Jamf Now vs. Puppet Enterprise

Anywhere with under 100 Apple devices, I would recommend this service. It was always so simple to add a device you recently purchased to your inventory and be able to check in on it anytime. If they had more than 100, I would recommend Jamf Pro, the enterprise version of this software.

Incentivized

Puppet is good enough to get the job done, you can use it to automate deployments and maintain files and configurations, if this is all you're looking for it's great. If you're looking for more control over your systems as a whole without having to write your own scripts or install multiple configuration management systems then Puppet is not what you're looking for.

Incentivized

• Resetting passwords remotely..
• Locking or wiping a device.
• Pushing new apps out to all or one iPad.
• Controlling what apps are installed on the iPads.

• Provides a clear map of how a system is configured
• Eases the creation of a system in a specific cluster as it is scripted in code
• Simplifies configuration changes to a cluster or to every system such as rolling out vhost configurations, updating ldap roles, NFS mounts, etc
• The syntax is very easy to read and carries a lot of fluidity once the language is learned.

Incentivized

• I would like to see some more advanced functions for the iOS supervised mode. Maybe pushing iOS updates? Right now we can only see if it requires an update, but can't schedule an update time, etc.
• I would like to see Jamf Now work with Apple to allow apps with in-app purchases that can be used with Jamf Now. Right now some apps don't have two versions available in the app store (a full version, and a free version with in-app purchases), so the single version free app with in-app purchases can't be used across our enterprise environment. :(
• They could do with a better lost device activation lock. Currently, you can only lock a device from being erased and re-setup if you associate an icloud account with it and turn it on to find the lost device.

Incentivized

• The setup of Puppet is a nightmare compared to ansible. Anyone watching a youtube video can easily set up ansible with minimal IT knowledge. All one needs is the source IP addresses and we are good to go. Setting up Puppet is a more hands-on task and pushing the puppet agents to all the boxes is another issue. If the installation and setup were simplified like ansible that would attract a lot of people to this platform
• The syntax of the code for Puppet is not as easy as ansible. Ansible simply follows a YAML format and it's like typing in normal English. Even complicated tasks can be written by just understanding YAML syntax. Perhaps Puppet needs to revisit the lanugage used and try to come up with a much simpler lanugage for writing code. This will make day-to-day usage easier.

Incentivized

Working in an environment with just macOS devices, Jamf Now is a great option. With Jamf Now, you get details with configurations that get down to the fine details of each device. Without Jamf Now, it would be a much bigger headache managing our Apple devices. Overall, this application makes our jobs much easier.

Incentivized

No body is perfect and occasionally, but rare, it take a little bit to get a reply on the chat, but overall as compared to other chat sessions it is pretty responsive and fairly quick. They allow you to upload a screen shot if that helps and to reply with solutions via email so I have it as a reference in writing for future problems.

Puppet has top class support. You can simply mail them with their query and they will respond to your query in a timely manner. We do have enterprise license for puppet. Also there is a vibrant community for puppet out there. So even if you dont purchase a premium support option you can simply google your queries and get answers

Incentivized

Ease of use, price point, support, features - are all the reasons why we chose Jamf Now.

Incentivized

HPSA is a licensed product and incurs significant upfront investment costs due to COTS licensing. Puppet Data Center Automation has a significantly lower upfront investment and product documentation is more readily available. Chef is a very similar offering, however, at the time our decision was considered, the adoption of Chef vs. Puppet was significantly less in the community.

Incentivized

• Low Cost: 2-3 dollars a device for a month was cheaper than the time spent repairing the Mac server.

Incentivized

• Cut deployment times down to around 1 hour from 4-5 hours.
• Allows us to get a fully running system up from scratch in around 30 minutes.
• Allows for a more clear view of what is required to get a host running.

Incentivized