No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Chef vs vCenter Configuration Manager comparison

Why PeerSpot?
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
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (13th), Release Automation (6th)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.4%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 3.4%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.4%
Chef3.4%
vCenter Configuration Manager2.0%
Other90.2%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
G Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Agent setup and complexity have limited automation benefits but have reduced manual patching work
There are other automation tools, configuration management tools in the market, which offer many good functionalities compared to Chef. For Chef, we need to install those agents, the Chef client, on all those nodes. That is another heinous task to perform on those nodes. Compared with other tools, they do not require any agent; they simply push configurations to all the clients. Chef needs to improve on this agent installation on all those nodes. I would say that the agent configuration is required, and we need to manage the workstation, the Chef server, and then the Chef client. These two or three things are very difficult. It is a time-taking task compared with other configuration management tools. They need to compete with other tools, such as Ansible or Terraform. They should work on their agent part. If they can remove the agent installation on the nodes and combine both the Chef server and workstation into one server, that will provide a significant benefit in cost for the clients. They should aim for an agentless architecture rather than an agent-based architecture, which will help other customers. That is a very difficult thing because I have stopped using Chef. If you have very good developers who are skilled in Ruby language and can write codes in the Chef recipe, then those developers should start using Chef.
Nikhil Nikhil - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Operations Lead at TT Systems LLC
Compliance management has improved efficiency but licensing changes pose challenges
I am not using any advanced features or AI. I am employing a basic VMware vCenter setup for my infrastructure. Scalability has no major limitations, and the solution is efficient. Overall, it's satisfactory. I would rate the vCenter experience as seven out of ten due to concerns regarding license, pricing, and AI features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Before having Intune, we didn't have the capability to have computers wiped, couldn't manage the operating system from a central location, and weren't able to deploy policies and verify software updates, and it's helped with software update needs, operating system version update needs, and security policy enforcement."
"Microsoft's licensing is more flexible and adaptive than its competitors."
"Using Microsoft Intune, we reduced device onboarding time by around forty to fifty percent, improved compliance visibility significantly, and reduced manual endpoint management effort through automated policy deployment and centralized administration while also helping lower security incidents related to unmanaged or non-compliant devices."
"We were trying to solve many issues, mainly the lack of centralized management. Before Microsoft Intune, we had to manually support devices one by one, installing applications and configuring policies individually. When we implemented the tool, it became much easier to manage our devices. We enroll them in Microsoft Intune and can manage all devices with a few clicks. For application management, it's the same process. If we want to deploy applications to hundreds or thousands of devices, we can do it easily with just a few clicks. This also applies to policies."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"With Microsoft Intune, we set up the device within 20 to 30 minutes, reducing the provisioning time by 70 to 80%, and it has also reduced the IT workload by 40 to 60%."
"Microsoft Intune has positively impacted our organization by improving our security posture and making device management much more efficient, especially for remote users and distributed teams."
"It is a comprehensive security solution that not only controls access to enterprise resources but also tracks and prevents unauthorized access, ensuring the protection of sensitive data and preventing potential data loss scenarios."
"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast."
"The manual work has been reduced with the help of this automation, we only need two or three people to write those recipes and upload them on the Chef server, and once the configuration tool pulls those changes from the Chef server, it automatically deploys all those changes and has reduced our manpower and our costs."
"The product is useful for automating processes."
"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."
"Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them."
"The features are good in Chef, especially its compliance feature; it's very good and it's what I found most valuable in the tool."
"Using Chef for automating infrastructure and applications in my organization has helped us reduce manual tasks by more than forty percent, thereby saving significant revenue for the client."
"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."
"Our clients have better knowledge of how they have to provision hardware and when they will need to provision hardware, making for more predictable environments and preventing future problems."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the ability to manage all of our environments allowing us to have better functionality and high availability."
"I would recommend this solution to others, it has worked very well for me."
"In India, basically, in the banking sector, we do not use particular open-source products, so the tool is beneficial for us."
"My primary use case is for migration"
"The most valuable features are vMotion and high availability, and I appreciate it because it's very easy to set up and configure new disks and servers."
"vCenter Configuration Manager is the best tool for centrally managing resources"
"I would rate the scalability quite good. You can extend your environment effectively with appropriate investment."
 

