10 Best Configuration Management Tools in 2024

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SaaS has transformed business practices as they helps save costs and increase efficiency. However, alongside their benefits, they also bring challenges like security risks and integration issues.

As your IT infrastructure grows, configuration management is becoming more crucial. Configuration management is what controls changes to your systems and ensures they are consistent and reliable.

Without proper configuration management, you might face data silos, compatibility issues with other applications, and operational inefficiencies.

To tackle these challenges, you need to manage configuration carefully. It is harder to do it manually, so this is where configuration management tools come in.

To help you select the best, we've compiled a list of the ten best configuration management tools. These tools will help you to effectively manage SaaS configurations, paving the way for seamless operations and growth.

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TL;DR

• Configuration management is essential for maintaining consistent and reliable IT infrastructure, especially as SaaS usage grows, helping to avoid data silos and operational inefficiencies.
• Configuration management tools automate the tracking, updating, and management of SaaS applications, ensuring optimal performance, security, and compliance.
• Key features of these tools include asset tracking, workflow management, version control, automated user onboarding, and performance analytics.
• The top ten configuration management tools include CloudEagle, Rudder, Auvik, Saltstack, Puppet, Ansible, Docker, Solarwinds, and and CFEngine, each offering unique features and pricing.
• Effective configuration management tools can streamline operations, reduce risks, and maximize the value of cloud-based applications, with CloudEagle being highlighted for its comprehensive SaaS management capabilities.

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What Is Configuration Management?

Configuration management involves tracking, updating, and maintaining the settings of your SaaS applications. It ensures that your SaaS tools run smoothly, securely, and optimally over time.

This process covers everything from software versions and user permissions to integrations and security settings.

Implementing configuration management keeps your SaaS portfolio in a known, trusted state. It also helps you maintain compliance, prevent unauthorized changes, and quickly recover from issues.

Effective configuration management is crucial as your SaaS usage grows. It allows you to scale your operations smoothly, adapt to changes quickly, and maintain a reliable foundation for your business processes.

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What Are Configuration Management Tools and Why Do You Need Them?

Configuration management tools are software that helps you control and organize your SaaS applications' settings and infrastructure. These tools automate many tasks to make managing your SaaS stack easier.

Here are some of their main features and how they can benefit you:

Asset tracking and optimization: This feature allows you to keep track of all your SaaS applications, licenses, and users in one place. It helps you avoid paying for unused licenses and ensures you have a clear view of your entire SaaS stack.

Processes and workflow management: Design, implement, and monitor workflows across your SaaS applications. This feature helps streamline operations, improve collaboration, and ensure consistent organizational processes.

Version control: Monitor and manage different versions of your SaaS configurations. This allows you to easily roll back changes if needed and maintain a history of all modifications.

Automated user onboarding: Set up new users or applications quickly and consistently. This feature helps you save time and reduces errors by automating the process of creating and configuring new accounts or instances.

Infrastructure management: Oversee and control your entire IT stack, including on-premises and SaaS systems. This helps ensure seamless integration between your SaaS applications and existing IT stack, improving overall system performance and reliability.

Compliance management: Ensure your SaaS applications meet industry standards and regulations. These tools help you maintain and demonstrate compliance by tracking and enforcing security policies.

Performance analytics: Gain insights into your SaaS usage and performance. You can use this data to make informed decisions about your SaaS investments and identify areas for optimization.

With configuration management tools, you can streamline your SaaS operations, reduce risks, and maximize the value of your cloud-based applications.

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10 Best Configuration Management Tools

Below are the top ten configuration management tools:

1. CloudEagle

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CloudEagle is a SaaS management tool with robust configuration management features. While not exclusively a configuration management tool, it has powerful capabilities to help you manage your SaaS stack effectively.

CloudEagle provides a centralized platform to manage everything about your SaaS portfolio, including its configurations.

Through its network of 500+ direct connectors, you will gain complete visibility into your entire SaaS stack. This visibility extends to configuration settings across all your applications, which allows you to monitor and manage them effectively.

Its user management capabilities enable you to control access configurations across your SaaS stack.

You can easily adjust user roles, permissions, and access levels to ensure that your apps are configured to align with your organization's security policies and operational needs.

The platform's strong reporting and analytics feature gives you valuable insights into your SaaS configurations.

You can track configuration changes over time, identify potential security risks related to misconfigurations, and ensure you comply with industry standards and regulations.

Key Features

User management: CloudEagle excels at user management. Through SSO and HRIS integrations, you can easily add, remove, and manage user accounts across your SaaS applications.

You can quickly assign roles and permissions to ensure that each team member has the right level of access. The tool helps manage user groups efficiently, streamlining access control for large teams or departments.

User provisioning and deprovisioning: It makes user provisioning and deprovisioning easier. It helps automate the process of adding, removing, and managing user accounts across your SaaS applications.

This automation ensures swift onboarding of new employees and secure offboarding of departing staff, maintains an up-to-date user database, and reduces the security risks associated with manual account management.

