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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
7.2
Number of Reviews
277
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 July 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS CloudFormation is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Config is 2.2%, 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

"When comparing Microsoft Intune to Jamf, Microsoft Intune is superior."
"The policy and compliance monitoring of devices and the software deployment are most valuable."
"The feature that we need occasionally but is really important is the ability to remotely wipe a device, control it, and perform similar functions."
"It is quite policy-enabled, so you can build pretty much any policy to manage remote endpoints."
"EAM is a godsend."
"Microsoft Intune has helped us by improving our security posture, leading to fewer security problems, and helping us understand where we have issues."
"For Windows services, there are multiple options within Intune to modernize it to be more internet-facing and dynamic."
"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."
"AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources."
"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."
"With CloudFormation, there is no need to use complicated coding."
"The most beneficial aspect lies in its capability to handle input acquisition and assessment."
"The integration of the solution is very good."
"CloudFormation has helped automate the infrastructure in AWS, making the process more efficient."
"By using AWS CloudFormation, I can automate tasks like creating VPCs and load balancers instead of doing them manually each time. The features I like most include improved scalability, resource management, ease of deployment, template creation, and resource provisioning."
"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."
"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 tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats."
 

Cons

"The worst aspect is the reporting."
"The reporting dashboard is really limited."
"Microsoft Intune has potential for improvement; I would like to see a lot more customization in the reporting tools."
"For additional functionality, I suggest that Microsoft could expand on asset management. Since the platform is there, they could develop it into a full-fledged asset management system."
"Intune could be enhanced by automating application upgrades, similar to how it automates operating system upgrades."
"The initial setup is a little bit complex."
"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."
"I wish Microsoft would keep up with their documentation. They make changes so quickly to these platforms that they do not update the documentation properly in a timely manner."
"The solution needs to offer better support to other cloud vendors."
"Splitting CloudFormation into multiple formations results in changes to resources like API gateway URLs and Cognito pools, which causes issues, especially when trying to maintain consistency across resources."
"Provisioning a large environment or a large number of services takes a bit more time than with Terraform."
"There could be better error handling. It would be a good way to improve the solution."
"There could be more tools for conditional outputs in CloudFormation. Although YAML syntax is structured and AWS has CDK, perhaps more validations could be added to make the work easier."
"They could improve the product's capability to handle circular dependencies more effectively."
"If you are a developer or a more technical person, it's very difficult to learn the complete syntax or because CloudFormation includes a new way to write infrastructure code."
"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 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

"Microsoft Intune is more expensive than other solutions, but it offers a wider range of features and control."
"I have no comment on pricing of the solution."
"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."
"Pricing depends on the features. Microsoft offers special packages if there are more than 10,000 users, and you may be able to get a reduced rate."
"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."
"Microsoft Intune is available for individual purchase at a low per-device cost."
"Microsoft Intune's costliness stems from licensing fees and the overhead associated with its management, user experience, and device remediation."
"Based on the features that it gives, it is cost-efficient. It is not necessarily on the expensive side of the scale. It provides a hefty number of features that any organization would want. It is in a good price range."
"The product is free."
"AWS CloudFormation doesn't have any cost because it's only the resources that you deploy with the solution that'll incur costs."
"AWS CloudFormation's pricing is cheaper than that of other cloud providers."
"The tool is free for the AWS environment."
"The price of the solution is good because it is scalable."
"In general, pricing within AWS is relatively affordable."
"There's no cost for launching any template using CloudFormation."
"The pricing is not notably high."
"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
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Photography Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.