AWS Config vs AWS Systems Manager comparison

AWS Config and AWS Systems Manager are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. AWS Config is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.3, while AWS Systems Manager is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1. AWS Config holds a 1.9% mindshare in CM, compared to AWS Systems Manager’s 10.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of AWS Config users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of AWS Systems Manager users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

AWS Config and AWS Systems Manager compete in the AWS resource management category. AWS Config seems to have an upper hand in terms of compliance and ease of deployment, while AWS Systems Manager stands out in versatility and functionality.

Features: AWS Config offers continuous monitoring, evaluation of AWS resource configurations, and compliance checking. AWS Systems Manager provides operational data management, automation capabilities, and versatile functionalities.

Room for Improvement: AWS Config users suggest the need for more integrations, finer granularity in monitoring capabilities, and performance improvements. AWS Systems Manager could improve its documentation, user guidance, and interface usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Config is praised for straightforward setup and effective customer support. AWS Systems Manager offers intuitive setup but faces criticism regarding complex configurations. AWS Config is simpler to deploy with better customer support.

Pricing and ROI: AWS Config's pricing is competitive, deriving quick ROI through compliance features. AWS Systems Manager, despite higher perceived costs, balances its value with extensive functionalities. Both products are valuable, but AWS Systems Manager's capabilities justify its cost.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Config vs. AWS Systems Manager Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Config vs. AWS Systems 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 AWS Config is 1.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Systems Manager is 10.9%, up from 10.1% 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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Dineshkumar Thulasiraman

Cloud Engineer at cloudifyops

Useful for vulnerability scanning and data encryption

AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources. AWS Config integrates with the existing security infrastructure of our company, and it is an easy process that is not at all complicated. AWS Config is a security product. The tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats. The product helps with data encryption. You can have your data on AWS KMS, which helps with data encryption. For areas like SSL/TLS encryption, the tool offers data protection between AWS services and endpoints. As I need to learn the components of the product, I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.

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Ambe Frankline

Cloud/DevOps Engineer at Innovative Technology Systems

Tracks every action on AWS accounts in a centralized way

Setting up AWS Systems Manager to monitor and control other services is easy. You need to link the services you want to observe and track. The time it takes to deploy depends on factors like connectivity, latency, and the complexity of the services. For example, setting up a simple application is faster than setting up a more complicated three-tier or multi-tier system. Using the solution for batch updates varies depending on the number of servers involved and the commands needed. Personally, when I do small projects at home, deploying a few servers doesn't take long. But at work, where we handle larger deployments with hundreds of servers, it's faster due to better connectivity and resources.

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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 technical support of Microsoft Intune is good."

"The features of Microsoft Intune that I appreciate the most are its user-friendly interface and robust security options."

"While Microsoft Intune boasts a wide range of features, its user-friendliness and bundled licensing cost are key considerations for me."

"The core management feature in Intune is invaluable to us, especially considering the challenges we often face with System Center when pushing external updates."

"The most valuable features are the ones that make sure that the deployment is of a standard operating system and the Zero Touch deployment, which is very useful. This allows users to have an out of box experience."

"Compliance and the policies that can be set are the most valuable features."

"The best features include the management, which is quite good, and endpoints."

"It is a very stable and scalable cloud-only solution."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment."

"The solution is scalable and provides over 100 rules."

"AWS Config's dashboard improved our company's security as it helps with the vulnerability scanning of resources."

"The scalability is a ten out of ten."

"The tool protects its users' resources and data from unauthorized access, security breaches, and threats."

"Installing the instances and performing upgrades is smooth and clean."

"I use AWS Systems Manager primarily for infrastructure management and automation. One of its key benefits is managing patches and updates for our EC2 instances, including both Windows and Linux workloads. It can perform compliance checks on all managed workloads, identifying which systems aren't compliant or haven't been patched."

"AWS provides Auto Scaling groups."

"The solution is user-friendly"

"Has a variety of automation options."

"The solution's ability to scale is good."

"The store organizes parameters hierarchically, making it easier to configure and control versions. It also ensures scalability and high availability, automatically scaling to handle increasing workloads and providing reliable access to configuration data across multiple AWS availability zones."

"When we do the automation in the cloud, we use the SSM agent. This helps us to test our automation and documents, and monitor the cloud."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the change management option. It tracks every action on my AWS accounts in a centralized way, acting like a control tool for me. This is especially useful when working with Kubernetes and AWS ECS services. Additionally, my colleagues and clients often use the application management tools for configuration, parameters, and installations."

More AWS Systems Manager pros

Cons

"Some enrollment features could be improved."

"I would like to see Intune improve its handling of hybrid domain joins. We continue to experience issues with machines losing their hybrid domain join status."

"Lacking ability to leverage more iOS device management internally."

"The solution could be improved by the opportunity to connect third-party application databases, such as Chocolatey or another setup store, to Intune."

"The main disadvantage seen today is regarding Linux clients. We have a lot of development resources that have Linux on their clients, and we can't manage them on the same platform, as we do with other clients such as macOS and Windows. So, it should have support for Linux clients. It should also have better support for macOS."

