AWS Systems Manager vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

AWS Systems Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

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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 July 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Systems Manager is 10.7%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 16.8%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble

Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24

Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license

The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.

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GeraldMusaga

Sr. AWS Cloud DevSecOps Engineer at Manhattan Strategy Group

Has valuable automation capabilities and a straightforward setup process

I advise others to evaluate specific needs and tasks to see if Systems Manager aligns with organizational requirements, particularly in operational and application management. It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks. Integration with other AWS services like Lambda is seamless and enhances its functionality. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

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Muralitharan KS

Software Architect at OSELabs

Efficient server management and detailed reporting with flexible deployment capabilities

We are primarily using Ansible for automation purposes as it is a configuration management tool. It is utilized for various activities such as DNS activity, changes to web servers, virtual host settings, and other day-to-day tasks, all of which are templated in Ansible Ansible allows us to manage…

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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

"Autopilot is the most valuable feature."

"The user experience is good; we could work and deploy many controls through Microsoft Intune."

"I like that it's very good and very simple. I found that we just needed to have a proper subscription for an Intune tenant, and from the subscription, if we have the right role assigned, like the global admin role or the owner role, we can use Microsoft cloud resources. With the help of that, we can do many things like setting up Microsoft Intune in the cloud to create our virtual machines. All these can be done, and the steps are very simple. I really liked it. I like features like Windows Auto-Enrollment. I like it very much because whenever you supply it to the end-user, it will be ready to use immediately. The end-user only needs to provide the user credentials, and then they are good to go. I also really like Cloud PC, which was recently launched on Azure."

"The best part of Intune is application deployment. We can deploy an application to several users with a single click. We can use conditional access, granting access to users based on certain conditions, such as location, platform, etc."

"The key benefit of Intune is its integration with the Microsoft ecosystem."

"I like how Intune deploys the policies and makes them customizable. You can deploy it through Intune and forget about it."

"Microsoft Intune is a cost-saving solution, reducing IT department workload and allowing for faster device provisioning compared to traditional methods."

"The biggest asset is the range of device management options available with Intune, whether it is a Windows device, a Linux device, a Mac device, or mobile devices."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"AWS provides Auto Scaling groups."

"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."

"Systems Manager has a feature where it analyzes the logs and gives us a performance overview in the form of a graph. We know when it's taking up more resources and when there are spikes, so we can predict the usability."

"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 is user-friendly"

"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts"

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

"It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks."

More AWS Systems Manager pros

"The solution can scale."

"It increases our company's efficiency, automating all the simple tasks which used to take hours of somebody's time."

"This solution allows us to stitch a lot of different parts of the workflow together."

"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."

"Being a game-changer in configuration management software is what has made Ansible so popular and widespread. Much of IT is based on SSH direct connectivity with a need for running infrastructure in an agentless way, and that has been a big plus. SSH has become a great security standard for managing servers. The whole thing has really become an out-of-the-box solution for managing a Unix estate."

"The solution is very simple to use."

"It's nice to have the Dashboard where people can see it, have it report to our ELK stack. It's far more convenient, and we can trigger it with API and schedules, which is better than doing it with a whole bunch of scripts."

"It was easy to read and learn. It is a YAML-based syntax, which makes it easily understand and pick up."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pros

Cons

"Integrating certain group policies can be challenging and may necessitate using on-premises systems to integrate them with Microsoft Intune."

"While Intune works perfectly well, the only potential downside is that the deployment could be a bit complex for some users."

"I would like to see easier pushdowns. Currently, we have to package our own software and then push it. Intune can make that way easier and integrate applications, such as Zoom and Adobe Acrobat, that are used by a lot of enterprise or corporate organizations."

"The tool's tunnel gateway is not very good, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Sometimes, customers compare it with AirWatch, but the concept of Intune is different from other solutions. It's an application management app. It gets a bit difficult to explain it to customers, but it's not a product limitation. It takes a presale document or presentation to explain it to customers."

"Microsoft Intune is not as fast and extensive as traditional solutions such as SCCM and others."

"Microsoft Intune could enhance its patch management for various devices, ensuring regular updates and tracking of device privileges."

"The difficulty of the the roll out is surprisingly difficult considering this product is supposed to be an integrated part of the 365 suite."

More Microsoft Intune cons

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

"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."

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

"We formerly used third-party products to analyze the log, give us information, and find bottlenecks. Systems Manager could provide more tools that conduct this analysis, so we don't have to do it ourselves."

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

"Ensuring broader OS coverage in patch management could be beneficial for the product."

"Every AWS service comes with some associated costs."

