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Chef vs vCenter Configuration Manager comparison

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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
7.2
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)
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 (11th)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
56
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 Chef is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 0.8%, down from 1.0% 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.
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.
Nikhil Nikhil - PeerSpot reviewer
Compliance management has improved efficiency but licensing changes pose challenges
I am not using any advanced features or AI. I am employing a basic VMware vCenter setup for my infrastructure. Scalability has no major limitations, and the solution is efficient. Overall, it's satisfactory. I would rate the vCenter experience as seven out of ten due to concerns regarding license, pricing, and AI features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Intune is best for Windows devices and security in Office 365 and Microsoft-related enterprise environments. It's a nice platform for endpoint management."
"Intune saves time, and it is very easy to use. It allows us to manage applications completely."
"I appreciate how easy it is to deploy certificates to end users to get control over their device with Microsoft Intune; that's what Microsoft Intune is known for, and that's what we use them for."
"I can reach devices or computers over the internet. I don't need to worry about the network connectivity between the offices. I can manage any device. That is the most important part."
"The most valuable feature is Intune's ability to push out updates for the security and antivirus. I also like Intune's copilot and the ability to automate processes. For example, if you have 5,000 employees who are issued new PCs and you need to set them up with everything they need."
"If the product works, remote access will be a benefit. To this point we have not had reason to have confidence in achieving that access."
"The most valuable feature of Intune is the central dashboard for compliance and policy management."
"The ability to wipe data from and reset devices is one of the most important and valuable features. If a device is reported stolen, we can freeze it or wipe the data from it, preventing data leakage."
"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."
"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."
"One thing that we've been able to do is a tiered permission model, allowing developers and their managers to perform their own operations in lower environments. This means a manager can go in and make changes to a whole environment, whereas a developer with less access may only be able to change individual components or be able to upgrade the version for software that they have control over."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use and learn, and it easily automates all the code and infrastructure."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations."
"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 solution is very easy to manage."
"The solution is stable and we haven't run into issues with bugs or glitches."
"My experience working with this solution has been good and I recommend it."
"The most valuable feature of vCenter Configuration Manager is the ease of provisioning."
"I like vMotion because it manages fault tolerance."
"The most valuable features of vCenter Configuration Manager are highly mature technology."
"vCenter Configuration Manager is the best tool for centrally managing resources"
"It is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"The interface is not as modern as some competitors in terms of single pane of glass visibility across the entire landscape. It has a very Azure vibe and may not be as graphically appealing as other products."
"Intune should support platforms other than Windows. We have encountered several limitations, especially when handling iOS devices."
"I would like Intune to natively support easier report generation. This improvement would enable less experienced staff to run reports more efficiently without relying on additional tools or functions."
"Microsoft Intune's app deployment presents challenges for non-MSI and non-store apps, particularly EXEs, requiring the use of a Win32 wrapper tool and adding overhead to the process."
"I wanted to check if there is any provision at the Intune level to restrict certain things, such as a website, but unfortunately, that feature is available only in Microsoft Defender. Intune has web filtering capabilities, but they are only useful for protection from malicious websites, whereas we would like to be able to restrict a website. For example, YouTube is a clean website. No one would identify it as a malicious website, but if we want to stop the end-users from going to that website, we have to go for another product, such as Microsoft Defender or another third-party proxy solution. It would be great if this capability is included in Intune."
"The worst aspect is the reporting."
"Microsoft Intune fails a lot when it comes to device compliance."
"Lacking in features such as Wi-Fi and network security."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky."
"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."
"In the future, Chef could develop a docker container or docker images."
"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."
"The solution could improve in managing role-based access. This would be helpful."
"Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this."
"The cost of this solution should be improved."
"The snapshot functionality on the solution needs improvement. After renewing the snapshot, all of the production was stuck. Right now, its functionality is one of our main concerns."
"There is room for improvement in operating and managing cluster environments and maintenance. And hardware environment visibility."
"My impression on the impact of the real-time monitoring features of vCenter Configuration Manager is that it's somewhat good, but you cannot find the full log message; you have to dig deep in order to get it."
"When vCenter is in a Microsoft environment, there is a lot of licensing involved, where we face some difficulties."
"Error reporting should be more precise and descriptive, and there is no way to filter the logs. It would be helpful if its logs analysis can be more detailed, and the logs can be filtered."
"The tool's performance needs to be improved."
"There are a lot of steps to do the configuration. We have to do it step by step and it is time-consuming. If it was easier it could be done quicker. There should be a preloaded configuration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Intune is often included as part of a bundle with other Microsoft licenses, which makes it somewhat cheaper."
"The overall pricing of Microsoft Intune is good for companies that have big IT budgets, 3,000 or more users and devices."
"The purchase of the product was handled by someone else."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."
"Microsoft Intune is more expensive than other solutions, but it offers a wider range of features and control."
"The pricing is good because customers are not complaining about it."
"Intune is cost-effective as it is included in some of the Office 365 packages."
"Pricing for Chef is high."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Chef is priced based on the number of nodes."
"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."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"It's a large application. It consumes a lot of resources. Sometimes the price is too high for our customers. If they buy it directly from VMware, its hard to convince the customer that we will bring down the total cost of ownership, in the end."
"The price of the solution is too expensive for us and we are looking to move to another solution."
"vCenter's pricing is reasonable, but nowadays, they are drastically increasing their prices, which is pathetic."
"The pricing is mid-range so I rate it a six out of ten."
"The solution comes with three-year support. We have to renew the support annually after the three years are up."
"It is on a yearly basis."
"It is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
7%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 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...
What do you like most about vCenter Configuration Manager?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Configuration Manager?
Nowadays, it is a bit expensive. It's costly, primarily due to the licensing aspect.
What needs improvement with vCenter Configuration Manager?
My impression on the impact of the real-time monitoring features of vCenter Configuration Manager is that it's somewh...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
No data available
vCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Find out what your peers are saying about Chef vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.