"The most significant challenge is reporting and monitoring. The reporting accuracy for deploying applications and all aspects of Intune needs to be improved."

"For an existing customer who has an SCCM, it would need to be upgraded to an MECM first before I can introduce Microsoft Intune."

"Intune could be enhanced by automating application upgrades, similar to how it automates operating system upgrades."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."

"The reboot process for AWS instances could be improved. Microsoft Azure does not have this problem, so AWS could consider making their instances more robust. You would not need to reboot your instances frequently to replace the hardware and stuff. They can look for a better approach or mechanism to improve in the future. The concern is that you need to plan for the outage when you reboot an instance. You need to have a maintenance window where you can properly reboot the instance without affecting your application. When Amazon announces that you need to reboot an instance and are not ready, this becomes a problem."

"The solution is missing a configuration that can assist us when writing our programming languages."

"There is room for improvement in built-in tools, they are not up to the mark."

"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."

"One area that could be enhanced is dynamic configuration management. Additionally, improving integration with other AWS services like Lambda and CloudFormation would be beneficial."

"AWS does not have EKS cluster backup."

"I'd like to see more automation for monitoring and managing things like AWS CloudWatch and AWS Config. It would be a significant improvement if it could automatically handle these tasks and address issues as they arise."

"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."

"Lacks sufficient integrations."

"The fact that AWS Systems Manager takes time to complete the patching process, makes it an area where improvements are required."

"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."

More AWS Systems Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our enterprise agreement includes Microsoft Intune at no additional cost."

"I recently got to know that the AD P1 license is compulsory to use Intune Autopilot, which was surprising for me. Earlier, this was not the case. It is the wrong thing to do. We now need to purchase AD P1 licenses for us and for our customers. I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing."

"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."

"Microsoft Intune is pretty reasonable. We have difficulty with Azure, which is probably why we have not put many assets in Azure. Everything we put there is very expensive."

"The product is relatively pricey, but considering its benefits, I'd say it's fair. The benefits outweigh the expensive licensing fees, especially for large organizations, but medium-sized and smaller businesses may be unable to afford it."

"The product is offered as part of a Microsoft standard bundle. The pricing can be competitive to Airwatch, and Maas360."

"Intune is inexpensive. It also comes bundled in some Office 365 licenses, so you can choose to purchase it separately or as a package."

"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."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"The solution charges us per hour. There's no license."

"It is a very expensive tool. AWS pricing for Config is not fixed and depends on your organization's size and complexity."

"An AWS cloud engineer can bring down the costs."

"As we were doing a government project so the government got the project at a very nominal cost."

"Most of the features are free. I'm not entirely certain, but I believe the pricing is generally very low. Some services that are part of Ops Manager might have associated costs."

"The platform provides excellent value for the capabilities it offers when compared to third-party tools for similar tasks."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

Photography Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing 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 ...

See all answers

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 AWS Config?

The initial setup is super easy, it takes like two minutes. Literally a one-click deployment.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Config?

Improvements are needed as per customer requirements.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for AWS Config?

I use the solution in my company to check the vulnerabilities for all the resources, including tools like S3, EC2 Ins...

See all answers

What do you like most about AWS Systems Manager?

With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems m...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Systems Manager?

Every AWS service comes with some associated costs. While using AWS Systems Manager, we continually monitor to optimi...

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What needs improvement with AWS Systems Manager?

There isn't anything specific I remember at the moment.

See all answers

Comparisons

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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

IBM MaaS360 vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 3% of the time

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Spring Cloud vs AWS Config

Compared 20% of the time

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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 15% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 9% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 5% of the time

BigFix vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

April 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Configuration Management

April 2025

Download AWS Config product report

Buyer's Guide

Configuration Management

April 2025

Download AWS Systems Manager product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

No data available

Amazon Elastic Container Registry

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

AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations. With Config, you can review changes in configurations and relationships between AWS resources, dive into detailed resource configuration histories, and determine your overall compliance against the configurations specified in your internal guidelines. This enables you to simplify compliance auditing, security analysis, change management, and operational troubleshooting.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS Systems Manager is a management service that helps you automatically collect software inventory, apply OS patches, create system images, and configure Windows and Linux operating systems. These capabilities help you define and track system configurations, prevent drift, and maintain software compliance of your EC2 and on-premises configurations. By providing a management approach that is designed for the scale and agility of the cloud but extends into your on-premises data center, Systems Manager makes it easier for you to seamlessly bridge your existing infrastructure with AWS.

Systems Manager is easy to use. Simply access Systems Manager from the EC2 Management Console, select the instances you want to manage, and define the management tasks you want to perform. Systems Manager is available now at no cost to manage both your EC2 and on-premises resources.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Flatiron, Prezi, iZettle, British Gas, Burt, Autodesk, FanDuel

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Buyer's Guide

AWS Config vs. AWS Systems Manager

April 2025

Free Report: AWS Config vs. AWS Systems Manager

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Config vs. AWS Systems Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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