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

BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs Chef comparison

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
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
271
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
BMC TrueSight Server Automa...
Ranking in Configuration Management
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (20th), Release Automation (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC TrueSight Server Automation is 3.0%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 1.9%, up from 1.3% 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.
SumitSrivastava1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Patches can be deployed easily with a single click, making deployment straightforward
More use cases can be automated. The user interface of BMC TrueSight Server Automation could benefit from enhancements, as it currently lacks refinement. However, the stability of the platform is commendable. While there are occasional fluctuations, overall, it maintains a high level of stability. In terms of automation capabilities, it performs satisfactorily. Additionally, it handles gateway activities smoothly, demonstrating its capability.
Aaron  P - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy configuration management, optimization abilities, and complete infrastructure and application automation
In terms of improvement, Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation. There is also an issue with shared resources like cookbooks lacking context, which could lead to problems when multiple companies use them. Chef should aim for wider availability, better flexibility, clearer documentation, and improved management of shared resources to prevent conflicts. Many companies are now moving to Ansible, so I would recommend better documentation, easier customer use, and simpler integration. I have concerns about the complexity of migrating to different servers and would prefer a simpler process.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I appreciate the most about Microsoft Intune is that it's quick and easy to use from an authenticator perspective. There is simplicity in securing our platform. Microsoft Intune benefits my company because of its simplicity of use and cross-functional integration."
"Users can make screenshots, and devices only need the minimal version of iOS."
"The most valuable features in Microsoft Intune for me are application deployment, Defender deployment, and asset management."
"One of the standout features of Intune is its seamless accessibility to work data, eliminating the need to be tied to an office or a desktop."
"For Windows services, there are multiple options within Intune to modernize it to be more internet-facing and dynamic."
"It's not working perfectly, but Microsoft's Autopilot offers great visibility into automated deployment solutions."
"Within Intune, managing policies and having a consistent way to manage devices is valuable."
"The Autopilot feature is fantastic. It is a Microsoft product, so it deals best with Microsoft operating systems, but it can integrate with iOS, Mac OS, Linux, and Android."
"The best feature of the solution is patch automation."
"Compliance is also huge... By tying it to Atrium Orchestrator, our workflow tool, we'll be able to have a closed loop where we identify a compliance issue, cut CRs, get them approved, and then be able to execute these CRs and more seamlessly fix these issues on the fly."
"Scalability is good."
"Server Automation's best feature is automated patching. It also helps us automate compliance and report generation. We can even integrate TrueSight Server Automation with a vulnerability management solution to remedy vulnerabilities by applying patches, deploying scripts, or changing registry entries."
"The ability to script and create BL packages to perform various functions. This makes automating our environment relatively easy to do."
"BMC support is great. They usually can answer any of our questions in a short amount of time and solve our most complex issues."
"It makes deployment easier and allows us to put restrictions on the server using role-based authorization."
"BladeLogic lets users view the filesystem with minimal authorization to the server."
"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."
"This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time."
"It has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves."
"The most valuable feature is automation."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."
"Chef can be scaled as needed. The Chef server itself can scale but it depends on the available resources. You can upgrade specific resources to meet the demand. Similarly, with clients, you can add as many clients as you need. Again, this depends on the server resources. If the server has enough resources, it can handle the number of servers required to manage the infrastructure. Chef can be scaled to meet the needs of the infrastructure being managed."
"Chef recipes are easy to write and move across different servers and environments."
 

Cons

"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."
"I'd suggest adding more features for macOS in Intune. There should be more functionality for managing macOS. There should be a better capability for pushing things down on macOS. Currently, Intune is not capable of managing macOS at the same level as Windows."
"China blocks Google and Google Play Store, which makes installation challenging. Microsoft Intune is a company software, which has to be installed to the app portal or Microsoft Software Center."
"They need to integrate more with security options."
"The security aspect could be more effective. We are using other applications to manage network devices and groups, so if Microsoft Intune could improve in this area, especially on a network level, it would be a real advantage."
"There should be more support for macOS. Even though macOS is supported by Intune and Microsoft is working very hard to get more features into Intune to manage macOS, that's one thing they can give a lot more attention to."
"The platform is incredibly slow and could be more responsive. Specifically, when making changes to security policies, I would like to see those changes take effect more quickly."
"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."
"We encountered some reporting issues. Also, we needed to gather information from the backend before the product execution. The output's format is not good."
"There is no option to see all the servers we patch and we cannot find what the server status is. Of course, we can what has been completed and what is pending and which servers have failed, but we cannot find server status from the BMC tool. For example, is the RDP up or not. We are using separate scripts for that."
"Provisioning needs to be more user-friendly. We were using BladeLogic for provisioning, but due to a lot of issues and complications, we had to stop using provisioning with this tool."
"We would like to see this solution handle more multitasking."
"Another area for improvement is group scheduling if I'm trying to do all the servers. For example, if I want to do all the 2012 Servers - since the patches are the same for all of them - I can't do so."
"I would like to see a better methodology for handling REST calls and integration into the APIs. They add new APIs as they add functions, but they've missed some from older components which they still haven't added in. Some of the APIs are there but the CLI calls are not there."
"A better CLI Database cleanup tool would help us with our regular maintenance of BladeLogic Server Automation."
"There is no other functionality available to patch the containers that we need to include."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"I would like them to add database specific items, configuration items, and migration tools. Not necessarily on the builder side or the actual setup of the system, but more of a migration package for your different database sets, such as MongoDB, your extenders, etc. I want to see how that would function with a transition out to AWS for Aurora services and any of the RDBMS packages."
"If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best."
"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."
"It is an old technology."
"I would also like to see more analytics and reporting features. Currently, the analytics and reporting features are limited. I'll have to start building my own custom solution with Power BI or Tableau or something like that. If it came with built-in analytics and reporting features that would be great."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with the E5 plan. We bought the E5 plan from Microsoft."
"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."
"In terms of the product price and licensing costs, my company finds the product to be reasonably priced."
"There is a license required to use the solution. If you're core users in Office 365, for example, you have Outlook email and E3 license, this is only email. You have to buy an EMS license to have Microsoft Intune. It is expensive."
"We work in the charity sector, so a lot of our clients get Microsoft Premium licenses or Business Premium for free. They get ten licenses free, and a lot of our clients do not have more than ten staff members. They are getting the tool for free, so its cost is not an issue."
"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."
"The price of Intune is included with the license for Office 365, so we don't have to pay anything extra for it."
"There is a license needed for this solution and it is either included in one of the enterprise license agreements. Microsoft licensing is a mathematical institute, it could be quite complex. We tend to ask specialized organizations to research what the most profitable way it would be for us to use licenses in the organizations."
"We're looking at less than $100,000 USD for this solution."
"The solution is quite expensive compared to other vendors."
"The product's pricing depends on the number of servers."
"Licensing is a bit pricey. Be mindful about the components that you need and buy as appropriate."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"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."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 BMC TrueSight Server Automation?
The product's valuable feature is its ability to conduct patching for multiple servers simultaneously.
What needs improvement with BMC TrueSight Server Automation?
More use cases can be automated. The user interface of BMC TrueSight Server Automation could benefit from enhancement...
What do you like most about Chef?
Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code.
What needs improvement with Chef?
Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
TrueSight Server Automation, BladeLogic Server Automation, BladeLogic Automation Suite
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
State of Michigan, Fujitsu FSAS, Transamerica Life Insurance Company, SAP
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.