Chef vs SUSE Manager comparison

Progress Software and SUSE are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Progress Software is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.0, while SUSE is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0. Progress Software holds a 1.7% mindshare in CM, compared to SUSE’s 3.6% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SUSE users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Chef and SUSE Manager are both valuable tools for IT infrastructure management. SUSE Manager seems to have a slight edge in terms of comprehensive feature sets tailored for enterprise environments.

Features: Chef users value its wide range of automation capabilities, integration with various platforms, and extensive ecosystem. SUSE Manager is praised for its system management, patching capabilities, and compliance features.

Room for Improvement: Chef users note the need for enhancing reporting capabilities, reducing the complexity of initial configurations, and streamlining processes. SUSE Manager users suggest improvements in scalability, interface responsiveness, and performance under heavy workloads.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Chef is appreciated for its clear documentation and community support, making it easier for smaller teams to deploy. SUSE Manager's deployment is smoother in enterprise environments, with strong customer service support. SUSE Manager users find the setup process more straightforward compared to Chef’s complex initial deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Chef users find the tool competitively priced, offering good ROI for smaller to mid-sized companies. SUSE Manager, although perceived as pricier, is viewed as worth the investment due to its extensive feature set and reliability in large-scale deployments. Users feel that Chef provides cost-effective solutions, while SUSE Manager offers higher ROI for extensive enterprise needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Chef vs. SUSE Manager Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. SUSE Manager

April 2025

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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

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 Chef is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SUSE Manager is 3.6%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Aaron P

DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Victor Estival

Developer Product Marketing Manager at Parity Technologies

Easy to deploy, offers embedded monitoring, and is very stable

I am a SUSE partner. I have a central server and then I'm connected to the VPN. That way, I can connect to all different customers. I'd advise new users to certainly read the documentation, as that's what I tend to skip. However, it's an important step. Try to automate as much as you can. One of the most powerful things that I noticed when I arrived, was that it was underutilized, and there are all of these automation capabilities that SUSE Manager has. It's saved just so much time for me. I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is that it is more of a one-stop shop, providing an easier experience."

"The biggest asset is the range of device management options available with Intune, whether it is a Windows device, a Linux device, a Mac device, or mobile devices."

"We have not experienced any bugs or glitches with this solution."

"Comparing this to having an endpoint management solution, the efficiency gain may be up to 80%."

"The automatic patch management feature in the Intune Suite is helpful."

"Conditional access has helped us tailor and enforce our security policies in the mobile space."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune is its scalability."

"Easy to use."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"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."

"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."

"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."

"The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints."

"The most valuable feature is its easy configuration management, optimization abilities, complete infrastructure and application automation, and its superiority over other similar tools."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby."

"The product is useful for automating processes."

More Chef pros

"SUSE Manager is valuable for managing systems, patching, and utilizing SaltStack connectivity for various installations and other routines."

"SUSE Manager helps to optimize operations at a reduced cost."

"The setup is straightforward."

"SUSE Manager is the best solution for maintaining the Linux environment"

"When it comes to managing both Red Hat and SUSE environments, it provides the support for live patching, which is something I really, really appreciate."

Cons

"The backend of Microsoft Intune needs to be improved. We have seen a little bit of delay as compared to other MDM solutions. That needs to be improved. A little bit more granularity should also be added"

"Intune should improve its software inventory to provide better metering of which software is used throughout the company. This is especially needed for reporting third-party software solutions."

"Historically, Group Policy has simplified the management of various items, such as printer and drive mappings and while Intune offers workarounds, it lacks native support for these functionalities."

"The difficulty of the the roll out is surprisingly difficult considering this product is supposed to be an integrated part of the 365 suite."

"The reports that are generated aren't so great. They don't give a lot of meaning so far, but that could be down to user knowledge than the actual reporting side of things. I'm not a big user of it, but I was a bigger user of MaaS360, and we used to be able to run weekly and monthly reports. In the case of any deviations. we'd get a warning immediately. That's not so easy to do or to get in place for Intune. This could be just a user issue, but when I compare both, that's the only thing that's lacking for me."