Assigning roles and permissions: You can quickly assign specific roles and permissions to users. This control allows you to ensure each team member has the right level of access to various SaaS applications, enhancing security and productivity while minimizing the risk of data breaches.

App access compliance and governance: CloudEagle enhances app access compliance and governance through automated access reviews and detailed app access logs.

This feature allows IT admins to monitor and review access to any application, easily generate compliance reports for auditors, and ensure accountability, data protection, and privacy across your SaaS portfolio.

Managing user groups and access levels: It simplifies the process of organizing users into groups and managing their access levels. This feature enables you to efficiently control permissions for entire teams or departments, saving time and reducing administrative overhead in large organizations.

Integrations: Setting up and managing integrations between your various SaaS applications is easy with CloudEagle. You can quickly configure connections, manage API keys, and set up webhooks to ensure smooth data flow between your tools.

The platform also allows you to monitor the status and performance of these integrations, helping you quickly identify and resolve any issues that may arise.

Setting up and configuring integrations with other SaaS applications: It makes connecting your various SaaS tools easy. You can quickly set up and configure integrations between different applications. This helps ensure smooth data flow and process automation across your entire SaaS stack.

Managing API keys and webhooks: With CloudEagle, you can manage API keys and webhooks for your integrated applications. This feature lets you maintain secure connections between your tools, update integration settings as needed, and ensure consistent data exchange across your SaaS portfolio.

Monitoring integration status and performance: Itprovides real-time monitoring of your integrations' status and performance. This allows you to quickly identify and address any issues, ensuring your integrated SaaS stack runs smoothly and efficiently.

Pros

• Cost optimization: The platform helps you identify redundant applications, unused licenses, and opportunities for consolidation, potentially leading to significant savings.
• Slack integration for procurement: It allows your team to make purchase requests and get approvals directly through Slack, streamlining the procurement process and improving efficiency.
• Extensive SaaS application catalog: This comprehensive database helps you discover new tools that might benefit your organization and compare them with your existing solutions.
• Pre-negotiated vendor discounts: This can lead to substantial cost savings. These discounts and the platform's cost optimization features can significantly reduce your overall SaaS spend.

Pricing

• Starter - $2000/month
• Growth - $3000/month
• Enterprise - $4000/month

Rating

G2: 4.7/5

2. Rudder

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Rudder automates your IT infrastructure management, boosting security, reliability, and compliance across all systems and operating systems.

It provides instant visibility into IT compliance and continuously fixes issues, keeping your environment well-configured and secure. The tool monitors your systems every five minutes, ensuring they stay in the desired states.

Key Features

• Graphical interface: Offers an easy-to-use visual platform for managing your IT infrastructure, making complex tasks simple and intuitive.
• Central visibility: Provides a unified view of all your systems, allowing you to monitor and control your entire stack from one place.
• Continuous visibility: Constantly updates you on your systems' status, enabling quick responses to any changes or potential issues.

Pros

• Saves time and increases efficiency.
• Lets you focus on important activities.
• Ensures compliance by design.
• Offers clear compliance views for each component.
• Enhances system reliability and security.

Pricing

• Standard - $80 to $130/year
• Premium - $100 to $150/year

Rating

G2: 4.5/5

3. Auvik

Auvik's cloud-based IT management platform simplifies your IT operations. It offers easy deployment, a user-friendly interface, and powerful automation.

With Auvik, you can efficiently manage diverse networks, endpoints, and SaaS applications. This tool allows your team to work flexibly, boosting productivity and reducing stress.

Key Features

• Performance baseline: Auvik establishes normal performance levels for your systems. This helps you quickly spot and address any deviations, ensuring optimal operation at all times.
• Configuration backups: The platform automatically saves your device configurations. If something goes wrong, you can easily restore previous settings, minimizing downtime and maintaining system stability.

Pros

• Top-notch visibility.
• Quick to deploy.
• Easy to use.

Pricing

• Tailored pricing.

Rating

G2: 4.5/5

4. Saltstack

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SaltStack's configuration management system allows you to set specific rules for your systems. It constantly checks your setup against these rules and makes necessary changes automatically. This ensures your systems always match your desired configuration, improving reliability and security.

Key Features

• Infrastructure management: Easily control and organize your entire IT infrastructure from one place, saving time and reducing errors.
• IT discovery: Automatically find and catalog all your IT assets, giving you a clear view of your entire system stack.

Pros

• Incredibly fast performance.
• Can handle hundreds or thousands of tasks at once.
• Uses a multithreaded design for efficiency.
• Employs ZeroMQ messaging for flexibility.
• Doesn't require persistent connections.

Pricing

• Tailored pricing.

Rating

G2: 4.4/5

5. Puppet

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Puppet simplifies configuration management for you. It lets you set and enforce rules across your entire system using code. You can easily define, test, and implement changes with task-based or model-driven workflows.

