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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 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
6.8
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Configuration Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (1st), Server Monitoring (5th), Patch Management (1st)
SolarWinds Server Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.2%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 11.0%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Intune9.2%
Microsoft Configuration Manager11.0%
SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor0.4%
Other79.4%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license
The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.
JunedBedrekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Have effectively deployed patches and applications while integrating with cloud solutions
The features I find most valuable in Microsoft Configuration Manager are replication and scripting. If I want to get a fetch report for anything, such as hardware-related issues or group policy-related issues, I need to fetch the report by using SCCM's scripting language and remediation part. The inventory collection features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are good because we always prefer the inventory. We do it by using the script language. We use remote management capabilities in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Remote management capabilities are useful if the user is not providing access; we can use the backend users to update the group policy and sync the devices. These are the main features we require.
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful version control, high availability, and scales well
We are in touch with the management of the SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor team, and we have made recommendations to them for quite a few changes. One area that could improve is the configuration download. Instead of only showcasing the differences between the baseline and the current configuration, or a specific version of the configuration, they should show the entire configuration getting downloaded. It could be in the form of a flat file or in the form of a binary file. If it is a flat file, it can use as a reference, and preserved for auditing purposes. That is one area where the product can see quite a lot of improvement. They have a feature where you can download by section, what I mean is, you can download the configuration of the hardware, software, or driver information, or the file folder settings or permissions. It is a section download, but not a complete download. That is one area of improvement. The other area of improvement is specific to the customer use cases. They would like to compare two servers as to what the configuration drift is but not only within the server comparison. For example, I would like to take a server in the DR setup that is in the primary data center to do a comparison between the primary server and the DR server. Currently, the configuration comparison is within the server itself. In a feature release, they could enhance the reporting. However, we have not evaluated this part of the solution extensively.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is user-friendly, and the performance is also good. It is a convenient product"
"Our main use is Intune's management of mobile devices, like Android or iPhone devices. The application performs quite well for both types. We successfully managed almost 3,000 endpoints."
"I mainly use Microsoft Intune analytics for taking that data that exists and bringing it into Power BI dashboards to make it visible to our clients, showing them all the operating systems in their environment and where the latest patches are, and then from there creating plans."
"Microsoft Intune brings all our endpoint and security management tools into one place, acting as a comprehensive solution where we can manage numerous devices and configuration profiles, and block specific URLs, among many other capabilities."
"We are a remote company, and the product helps us manage the global endpoints. It helps us natively manage the endpoints in the cloud from anywhere."
"Intune's most valuable features are its device management capabilities, particularly its centralized integration with other Microsoft stack components."
"The solution is stable."
"The most important thing for me is the autopilot feature."
"I like a lot of the reporting capabilities and baseline configurations."
"Software deployment and WSUS are most valuable."
"With the right administrator, application deployment can do wonders."
"We have found the scalability to be quite good."
"You can remote control or RDP. That has been the most valuable because we can go into one console and can get to anything we want. Instead of going to all these different consoles, we centralized everything."
"The most valuable feature of SCCM is the application distribution."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability."
"This solution captures all the devices in our infrastructure."
"The product’s alert feature is good. We receive notifications whenever some failures occur in the configuration."
"The customizability of the alerting system is particularly valuable; whatever devices are in the environment, whether EC2 servers or on-premises servers, all of them can be monitored using this service."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is version control. For example, if we began on the first of the month and we considered that as the configuration of the server, I could set that configuration as my baseline. On a daily basis, if there was the operations team that did, for example, server patching, the tool will maintain all levels of versions."
 

Cons

"In terms of what can be improved, I am looking for better enhancements regarding Apple management, not only on the mobile device, but also on the laptop."
"At the moment, we need more flexibility. We have some offices migrating to Windows 11 remotely. Sometimes, it is difficult to manage image installation because we have to collect some information before starting image deployment. Currently, Intune cannot collect the information needed for deploying new images."
"Customer service is not really good. I would give it a six out of ten. The main issue is the time it takes to get someone involved who truly understands what the product does."
"While Intune works perfectly well, the only potential downside is that the deployment could be a bit complex for some users."
"A major challenge is making all the products work within device management solutions like Intune. It would be beneficial if Microsoft removed support for older products much earlier in the process."
"Its configuration is fairly complicated. You have to do quite a bit of discovery to be able to deploy it for a customer. You have to ask them a lot of questions. So, its initial deployment is the biggest challenge. They should make it easier to deploy with the use of Wizards or something else. During the deployment stage, there could be profiles for the customers who are particularly wanting to use certain feature sets of Intune."
"In terms of the admin experience, it is straightforward, but the Windows enrollment experience could be improved. Sometimes, for enrollment, we have to reset devices and re-enroll them."
"Reporting needs to be better. Sometimes, it is way too slow, and it is not even accurate."
"There were misconfigurations by our team rather than issues with the product itself. However, it does seem a bit buggy from time to time, based on what I have heard."
"The deployment process is lengthy and should be quicker to complete."
"The solution is crowded with information."
"The solution is on-premises. The cloud version of the product, if a person needs to be on the cloud, would be InTune, which already exists as an option. SCCM doesn't need to offer cloud features for this reason."
"They should improve their anti-malware policies like the SCEP policies. For instance, you can't have different policies for different servers, there is only one policy in all the servers, and everything is covered under that. For example, say you want to scan one group of servers on Saturday, and then you want to scan another group of servers on Sunday, you can't do that. You have to scan all your servers, a regular scan or a full scan, on the same day and at the same time. That's definitely one thing they need to resolve. In the next release, it would actually be nice if they included Apple products. It will also help if you can use Intune again. Their compliance reporting feature could also be better. They can maybe work a bit on that for patching now. It would be better if SCCM came with the functions of Right Click Tools built-in. If SCCM would have all those functions already built-in, we won't have to go and spend $5,000, just as an add-in from another company to get those functions."
"Management of Linux devices could be improved."
"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."
"The tool's deployment is difficult. Microsoft needs to improve documentation with videos."
"Some dashboards I observed in Dynatrace are not available in SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor."
"In a feature release, they could enhance the reporting. However, we have not evaluated this part of the solution extensively."
"The product’s support services and licensing models need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This cost is approximately $30 USD per user per month."
"The product is offered as part of a Microsoft standard bundle. The pricing can be competitive to Airwatch, and Maas360."
"The pricing is inherently reasonable, as Microsoft leverages market insights to maintain the total cost of ownership at around ninety to ninety-five percent of what would be incurred in an on-premise scenario."
"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."
"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."
"The cost of the license and the features are justified for myself as a technical person."
"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."
"There are licenses required for this solution. We enable licenses on the devices we need to manage."
"I rate the price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten."
"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."
"It comes free with the Microsoft account. We have a yearly agreement, and all products are covered under it."
"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."
"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."
"The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for."
"Presently, I am using a free trial version."
"Microsoft provides a steep price for their enterprise products, but they offer very competitive pricing for their legacy customers."
"SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor has medium pricing compared to other solutions."
"The price of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is not reasonable, it is slightly on the higher side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business116
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise64
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
SolarWinds SCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Information Not Available
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