Jamf Pro

Pros

I like the freedom there is to create configuration profiles, and manage groups. One of the features that we utilize the most are smart groups, to either organize mobile devices or to regulate iPad security (prohibit students from downloading apps, while still keeping the App Store available to them, and see who has downloaded restricted apps that we do not want to "publicize" to the point they will put them on their phones.

I do like the fact that a group of people can each be working in the same area, such as the same Configuration Profile, and we can still function, other software that we use only allow one user for the organization at once prohibiting multitasking.

One of the biggest reasons we continue to use this software rather than migrate the remaining portion of our organization to Mosyle (which offers quite a bit for free), is the customer support.

Cons

One thing that stands out is the organization of the product. Due to the varied ways to administer devices and applications, there are a few different screens to use. We have found that we have to visit several pages to accomplish one task, such as automatic update of apps in the system, to be pushed out into Self Service to groups. We have since switched from codes to Managed and found it less cumbersome, but having to visit student pages as well as the VPP assignments when there are changes that are not immediately pushed out has made the learning curve for some members of the department steeper than it needs to be.

We have occasionally experienced support advice that seemed like checking off a checklist of things to try before delving deeper into issues. We understand, having frequently done this with Apple and even our own users, however, sometimes, it seems like the checklist is more important than looking at the whole issue.

Finally, not quite a con, but we do not currently use Jamf for our Computers or Apple TVs because of the cost to benefit ratio not being justifiable. We keep things fairly open and would only really just use it to aid in set-up and some push of applications and updates, but not exhaustive.

Pros

Jamf is a growing company with a great product and amazing support,
really listens to customers!
Pros: Jamf has been doing this the longest when it comes to Mac and
iOS device management. They are a relatively small, yet growing
company with Midwest values, that really cares about helping
organizations succeed with Apple.

They stand behind their product and their support is phenomenal! They
are passionate about giving back to the communities they are based in
(Chippewa Valley, Minneapolis, and offices around the world). They put
on the worlds largest user conference for Apple IT admins and they
have the largest user help knowledge base, jamfnation.com. They also
provide same day or prior support of major OS and iOS releases. They
are constantly refining the product and adding new features to it.

If you have an issue, Jamf support will bend over backwards to help
you, even if you're not a paying customer. They care that much about you
and the product. Also, the soon to be released version 10 will bring
many needed changes to the UI.

Cons

Jamf Pro is not the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. For
instance it allows me to manage 6k+ iPads and over 2200 Macs, iMacs
and Apple TVs with a very small staff. The money we pay for the
solution is more than made up in the ability to manage all of these
devices successfully and with a limited staff. That being said, like
all software, Jamf Pro has issues. Sometimes these can be major
issues. However, Jamf is quick to throw dedicated support at these
issues and works hard to fix them. As mentioned above, they are
growing for sure and there will be some growing pains along with this
growth.

The update to the UI cannot come fast enough. Would like to actually
be able to pull usable metrics and reports from the product. The
logging errors could use more of an update or hotlinks to resolutions
(feature request maybe?), but this is more for on-prem hosting.
Overall though, it's a great product with a great company and team
behind it!

Pros

Fairly easy to figure out what it takes to make it work if you are of average intelligence for this sort of thing. In my case, it was difficult, until I figured it out. Patch management was the priority for us and it turns you have to be a little creative in trying to get the information extracted from the Macs (depending on the application) in order to determine if it needs to be patched. In another words, it's not as turnkey as much as I was led to believe. Support at JAMFNation is fantastic. Those folks have tackled most of the problems and that's where I located the scripts and other nuances required to make it work. No other resource like it. Newbies and super rockstars all contribute to make things work. JAMF staff also helpful. Make sure you contribute too!

Cons

For me personally, the required Jumpstart training you need to purchase didn't work so well. Did not know enough about what I was doing to ask intelligent questions. After the training, fighting the learning curve began. There are no step-by-step procedures (or friendly user manual) to help a newbie get the system up and running. Mind you I say this as a complete novice and not a very smart one at that.

Pros

Jamf Pro is a very powerful tool with a rich feature set. There is a learning curve but the training available is excellent, providing you are in a region it is available.

We manage a global fleet of Macs and use a hosted cloud instance which allows us to install software, perform updates and just generally manage our Macs no matter where our users are.

The Self Service app gives our users the ability to install software when it suits them or run fixes to known issues without having to contact IT.

Cons

Support can be a bit slow at times, as we have a hosted instance when we call support we are often told we have to wait for someone from the cloud team to take a look and get back to us. Also since updating to v10 we have had performance issues because of a product issue which could be resolved by throwing more resources at the server but as we do not host it we do not have the control to do that. Apparently the problem has been addressed in the next release.

Pros

Jamf Pro works really well for managing a fleet of MacOS and iOS devices. The management console is easy to navigate and the feature set is clear. The ability to segregate administrators by using Sites is a nice feature for us. Integration with Apple's services is quite good and easy to maintain. We split our infrastructure across multiple hosts (database on one machine, a management point is on one host, the managed devices on another) is key for us. Also nice that the infrastructure runs on multiple OSes, we run ours on RHEL.

Cons

The issue was related to communication and to bug checking during an update. One update broke access to Active Directory based security groups. This broke many of our workflows for distributed administrators. Customer support was good for initial triage, but follow-up communication was poor. The issue was fixed in two later updates but we were not told that the issue was fixed. We thought it had been fixed but we had to call Jamf and explicitly ask for confirmation. Would have been nice if Jamf had proactively followed up on a support case to let us know the problem was resolved.