More AWS Systems Manager cons

"The tool should allow us to create infrastructure. It has everything when it comes to management, but it lacks the provisioning aspect."

"The solution must be made easier to configure."

"When you set up Playbooks, I may have one version of the Playbook, but another member of the team may have a different vision, and we will not know which version is correct. We want to have one central repository for managing the different versions of Playbooks, so we can have better collaboration among team members. This is our use case for using Git version control."

"There are some options not available in the community edition of the solution."

"At this time, I do not have anything to improve. What we struggle with is the knowledge base, but that is more about us having to go and find it and learn the platform on our own rather than an actual Ansible issue."

"The solution is slightly expensive, and its pricing could be improved."

"The web GUI can be a little bit better. There should be a couple of more features."

"What we need is model-driven, declarative software infrastructure management. However, things tend to break with new versions, requiring a lot of work to fix…The focus should be on improving the support for Ansible in the area of AI coding."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with the E5 plan. We bought the E5 plan from Microsoft."

"Intune is available as an individual product, but it also comes with Office 365 Premium or an Enterprise license, and the price varies for each version."

"The price is very reasonable."

"Previously the price was $4 per month per user. Now it's $2.25 per user per month."

"The product is expensive."

"Its price is quite okay. I wish they provide certain additional features with the same license."

"The price of Intune is often included as part of a bundle with other Microsoft licenses, which makes it somewhat cheaper."

"It's affordable. It's cheaper if you have an Office 365, E5, or E3 subscription because everything is there."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

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

"Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible."

"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."

"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."

"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."

"Everything is generally fair. No one ever likes to pay a lot of money, but we are getting the value. We also get support with it. It has been fair and worthwhile."

"The pricing for us is huge because we use twenty thousand nodes, so that is a huge infrastructure, but if someone is using a small infrastructure, then the pricing is not so much."

"The pricing is okay."

"We use the open-source version of the solution."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

What needs improvement with AWS Systems Manager?

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

What is the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?

Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management h...

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...

What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Comparisons

Compared 11% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

SOTI MobiControl vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 15% of the time

AWS Config vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 14% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 10% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 6% of the time

BigFix vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 4% of the time

More AWS Systems Manager Competitors

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 2% of the time

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Intune

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Configuration Management

Download AWS Systems Manager product report

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Download Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product report

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Amazon Elastic Container Registry

Ansible

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 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)

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a powerful network automation solution that allows organizations to handle every aspect of their application launch process within a single product. It enables users to share their automations so that teams within an organization can collaborate on various projects with ease. Ansible Automation Platform is designed to be used by all employees involved in the network automation process.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform include:

Maximum benefit for reduced overhead. Ansible Automation Platform is an all-in-one solution that can enable users to do the jobs of multiple products with one. Users do not need to purchase multiple products to handle their network automation and application development needs. It is equipped with prefabricated content from more than one hundred companies that are partnered with it.

Scalable. Ansible Automation Platform is a highly scalable solution. It can easily be scaled up so that automations can be extended across the various devices that make up an organization’s network.

Flexibility. Ansible Automation Platform is highly flexible. It enables users to tackle any and all automation-related tasks.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Features

Automation analytics. Ansible Automation Platform comes equipped with an automation analytics feature. This feature enables organizations to measure the effects of their automations and plan how they are going to implement automations moving forward. It makes it easy for administrators to spot anomalies in their automations and resolve them before they can escalate and become major issues.

Integration suite. Ansible Automation Platform gives organizations access to a wide variety of integrations that enable them to connect to Ansible’s partners. Now users can augment their capabilities without needing to purchase additional solutions that will enable them to run features that are not normally a part of Ansible’s array of tools. The Ansible environment is built to handle the wide variety of integrations that their partners offer. In order to accomplish this it includes the APIs that users need in order to fully benefit from the integrations.

Centralized interface. Ansible Automation Platform comes with a centralized GUI interface that enables users to manage all of their network automation and application creation activities from a single location. Businesses can guarantee that their operations are going to be handled efficiently and according to a single standard. The management process is greatly simplified. All of the tools that users need are located in one place.

Reviews from Real Users

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its automation manager and its comprehensive centralized GUI-based management interface.

MD J., a solution architect at STBL, says, “The automation manager is very good and makes things easier for customers with multi-cloud platforms.”

Aankit G., a Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS, writes, “We like the GUI-based interface for the tower. Before, we only had a command-line interface to run all the Ansible tasks. Now, the Ansible tower provides the complete GUI functionality to run, manage, and create the templates and the Ansible jobs. This includes the code and YAML file we can create. The GUI interface is the added advantage of this solution, including some integration with the different plugins.”

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank

AWS Systems Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform