competing in IT automation and infrastructure management. Chef is generally favored for its extensive feature set, while Microsoft Configuration Manager offers more competitive pricing and solid support.
Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager supports comprehensive endpoint management, integrates with Windows environments, and has strong software distribution tools. Chef is known for robust automation, flexibility in deployment, and cloud integration, suitable for various IT infrastructures. Chef's features are ideal for enterprises needing versatile automation, whereas Microsoft Configuration Manager suits traditional system management needs.
Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager could enhance its ease of deployment and user interface simplicity, as well as offer more support for non-Windows environments. Chef might benefit from improved cost-effectiveness, expanded native support for Windows, and more streamlined rollback processes for deployments.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Configuration Manager is integrated within Microsoft ecosystems but can be complex to deploy due to its extensive capabilities. Microsoft provides extensive support resources. Chef offers a flexible deployment model with excellent documentation and community support, allowing quicker implementation and supporting diverse environments beyond Microsoft ecosystems.
Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager is competitive in upfront costs, especially appealing to enterprises invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, with optimized ROI for managing Windows devices. Chef, while initially more expensive, achieves significant long-term ROI through its scalability and automation, particularly beneficial for complex, multi-platform environments. Chef offers more value for dynamic and cross-platform enterprise needs, whereas Microsoft Configuration Manager is cost-effective for specific use cases.
Everything we've gained from it makes my job easier day after day, and I see value in it as an engineer.
Microsoft Intune not only saves costs by reducing the number of personnel needed but also offers a comprehensive solution for managing laptops, applications, security, individual access, and enrollment.
Importantly, when someone leaves the company, it helps protect document access on their devices.
The return has been far more hours saved than spent.
Chef has provided a return on investment, particularly in needing fewer employees, as the tool significantly reduces the amount of human work required for many tasks.
We have seen significant improvement in the time and the way we make changes to the infrastructure.
When a support ticket is submitted, it directly reaches someone with Intune support expertise.
When I contacted Microsoft, they had the same expertise, if not more, which is phenomenal because I felt heard and my problem was solved.
Sometimes, the support provided is excellent, and the representative is knowledgeable, while other times, the service needs improvement.
We usually work with the Chef teams and community support, who are always willing to assist.
Their response time and first-level support quality need improvement.
For technical support from Microsoft, I would rate them a nine.
The scalability of Microsoft Intune is ten out of ten.
Ideally, we want to automatically segregate devices based on user properties like primary use, but currently, dynamic groups seem limited to device properties.
It supports organizations with 200 endpoints and those with more than 15,000 endpoints.
We leverage both to achieve the best option possible for scaling.
Chef's scalability handles a large number of nodes easily, allowing us to manage hundreds of servers consistently using the same set of cookbooks.
Chef's scalability is evident as the public sector organization I work at serves a population of 5 million, and we have had no problems with scaling.
The product is suitable for our size, handling 800 devices.
We have not experienced downtime, bugs, or glitches.
It appears Microsoft Intune undergoes changes without informing customers.
Microsoft Intune has been very stable.
It is a good tool to work with, offering a strong developer experience and community support.
Chef is stable.
In my experience, Chef is quite stable most of the time.
There were misconfigurations by our team rather than issues with the product itself.
Features like unlocking devices sometimes fail, and the support offered for other operating systems is insufficient.
There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now.
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.
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.
Self-healing infrastructure continuously verifies that the system matches the desired state and can auto-correct configuration changes during the next run.
To improve Chef, making an interface with another language such as Python or Java that is well understood, as capable as Ruby, and even more widely adopted would demystify it a bit.
A better command line interface for Microsoft Configuration Manager would be an additional feature I would to see in the future to make it closer to a perfect score.
I can suggest that Microsoft Configuration Manager should get the Autopilot feature because Autopilot is the main part of Intune, and nowadays everybody is using Autopilot.
Introductory professional services, like a fast-track service, were included with our E5 membership, and there have been no additional costs.
The Intune suite and add-ons, such as batch management and remote help, are costly.
It costs approximately forty euros per user per month.
Licensing looks reasonable compared to the manual work of managing whole data centers with even 10,000 servers.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we sidestepped it by using Cinc because none of the functionality that is exclusive to the paid version was actually in use in the organization.
The setup cost is considered sufficient.
The pricing for Microsoft Configuration Manager is okay for me.
Intune excels in configuration and compliance management for Windows 10, ensuring devices receive timely updates and adhere to organizational standards.
Dynamic groups allow us to set conditions for automatic membership, eliminating the need for user intervention or manual review and ensuring a seamless workflow.
Windows Autopatch is the most valuable because it removes the burden of patch management.
Security is a key aspect that Chef can automate, monitor new features that are available, and even do patches without you getting involved.
Chef can manage hundreds or thousands of servers effortlessly, allowing for easy rollout of a single cookbook change to all machines.
When you have infrastructure as code and you already have everything apart from the environment-specific config, which you can specify in variables, then it is not only more repeatable and reliable, it is faster.
If I want to get a fetch report for anything, such as hardware-related issues or group policy-related issues, I need to fetch the report by using SCCM's scripting language and remediation part.
The most valuable features I find in Microsoft Configuration Manager are mostly patching, deploying software, deploying images, and running custom scripts.
The product valuable for deployment recovery.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Intune | 8.2% |
| Microsoft Configuration Manager | 10.4% |
| Chef | 2.8% |
| Other | 78.6% |



| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 121 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 47 |
| Large Enterprise | 154 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 3 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 19 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 20 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 13 |
| Large Enterprise | 64 |
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?
What benefits should users look for in reviews?
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.
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.
Microsoft Configuration Manager streamlines IT management with features such as software deployment, patch management, and automation, centralizing operations for Windows environments. Integration with Microsoft products allows efficient oversight of workstations and servers.
Microsoft Configuration Manager provides comprehensive IT management, offering software deployment, patch management, and application pushing. Automation reduces manual tasks, ensuring consistency across systems. Centralized management enables standardized OS deployments, application updates, and configuration integrity. Integration with Microsoft products facilitates seamless operations, while hardware and software inventory, compliance reporting, and remote control functions enhance IT management. Users seek improvements in application deployment for those without deep scripting knowledge and desire better WSUS control, PowerShell and Intune integration, Linux compatibility, and user interface enhancements. Performance improvements are requested for remote user management and third-party application support.
What features enhance Microsoft Configuration Manager?Microsoft Configuration Manager is widely implemented in organizations to manage Windows workstations and servers. It is essential for deploying operating systems and applications, managing software updates, and conducting hardware and software inventories. The tool is crucial for endpoint and configuration management, ensuring compliance, and automating processes like patching and vulnerability management. Industries such as finance, healthcare, and education rely on Microsoft Configuration Manager to keep systems secure and operational, adapting it to address their specific needs and challenges in maintaining diversified IT environments.
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