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Chef vs Perforce Puppet comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Chef
Ranking in Configuration Management
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (13th), Release Automation (6th)
Perforce Puppet
Ranking in Configuration Management
14th
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 September 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.4%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Chef is 3.4%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 4.2%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.4%
Chef3.4%
Perforce Puppet4.2%
Other88.0%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
G Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Agent setup and complexity have limited automation benefits but have reduced manual patching work
There are other automation tools, configuration management tools in the market, which offer many good functionalities compared to Chef. For Chef, we need to install those agents, the Chef client, on all those nodes. That is another heinous task to perform on those nodes. Compared with other tools, they do not require any agent; they simply push configurations to all the clients. Chef needs to improve on this agent installation on all those nodes. I would say that the agent configuration is required, and we need to manage the workstation, the Chef server, and then the Chef client. These two or three things are very difficult. It is a time-taking task compared with other configuration management tools. They need to compete with other tools, such as Ansible or Terraform. They should work on their agent part. If they can remove the agent installation on the nodes and combine both the Chef server and workstation into one server, that will provide a significant benefit in cost for the clients. They should aim for an agentless architecture rather than an agent-based architecture, which will help other customers. That is a very difficult thing because I have stopped using Chef. If you have very good developers who are skilled in Ruby language and can write codes in the Chef recipe, then those developers should start using Chef.
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

"The best features in Microsoft Intune include secure authentication, which I find very favorable, and the fact that we can remotely push applications."
"I am very satisfied that when any user comes into our organization and we provide the user ID and password, the setup will auto-complete with basic applications and security installed automatically, making the device ready within approximately ten to fifteen minutes."
"Microsoft Intune saves eight hours per day, and during my work hours, I use my time to study and run tests on configurations I'm curious about and try them out in my environment."
"Microsoft Intune is cost-effective and easy to use, so I can recommend it."
"Intune enables us to manage our devices from anywhere."
"While I don't think you can ever have full visibility and control, Intune certainly allows us to see the applications being used and tells us if things like Windows patches aren't applied to machines. It does a good job. That visibility makes life a little easier."
"The interface is user-friendly, and the reporting tool works in real-time."
"Intune is a very good cloud solution for managing devices."
"All the Chef enthusiasts who come to us to learn and train improve their skillsets to get jobs."
"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."
"Manual deployments came to a halt completely. Server provisioning became lightning fast. Chef-docker enabled us to have fewer sets of source code for different purposes. Configuration management was a breeze and all the servers were as good as immutable servers."
"Chef has created much faster procedures for system setup and rollout of infrastructure in my organization, as well as for scaling and ensuring that all servers are configured identically."
"If you're handy enough with DSL and you can present your own front-facing interface to your developers, then you can actually have a lot more granular control with Chef in operations over what developers can perform and what they can't."
"Automation is everything. Having so many servers in production, many of our processes won't work nor scale. So, we look for tools to help us automate the process, and Chef is one of them."
"I wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles."
"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."
"Return on the IaaS project was breaking even in the same year with deployment of 500 VM servers with a 3-tier app stack, and annual ROI from savings thereafter was to the tune of 60-80%."
"The versatility is great."
"The agent-based feature helps me by being stable."
"I rate the stability of Puppet as ten out of ten."
"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."
"Puppet Enterprise provides an autonomous delivery solution and agent-server architecture that was really helpful on our case for Internet base device management."
"Before we began using Puppet, everything was manual; once we moved to Puppet, it opened up a completely new world of automated management, which was amazing."
"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."
 

Cons

"I have one remark about the application management for the Android version. Often, the Play Store opens and leaves the possibility to download to the user, which is not good."
"Logs and similar deployment/remediation detail for application delivery to Windows 10 computers should to be improved Additional application deployment options e.g. MSI deployment with more complex parameters or additional side-by-side files, and non-MSI deployment options."
"It needs certificate provisioning for S/MIME purposes."
"Improvements are needed in Microsoft Intune's enterprise app management, including support for more applications in app patching, boot batching, and discovery. I also hope the cost of Remote Help will decrease because it's a much-needed Intune function. Our customers need that capability, or they will buy it from a third party at a premium."
"I'm not able to scale because of the issues with macOS management."
"I assess the stability of the product as low. I have faced downtime crashes and performance issues with Microsoft Intune."
"A new Intune feature allows application packaging, but it incurs additional licensing costs for a significant number of applications."
"Applying security recommendations can be difficult in Microsoft Intune. Sometimes, they give you recommendations, but you need a different server to manage the pieces, or you have to go to each device individually. However, it has been improving. Before, there were certain policies you could not implement directly in Intune, but now I see progress. I would like to see more improvement in policy management, similar to how we used group policies on-premises."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"Vertical scalability is still good but the horizontal, adding more technologies, platforms, tools, integrations, Chef should take a look into that."
"They could provide more features, so the recipes could be developed in a simpler and faster way. There is still a lot of room for improvement, providing better functionalities when creating recipes."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"It is an old technology."
"Other things would be the need to use Cinc if you want to use the open-source version because Progress Software's policy on copyright is confusing for new users and it puts a barrier in the way to adoption because many small, medium enterprises, startups, and non-profits who might want to use Chef would find the whole Cinc versus Chef situation confusing and the fact that there is not an easy path to install Chef and then go to a paid version without having to change from Cinc to Chef or Chef to Cinc."
"One thing that Chef needs to improve on is making it available in as many languages as possible."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."
"Regarding the cost, I find it expensive, always."
"The compliance side needs work. Puppet doesn't have much in terms of dealing with compliance."
"Puppet has a steep learning curve so you need to spend some time before you can use Puppet daily."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have any problem as far as cost is concerned. It is bundled with our license."
"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."
"We spend a lot of money on Intune licensing, and some of our users have to be double licensed just because of how our dev and corporate environments are segmented."
"As a partner, we always look for how we can generate more revenue from a consulting point of view, but I do not see any complaints from the customer side regarding pricing, so they are satisfied with it."
"It is average. Some of the costs are quite high depending on what the customer currently uses, but overall, it is not bad. I would not say that I would not recommend Intune based on the cost. I definitely would, but they can definitely improve on the cost. So overall, its cost is not bad."
"Microsoft Intune has a user-based subscription model. You can go for a monthly or a yearly payment."
"Previously the price was $4 per month per user. Now it's $2.25 per user per month."
"If you're ever going to buy an Office 365 environment, then pricing is reasonable given all that it does, but if you're not, then you might find the pricing expensive."
"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."
"We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time."
"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."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user185772 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Architect with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 27, 2015
Docker v. CFEngine v. Puppet Data Center Automation v. Chef v. Ansible
Originally posted at http://technologyconversations.com/2015/08/26/configuration-management-in-the-docker-world/ Anyone managing more than a few servers can confirm that doing such a task manually is a waste of time and risky. Configuration management (CM) exists for a long time and there is no…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?
The licensing cost is zero for Chef if you are using the free version. They have developed other versions, such as Sa...
What needs improvement with Chef?
There are other automation tools, configuration management tools in the market, which offer many good functionalities...
What is your primary use case for Chef?
We used Chef, the automation tool, as an Infrastructure as Code tool for configuration deployment, such as deploying ...
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
No data available
Puppet
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
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 Chef vs. Perforce Puppet and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.