Microsoft System Center vs. Salt Project

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft System Center
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft System Center Suite is a family of IT management software for network monitoring, updating and patching, endpoint protection with anti-malware, data protection and backup, ITIL- structured IT service management, remote administration and more. It is available in two editions: standard and datacenter. Datacenter provides unlimited virtualization for high density private clouds, while standard is for lightly or non-virtualized private cloud workloads.
$1,323
per month
Salt
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Built on Python, Salt is an event-driven automation tool and framework to deploy, configure, and manage complex IT systems. Salt is used to automate common infrastructure administration tasks and ensure that all the components of infrastructure are operating in a consistent desired state.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft System CenterSalt Project
Editions & Modules
Standard Edition
$1323
Datacenter Edition
$3607
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft System CenterSalt
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
Microsoft System CenterSalt Project
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

HashiCorp Vagrant
HashiCorp Vagrant
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

Ansible
Ansible
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Ansible
Ansible
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft System CenterSalt Project
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(20 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft System CenterSalt Project
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
We used a product before that was designed to prevent users making changes and saving files to the desktop computer. This required a renewal of the license. By using SCCM in our environment we were able to discontinue using that product because SCCM allows us to completely restore a machine back to the original configuration. We have taught our users to save their individual work on either a network drive or a cloud drive. By doing this, if we do a re-image of their machine they have lost no data, and it makes for a faster resolution. In some instances having a computer in our SCCM environment it can become cumbersome when creating new users for very specific purposes. It can be done by creating new organizational units and applying new policies but when in a pinch it can be frustrating. For the most part we have tried to make "new" purpose images and groups to at least accommodate a quick install.
Read full review
Open Source
SaltStack is a very well architected toolset and framework for reliably managing distributed systems' complexity at varied scale. If the diversity of kind or number of assets is low, or the dependencies are bounded and simple, it might be overkill. Realization that you need SaltStack might come in the form of other tools, scripts, or jobs whose code has become difficult, unreliable, or unmaintainable. Rather than a native from-scratch SaltStack design, be aware that SaltStack can be added on to tools like Docker or Chef and optionally factor those tools out or other tools into the mix.
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • Provides our users the ability to deploy and manage our own datacenter based on defined software with understandable solutions for storage, compute, networking and security.
  • We are able to update at once all the computers from all departments without having to install the OS on every computer.
  • It allows us to have everything in one place for database management and datacenter inspection as well.
Read full review
Open Source
  • Targeting is easy and yet extremely granular - I can target machines by name, role, operating system, init system, distro, regex, or any combination of the above.
  • Abstraction of OS, package manager and package details is far advanced beyond any other CRM I have seen. The ability to set one configuration for a package across multiple distros, and have it apply correctly no matter the distrospecific naming convention or package installation procedure, is amazing.
  • Abstraction of environments is similarly valuable - I can set a firewall rule to allow ssh from "management", and have that be defined as a specific IP range per dev, test, and prod.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • Needs web based storefront for requesting new software
  • Needs ability to manage the packaging work flow better
  • Sometimes is slow to download and there is no indication the entire catalog is being loaded, resulting in confused users not being able to find common software in the available list.
Read full review
Open Source
  • Managing network hardware should be more native and easy
  • SaltStack should buffer jobs and, when a client returns, make sure it is executed proberly
  • SaltStack should provide basic pillar and states structures to help get newbies started
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
Read full review
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Microsoft
If I had to dislike something about the system it would be how much it changes once you upgrade. This could be more of a problem of mine since I get used to one way and don't like it when it changes so much. I am enjoying the newest update, but it is a mess when you are actually going through the upgrades.
Read full review
Open Source
We haven't had to spend a lot of time talking to support, and we've only had one issue, which, when dealing with other vendors is actually not that bad of an experience.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.
Read full review
Open Source
We moved to SaltStack from Puppet about 3 years ago. Puppet just has too much of a learning curve and we inherited it from an old IT regime. We wanted something we could start fresh with. Our team has never looked back. SaltStack is so much easier for us to use and maintain.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • We have been able to automate our patch management, firmware and other security concerns.
  • We have a standardized "image" ensuring our setup is consistent across the enterprise. This alone has saved us in time to support and time to understand how to use our desktops.
Read full review
Open Source
  • We manage two complex highly available self-healing (all infrastructure and systems) environments using SaltStack. Only one person is needed to run SaltStack. That is a HUGE return on investment.
  • Building tooling on top of SaltStack has allowed us to share administrative abilities by role - e.g. employee X can deploy software Y. No need to call a sysadmin and etc.
  • Recovery from problems, or time to stand-up new systems is now counted in minutes (usually under eight) rather than hours. This is a strategic advantage for rolling out new services.
Read full review
ScreenShots