"A new Intune feature allows application packaging, but it incurs additional licensing costs for a significant number of applications."

"Sometimes, the process is unsuccessful when we attempt to reset a device and wipe the data using Intune."

"I think that there is room for improvement with the reporting. If this is done, it will be a better product."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."

"Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms."

"Support and pricing for Chef could be improved."

"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."

"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."

"The time that it takes in terms of integration. Cloud integration is comparatively easy, but when it comes to two-link based integrations - like trying to integrate it with any monitoring tools, or maybe some other ticketing tools - it takes longer. That is because most of the out-of-the-box integration of the APIs needs some revisiting."

"If only Chef were easier to use and code, it would be used much more widely by the community."

"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."

More Chef cons

"We sometimes have server issues and need to restart the service."

"It can be complex and difficult for users who are new to Linux and don't have any technical expertise."

"I really would like to have a broader library of VCP's or playbooks that I can deploy."

"The initial stage is a bit complex, but after that, everything runs seamlessly."

"The initial setup of SUSE Manager is quite complex."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While Microsoft charges for actual usage, it lacks discount options."

"Microsoft Intune is available for individual purchase at a low per-device cost."

"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."

"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."

"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."

"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."

"I am not that aware of the pricing, but as compared to other MDM solutions, Microsoft is providing a lot of things at the organizational level. So, it is quite reasonable as compared to other MDM solutions."

"Microsoft Intune's pricing is reasonable."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments."

"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."

"Pricing for Chef is high."

More Chef pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

17%

University

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

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 ...

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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...

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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 ...

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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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chef?

Chef is priced based on the number of nodes.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Chef?

Chef does not support the containerized things of Chef products. In the future, Chef could develop a docker container...

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What do you like most about SUSE Manager?

SUSE Manager helps to optimize operations at a reduced cost.

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What needs improvement with SUSE Manager?

There is room for improvement in the documentation. A better description of the initial setup process could enhance u...

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What is your primary use case for SUSE Manager?

I use SUSE Manager ( /products/suse-manager-reviews ) for managing systems and for patching systems. Additionally, I ...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 13% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

BigFix vs Chef

Compared 33% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Chef

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Chef

Compared 11% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Chef

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Chef

Compared 9% of the time

More Chef Competitors

Red Hat Satellite vs SUSE Manager

Compared 80% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs SUSE Manager

Compared 20% of the time

More SUSE Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

April 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Chef

April 2025

Download Chef product report

Buyer's Guide

Configuration Management

April 2025

Download SUSE Manager product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Chef, is the leader in DevOps, driving collaboration through code to automate infrastructure, security, compliance and applications. Chef provides a single path to production making it faster and safer to add value to applications and meet the demands of the customer. Deployed broadly in production by the Global 5000 and used by more than half of the Fortune 500, Chef develops 100 percent of its software as open source under the Apache 2.0 license with no restrictions on its use. Chef Enterprise Automation Stack™, a commercial distribution, is developed solely from that open source code and unifies security, compliance, infrastructure and application automation with observability. Chef provides an unequaled developer experience for the Coded Enterprise by enabling users to express infrastructure, security policies and the application lifecycle as code, modernizing development, packaging and delivery of any application to any platform. For more information, visit http://chef.io and follow @chef.

Progress Software

SUSE Manager was designed to help your enterprise DevOps and IT Operations teams reduce complexity and regain control of your IT assets with a single tool to manage Linux systems across a variety of hardware architectures, hypervisors as well as container, IoT and cloud platforms. It automates Linux server and IoT device provisioning, patching and configuration for faster, consistent and repeatable server deployment helping to optimize operations and reduce costs. And with automated monitoring, tracking, auditing and reporting of your systems, VMs, and containers across your development, test and production environments, you can ensure compliance with internal security policies and external regulations.

SUSE

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap

Day & Zimmermann, Cisco, CEMEX, L.B. Foster, Adient, Istanbul Technical University, 7Pixel, University of Maine System, Guerbet

Buyer's Guide

Chef vs. SUSE Manager

April 2025

Free Report: Chef vs. SUSE Manager

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