Cons

"I have realized that while it provides a lot of granular control on Windows devices, it has comparatively less functionality for Mac."
"There is no catalog for mobile access management (MAM) security."
"The main issue with Microsoft Intune is that for Windows, we can support only Windows 10 and 11 operating systems."
"The synchronization could be improved."
"It would be better if Microsoft can reduce the cost of the license, as we know the Intune device subscription is licensed per device at a cost of $2 a month, but for the best enhanced security and features we must add an add-on license or buy or upgrade to a bundling license such as M365E5."
"In the next release, I would like a feature to be able to properly lock down the device. For example, if an attacker or somebody steals the phone, you can be sure that the pin cannot be broken."
"If you're looking forward to deficiency, I'd say that the Endpoint Manager support at the lower levels is poor."
"However, there are some areas that need improvement, such as the troubleshooting part, which could be simpler."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"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."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"The compatibility with the different platforms that we are using needs improvement."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"However, if you are on-premise, it may not be the best solution."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"The solution should allow for more customization."
"The product's price could be lesser."
"The solution could be more integrated with the Microsoft environment."
"We would like to improve the UI interface and customer experience in vCenter Configuration Manager. We need a speed-based system, which is methodology checked. The migration functions, from one hardware to another and the nodes must be a partner of four nodes, which acts as a weakness. They should have advanced training and course material for vCenter solutions."
"Configuration Manager's reporting could be better. I need to use a third-party reporting solution to get the details. They could add reporting features similar to RVTools."
"The interface itself is not very user-friendly."
"The only challenge my company faces with the solution in relation to the customers is something that is directly related to the tool's pricing."
"Configuration Manager should decrease the deployment time in the data center and the management time as this could help many data centers reduce their operating costs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune is more expensive than other solutions, but it offers a wider range of features and control."
"Existing E5 license holders for M365, Intune, and Azure, receive a free license."
"Every customer used to purchase licenses based on their needs."
"Intune is included in the Microsoft 365 licensing package that we have."
"We have the business premium licenses for the solution."
"We don't pay for Intune because it is bundled with the premium subscription to Office 365. It includes Intune and Defender. I don't have to buy two extra products to manage my enterprise."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"I don't have any problem as far as cost is concerned. It is bundled with our license."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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 using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"There is a free license for the standard version. Their enterprise version is expensive. I would advise starting with one server and working your way up as you go. The enterprise version provides support."
"It is on a yearly basis."
"I am not knowledgeable with the pricing of the product."
"It is an expensive product."
"I have a license to cover four hosts."
"Price-wise, the product is an affordable one. The additional expenses, apart from the licensing costs of the solution, are attached to the support a user wants to receive from vCenter Configuration Manager's end."
"The price of the solution is too expensive for us and we are looking to move to another solution."
"The solution is quite expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise20
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?
The licensing cost is zero for Chef if you are using the free version. They have developed other versions, such as Sa...
What needs improvement with Chef?
There are other automation tools, configuration management tools in the market, which offer many good functionalities...
What is your primary use case for Chef?
We used Chef, the automation tool, as an Infrastructure as Code tool for configuration deployment, such as deploying ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Configuration Manager?
Nowadays, it is a bit expensive. It's costly, primarily due to the licensing aspect.
What needs improvement with vCenter Configuration Manager?
My impression on the impact of the real-time monitoring features of vCenter Configuration Manager is that it's somewh...
What is your primary use case for vCenter Configuration Manager?
My usual use cases for vCenter Configuration Manager mainly involve migration, shift and lift mainly, and some type o...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.