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

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Perforce Puppet comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

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
312
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Configuration Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (1st), Server Monitoring (7th), Patch Management (2nd)
Perforce Puppet
Ranking in Configuration Management
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 8.2%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 10.4%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 2.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Intune8.2%
Microsoft Configuration Manager10.4%
Perforce Puppet2.9%
Other78.5%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24
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.
JunedBedrekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Have effectively deployed patches and applications while integrating with cloud solutions
The features I find most valuable in Microsoft Configuration Manager are replication and scripting. 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 inventory collection features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are good because we always prefer the inventory. We do it by using the script language. We use remote management capabilities in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Remote management capabilities are useful if the user is not providing access; we can use the backend users to update the group policy and sync the devices. These are the main features we require.
reviewer2284542 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Automated configuration management ensures consistent server setups
The strength of Puppet is in automated configuration management. We can configure a server once and set rules with Puppet so that future server configurations are automatic and consistent with company requests. Puppet is declarative, meaning it finds the best state for itself and corrects any deviations in the configuration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Endpoint Manager is not expensive overall, especially for small environments."
"We can implement a MAM policy in this Intune and protect the device through mobile application development without touching it. The interface is easy to use and understand."
"We already use a lot of Microsoft products in our company, and therefore, it made sense to also use this product."
"Microsoft Intune policies, remote wipe, and using corporate and private profiles are valuable features, but MFA is the most valuable feature as it ensures that the end user is authentic."
"The ability to manage devices over the cloud is a big benefit, as devices now receive updates regardless of location."
"We have found the solution is capable of scaling."
"The biggest benefit for me in Microsoft Intune is control; I can control my users and what they can do and enforce the policies that I want to enforce, and it is a great tool to control and put structure to take the organization to the place I want to take it."
"Intune's security features for Apple iOS and Mac OS are helpful. We can check enrollment, manage public and private settings, and manage the organization's data using security key features."
"This has made the management of our environment easier."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"The scalability to deploy the package."
"I like the data collection."
"It works well for the endpoints for the customer I'm consulting. It has a bunch of knobs, and you can tune it to do lots of things."
"I like Mircosoft's technical support. Microsoft has a few updates, like some of the critical KBs. They are published within the interval time, and in case of an escalation on the client missions, we will raise a ticket with the Microsoft team. They will create a hotfix or a critical update. They will chat with us, and that is one thing I like about Microsoft. Whenever any issues occur at my organization, they will help you out soon as possible within the SLA."
"Overall, I believe Microsoft Configuration Manager is definitely a good product."
"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."
"The versatility is great."
"Anything that we manage through Puppet always runs perfectly."
"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."
"The agent-based feature helps me by being stable."
"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."
"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."
"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve reporting. Sometimes, it shows double or triple entries of the same thing, which affects the count's accuracy. Also, some applications onboarded in Microsoft Intune do not get updated. When we look for solutions online, there is often no clear answer."
"The documentation about the custom image setup could be better. Although Microsoft provides the steps to configure Intune or set up or deploy Intune, it doesn't have much information related to custom images. If you ask, "how can we deploy the custom image?" There is no information. The steps they mention ask you to connect to your on-premises environment or create your own image on the cloud itself once there is connectivity. But I needed to go to multiple websites to get all this information. I had to figure out how to upload the custom image if you want to use the on-premise custom image for Cloud PC. If you have the proper subscription, you must have the right access, like global admin or owner. Then you can add your custom image to that. There are no steps mentioned over there. Microsoft Intune doesn't have Chrome browser support. I would like to have that support because they will want it if we pitch the product to clients."
"Installing software in Microsoft Intune can be challenging if it is not already prepackaged."
"Intune's privilege management feature, while beneficial, is less intuitive than other Intune features, making it challenging to use."
"Intune has all the features enabled for Windows devices but needs to be improved on iOS and Apple devices."
"Enrollment into the Microsoft Intune service can still get easier, especially for legacy-managed systems, such as how we get it from a GPO or an SCCM configuration into Intune."
"There are some issues using the solution with macOS and iOS, and it offers limited granular control with them. Intune works better on Windows and Android."
"The initial setup is a little bit complex."
"Built in PowerShell cmdlets would be a nice feature because managing clients remotely can be a pain without knowing the WMI calls to run."
"The operations could be faster and you need some patience with this tool."
"The configuration of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could be improved, it is a bit complicated."
"In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long."
"Based on my experience with SCCM 2016, the main, big issue is not having a good user-friendly environment. It needs much better GUI."
"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."
"Their compliance reporting is not accurate, and they admitted it on the phone when we had a call with them. We were trying to understand why their numbers didn't match on our compliance reports. It is not accurate and you cannot depend on the compliance reports. The numbers just don't match, and we can't figure out why. We called Microsoft and they said, "Yeah, that's a known issue." But there is no word that they're working on it."
"It does seem a bit buggy from time to time."
"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"It's a bit of a pain point to make sure that everything works once we've upgraded it because Puppet has been evolving pretty fast."
"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
"There's a lot of scope for enhancement on the DevSecOps side. They should definitely include features for compliance, for both the Linux and Windows side of the devices, as well as for network devices. Compliance is something they need to work on."
"The solution has really complex code, you have to understand the Ruby language. However, once you know the code then you can move ahead without any problems."
"Clients with less technical expertise may find Puppet complex to configure. Our team may struggle if technical team members leave the organization, leaving others uncertain about using the tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We work with the subscription rather than a server license. I think it's economical this way because we don't have to have a server license for that, and I think that works in our favor."
"The product is relatively pricey, but considering its benefits, I'd say it's fair. The benefits outweigh the expensive licensing fees, especially for large organizations, but medium-sized and smaller businesses may be unable to afford it."
"We use Defender ATP and E5 licenses."
"Its price is fair. It's a normal price. It isn't too expensive or too cheap."
"If you ask the accountant or the finance department, they'll tell you that it is way too expensive, but when I look at the cost and compare it with the value you actually get, it's more than fair."
"It's reasonable. They're not giving it away, but it's reasonable."
"Most of our clients come to us with licensing already in place. On average, it costs $6 per device per month to add Intune to an Office 365 subscription, but I am not sure."
"I am not that aware of the pricing, but as compared to other MDM solutions, Microsoft is providing a lot of things at the organizational level. So, it is quite reasonable as compared to other MDM solutions."
"The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive."
"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."
"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."
"We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"The price model is different for every client."
"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."
"There is not a license needed to use the solution."
"The price is competitive and reasonable."
"Depending on the size of the organization there is a point when the price of Puppet Enterprise should be lower. However, they provide really good functionality, features, and capabilities."
"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."
"The main thing that we noticed when we switched from the enterprise version to the community version was the difference in cost — the infrastructure is pretty expensive."
"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business121
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise154
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Puppet Enterprise?
Regarding the cost, I find it expensive, always. I don't know how much the license would cost per year or per user ap...
What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?
I don't know what could be improved in Perforce Puppet to make this tool better for the next release. I can't think o...
What is your primary use case for Puppet Enterprise?
My main use case for Perforce Puppet is for configuration management.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
Puppet
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Los Alamos National Laboratory, GitHub, IP Commerce, Cedexis, Spiceworks, Server Density, Swisstopo, Chockstone, Constant Contact, NICS, Citrix
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Perforce Puppet and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.