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AWS CloudFormation vs AWS Config comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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
7.3
Number of Reviews
255
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS CloudFormation
Ranking in Configuration Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Config
Ranking in Configuration Management
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS CloudFormation is 1.2%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Config is 1.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Mbula Mboma - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates efficient infrastructure deployment with visibility into resource connections
I primarily use AWS CloudFormation for deploying infrastructure efficiently. For instance, if I want to create load balancers with target groups and EC2 instances, I find CloudFormation simplifies the process of deployment and configuration, reducing the possibility of errors AWS CloudFormation…
Dineshkumar Thulasiraman - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The one feature we find most useful is the Mobile Application Manager. There are two types, we have the complete MDM and the Mobile Application Manager(MAM). We don't give our users phones, it is their own personal phone, and we need to allow them to have access to the company detail on their phone. We need to create a balance between their own personal data and the company data. We deploy the Mobile Application Manager for them so that we won't be able to interfere with their own personal data."
"The solution is stable."
"Intune's compliance features are valuable because they allow immediate visibility into ongoing situations."
"Windows Autopatch is the most valuable because it removes the burden of patch management."
"The thing I appreciate most about Microsoft Intune is that the management of the devices was very simplified. We have all machines connected to it at all times, whether they are in the office or working from home."
"First of all, the integration with the rest of Microsoft's products is a major win."
"What I like most about the tool is that it's now very easy to set up a device for someone to use. It also helps us tremendously in managing security. Before, we used on-premise management with a domain controller. It was difficult to manage security comprehensively. For example, it was hard to know which computers were updated. We weren't able to do that easily with our previous solution."
"Microsoft Intune has helped us by improving our security posture, leading to fewer security problems, and helping us understand where we have issues."
"What I like best about AWS CloudFormation is that it is a quick and simple way to deploy various applications, like WordPress."
"CloudFormation has helped automate the infrastructure in AWS, making the process more efficient."
"There is a cost-benefit to using CloudFormation that comes about because of the automation that it provides."
"CloudFormation gives us control of AWS and any Cloud infrastructure. It creates the whole stack for Cloud services technologies so it's easy to manage the whole system."
"AWS CloudFormation makes infrastructure deployment easy."
"Its ability to treat infrastructure's code is valuable. It makes things automatable and reproducible."
"Automations make it pretty easy to provision AWS, development, or deployment environments."
"Scripting does what we need to reinstall something from scratch."
"The tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats."
"Installing the instances and performing upgrades is smooth and clean."
"The solution is scalable and provides over 100 rules."
"The scalability is a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment."
"AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources."
 

Cons

"Intune could be improved by expanding its third-party patching capabilities for a more comprehensive solution."
"Intune doesn't provide much control over Windows servers. It's something we struggle with."
"Intune's privilege management feature, while beneficial, is less intuitive than other Intune features, making it challenging to use."
"It's only good for a Microsoft environment."
"Microsoft Intune fails a lot when it comes to device compliance."
"The current Intune reporting functionality could benefit from some improvements."
"Sometimes, it takes time to synchronize the policies between the portal and the devices, you don't have a way to estimate how long it will take to deploy. You have some kind of gray area, where it can deploy in 30 minutes or three days."
"Sometimes, the process is unsuccessful when we attempt to reset a device and wipe the data using Intune."
"For improvement, it's crucial that AWS provides options in terms of computing services, DB related services, and machine learning solutions. If I'm not hands-on with a particular service, like machine learning applications, I struggle to write the CloudFormation code."
"There could be better error handling. It would be a good way to improve the solution."
"There is less support for on-premise environments."
"Error-handling features can be improved."
"I prefer Terraform over AWS CloudFormation because AWS CloudFormation is specific to just AWS. But if I want to use a multi-cloud or hybrid setup, then Terraform works better. It uses a simple language, HCL. So, if you learn HCL, you can manage your infrastructures across different cloud providers. You don't need to be specific to one cloud provider."
"There is room for improvement in the optimization of AWS CloudFormation."
"There are some limitations with JSON, as the code is written in JSON, which doesn't support commands, looping, or conditionals. This can make the code difficult to read and share across teams. Moreover, the tool only supports AWS."
"The solution needs to offer better support to other cloud vendors."
"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."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"There is room for improvement in built-in tools, they are not up to the mark."
"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have no comment on pricing of the solution."
"They have categorized the licenses according to the size of the business. So, if it's a smaller organization, we can choose the license accordingly. If it's a big organization, then we can choose accordingly. Everything is clearly mentioned, and we can decide. It's suitable for all kinds of infrastructure, and that's very goo"
"The product is expensive."
"In terms of the product price and licensing costs, my company finds the product to be reasonably priced."
"The tool is cheaper than our company's other MDM tools."
"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."
"The price of Intune is often included as part of a bundle with other Microsoft licenses, which makes it somewhat cheaper."
"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."
"The pricing is not notably high."
"There's no cost for launching any template using CloudFormation."
"AWS CloudFormation doesn't have any cost because it's only the resources that you deploy with the solution that'll incur costs."
"The product is free."
"This solution is free to use and does not require a license."
"In general, pricing within AWS is relatively affordable."
"The solution's cost is normal, neither cheap nor expensive."
"The price of the solution is good because it is scalable."
"It is a very expensive tool. AWS pricing for Config is not fixed and depends on your organization's size and complexity."
"The solution charges us per hour. There's no license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
7%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Healthcare Company
9%
Photography Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 do you like most about AWS CloudFormation?
AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudFormation?
AWS CloudFormation is free. However, there may be unexpected costs if developers deploy services incorrectly without ...
What needs improvement with AWS CloudFormation?
Improvements are needed for sharing resources between template files, especially when using AWS ( /products/amazon-aw...
What do you like most about AWS Config?
The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment.
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...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Nextdoor, Coinbase, Expedia
Flatiron, Prezi, iZettle, British Gas, Burt, Autodesk, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudFormation vs. AWS Config and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.