Puppet helps you evaluate configurations, set standards, and automatically maintain your desired system state. You also get a dashboard view of your infrastructure, making it easy to track changes and exceptions.

Key Features

• Continuous configuration: Puppet constantly checks and updates your systems, ensuring they always match your defined settings.
• Drift control: The tool quickly identifies and corrects any unauthorized changes, keeping your systems aligned with your specifications.
• Maintain compliance with automation: Puppet automates compliance checks and corrections, helping you meet industry standards without constant manual effort.

Pros

• It is open source.
• Scalable.
• Reusable.

Pricing

• Tailored pricing.

Rating

G2: 4.0/5

6. Ansible

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Ansible simplifies your IT management by automating storage, server, and network configurations.

It turns complex manual tasks into repeatable, error-free processes. This powerful tool helps you maintain consistency across your entire infrastructure, saving time and reducing mistakes.

Key Features

• Deployment automation: Ansible streamlines your software deployment process. It allows you to roll out updates quickly and consistently across multiple systems, reducing downtime and human error.
• APIs / integrations: The platform easily connects with other tools in your IT ecosystem. This feature enables seamless data flow between systems, enhancing overall efficiency and allowing for more comprehensive automation.

Pros

• Simplified automation.
• Low learning curve.

Pricing

• Tailored pricing.

Rating

G2: 4.4/5

7. Docker

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Docker is an open platform that simplifies application development, shipping, and running. It separates apps from infrastructure, allowing for faster software delivery. Docker lets you manage your infrastructure just like you manage your applications.

Key Features

• Deployment: Docker streamlines your application deployment process. You can quickly and consistently roll out your software across different environments, reducing errors and saving time.
• Self-healing high-availability: This feature automatically detects and replaces faulty containers. It ensures your applications stay up and running, minimizing downtime and maintaining service quality.

Pros

• Cross-platform consistency.
• Serverless storage.
• Flexible and scalable.

Pricing

• Personal - $0/month
• Pro - $7/month
• Team - $11/user/month
• Business - $24/user/month

Rating

G2: 4.5/5

8. Solarwinds

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SolarWinds is a top-rated, cloud-based IT service management platform. It combines service desk and IT asset management in one solution.

The platform uses automation, AI, and machine learning to streamline IT support and boost employee self-service. It's easy to use, affordable, and scales with your business needs.

Key Features

• Baseline and configuration drift management: This feature tracks changes in your system settings, alerts you to unauthorized modifications, and helps maintain consistency.
• Compare configurations: Lets you easily spot differences between various system setups, enabling quick troubleshooting and standardization.
• Router configuration management: Simplifies the process of managing and updating router settings across your stack.

Pros

• Automates network configuration management.
• Schedules regular backups.
• Highlights configuration errors.
• Executes scripts automatically.
• Maintains organized configuration archives.
• Makes locating backup files easy.

Pricing

• Tailored pricing.

Rating

G2: 4.5/5

9. CFEngine

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CFEngine is a powerful tool for securely managing and automating critical IT infrastructure. It streamlines configuration management processes, making work easier and more efficient.

Key Features

• Inventory reporting: Quickly gather and view detailed information about all your IT assets, helping you make informed decisions.
• Compliance reporting: Easily check if your systems meet required standards, ensuring you stay within regulations.
• Alerts & triggered actions: Get notified of important events and automatically respond to issues, reducing downtime.
• Infrastructure automation: Automate repetitive tasks across your IT infrastructure, saving time and reducing errors.

Pros

• Automates configuration and maintenance of large-scale systems.
• Provides a central access point for wide area networks.
• Works with multiple types of operating systems and devices.
• Increases efficiency in managing complex IT environments.

Pricing

• Tailored pricing.

Rating

G2: 5/5

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Conclusion

Configuration management tools are crucial for maintaining a secure, efficient, and compliant IT infrastructure. They help you streamline operations, reduce errors, and save time.

Among these tools, CloudEagle stands out for its comprehensive SaaS management capabilities, cost optimization features, and user-friendly interface. It helps manage configurations and also provides valuable insights into your SaaS stack.

Ready to take control of your SaaS portfolio and optimize your configurations? Book a demo with CloudEagle today.

Experience firsthand how it can transform your IT operations, boost efficiency, and cut costs. Don't let configuration challenges hold you back – let CloudEagle propel your business forward.

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the primary purpose of configuration management?

Configuration management's primary purpose is to maintain your systems' consistency, performance, and reliability. It helps you track and control changes to your IT infrastructure, ensuring everything works as intended.

2. What are the 5 stages of the configuration management process?

The five stages of the configuration management process are as follows: Planning: Define your goals and strategies. Identification: Catalog all configuration items. Control: Manage changes to these items. Status accounting: Track the current state of each item. Verification and audit: Confirm everything is working correctly

3. Who is responsible for configuration management?

Typically, IT managers or dedicated configuration management teams handle this process. However, in smaller organizations, system administrators often take on this responsibility.

Everyone in IT should understand and follow configuration management practices regardless of who's in charge.

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