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

AWS CloudFormation vs AWS Config comparison

Sponsored
 

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
263
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 ease of applying security policies to applications we deploy is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"The solution is scalable. We currently have tens of thousands of users within our organization using the solution."
"The feature I find most valuable in Microsoft Intune is being able to configure policies and push them directly to mobile phones."
"It is helpful for managing devices anytime and any place without requiring dependency on the local networks."
"We work completely in a Microsoft environment. Its interface is similar to other Microsoft solutions that we are using such as Microsoft Defender. So far, for our administrators, it is easy to use."
"I like Intune's ability to manage roles, maintenance tasks, compliance settings, and patch development for all endpoints."
"In terms of technical support, you will get an immediate response."
"The best part of Intune is device control. If we need to block a user from opening something in their organization's system, we can do it from Intune. If we want to restrict the movement of an organization's data to prevent users from copying the data into Outlook, WhatsApp, or their personal Gmail, we can limit that via Intune. It secures all corporate data."
"The ability to quickly run up CloudFormation in AWS and the template validation function are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation are all the resources documentation is located in one location, simple resource reverting, and ease of use of the full package for new users."
"With CloudFormation, there is no need to use complicated coding."
"AWS CloudFormation makes infrastructure deployment easy."
"CloudFormation itself is free to use. You will be charged for the resources you deploy using CloudFormation."
"It is easy to work from the console and deploy new database services."
"Automations make it pretty easy to provision AWS, development, or deployment environments."
"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation include the import and export functionality, and pseudo parameters, which reduce our coding efforts by managing parameterization at the account level."
"AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources."
"The scalability is a ten out of ten."
"Installing the instances and performing upgrades is smooth and clean."
"The solution is scalable and provides over 100 rules."
"The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment."
"The tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats."
 

Cons

"A detailed device diagnostic feature is missing. Also, operating system deployment and imaging are missing."
"Integrating certain group policies can be challenging and may necessitate using on-premises systems to integrate them with Microsoft Intune."
"Intune lags all of its competitors in terms of report generation."
"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."
"It should be simplified. I've worked with many different mobile device management solutions, and Intune is one of the more complex ones. It could be more simplified, and some of it is related to the wording that is being used, such as a configuration profile versus a policy. They really should have had different names to make it less confusing."
"There could be more wizard-driven policy development or creation. Some of the policies can get quite complex. If they have a wizard that assists the administrators in creating the policy, that will be a great job."
"It could offer more attributes for authentication."
"It would be awesome if Microsoft opened their API so we could filter more properties. If we have to do anything outside of Intune that requires a third-party solution to talk back to it, we're very limited in what we can do. Trust your people. We promise not to break your stuff. Open it up just a tiny bit wider."
"Improving the quality of support would be helpful."
"The speed of the replication process could improve. It can take some time to replicate that could use a speed increase."
"The solution needs to offer better support to other cloud vendors."
"As soon as they manage to parametrize the whole thing and to implement parameters at all levels, it will become automatically a lot more flexible."
"The conditions that can be added in AWS CloudFormation are not as powerful as any programming language."
"The Infrastructure Composer is not fully complete, making it necessary to tweak the code manually after generating it, which could be improved."
"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."
"It's not that easy to use, but I can learn very fast."
"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."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a limited budget for security investments, so Microsoft should consider reducing pricing in our region. This would make investment more viable, especially since larger businesses in other countries can afford it easily."
"Microsoft Intune is a cost effective choice. It is less expensive than other products on the market."
"Generally, we get favorable discounts, so it's not too bad. Obviously, we're looking at decreasing those wherever we can to bring value back to the public purse because it's all charity based. It's all publicly funded."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Microsoft Intune's costliness stems from licensing fees and the overhead associated with its management, user experience, and device remediation."
"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."
"In terms of the product price and licensing costs, my company finds the product to be reasonably priced."
"We have the business premium licenses for the solution."
"This solution is free to use and does not require a license."
"The price of the solution is good because it is scalable."
"The pricing is not notably high."
"In general, pricing within AWS is relatively affordable."
"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."
"If you compared serverless and container-based, serverless is less expensive. If you use certain instances the price can increase and become too expensive."
"There's no cost for launching any template using CloudFormation."
"The solution charges us per hour. There's no license."
"It is a very expensive tool. AWS pricing for Config is not fixed and depends on your organization's size and complexity."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
7%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
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.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.