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BlueCat Gateway vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

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

BlueCat Gateway
Ranking in Network Automation
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Network Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of BlueCat Gateway is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 8.7%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Automation8.7%
BlueCat Gateway0.7%
Other90.6%
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

David Muscat - PeerSpot reviewer
Is priced well, provides good visibility, and easily integrates
What I dislike is that there are limitations on how the data is viewed within BlueCat IPAM. As a result, we need to examine it from two different perspectives. While observing the tool's operation in Cloud Discovery visibility within its environment, we can witness it extracting the data and showing us the data's origin and location in the cloud – all of which is quite informative. However, upon importing this data into BlueCat for actual analysis, many of these informative components seem to be absent. We are hopeful version ten of BlueCat IPAM might resolve this matter. Currently, the data present there, when I inspect, let's say, a newly arrived or discovered device, I can see that device. Nevertheless, we lack a method to determine its location. For instance, if another person were to access that device aside from me, they wouldn't find information regarding its location. Although we can view the device itself and its configurations, its Azure-based location is not provided. Regrettably, certain essential flags are not transferred. I am presently engaged in an ongoing discussion with BlueCat's senior leadership regarding this matter. I am collaborating closely with them on resolving this issue, and they are acknowledging the problems. Given the complexities of our extensive presence in Azure, they also comprehend the rationale behind our configuration choices in CDNV. Consequently, we are also considering potential adjustments in IPAM to better align with the required data presentation. The biggest issue is the visibility of cloud discovery in the IPAM database and how it structures data. This is currently a significant hindrance.
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows
It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The ability to develop a kiosk-like solution for in-person assistance is crucial."
"We found IP and Network Discovery the most valuable features of BlueCat Gateway. Our team found it very easy to build, verify, and validate APIs in BlueCat Gateway, mainly if the users have a background in development and APIs. Our team found that BlueCat Gateway answers our needs well."
"The self-service capabilities are by far the best that we've seen in terms of features. If the user is being able to log in and make requests himself, from the onboarding process all the way to the end, that's very helpful."
"I like its capacity, the self-service portal, and operational automation. The most beneficial feature is that it saves time when creating new virtual machines, deploying security measures, and writing infrastructure code, making things easier and faster. We have a standard we follow, reducing the time spent repeatedly rewriting everything."
"We've seen that typically, the people who are provisioning VDIs and server VMs can now utilize most of their time towards other projects and moving the environment forward, instead of just hammering out virtual machines all day."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Aria Automation is the versatile automation and deployments."
"Upgrades have been extremely simple with their Lifecycle Manager product."
"In terms of scalability, vRA has connections to a lot of different systems. It's very flexible and an impressive product."
"The most valuable feature is, instead of doing the VMotion manually, we have automated everything with a script, using vRealize. That means I don't need to think about things like compatibility. The system will do everything for me and just give me a report."
"The preset policies and templates are useful. I would say that vRA is one of the best solutions we have. The CI/CD features also look helpful even though we aren't using them at the moment. We plan to get more involved and train our customers as much as possible."
 

Cons

"My most significant concern is that the documentation has problems."
"One area for improvement in BlueCat Gateway is the time it takes to fill in the dropdown in the UI of the solution because the speed with which the data loads isn't that fast. It would be better if you didn't have to wait for old items to load before seeing the first data."
"It is not super-intuitive. It does require some skills to understand how to use it. I had no problem, but I had spent a lot of time already learning this product ahead of moving it to an operational status. But as we did so, we had a hard time bringing some people from other groups into the fold, to script and work against this environment. So, the ability to build workflows within that automation needs to be streamlined."
"The solution could include more integrations and supportability around the container space."
"Its configuration process could be better."
"The most important thing that we missed in vRanger was the possibility to mount several images instantaneously and present it so we can run it immediately."
"Stability has gotten a lot better. However, the vRO aspect, when you have a multi vRA head, is a little bit finicky still. vRO still needs to stay on one appliance and be one application, because, when you have two, you can't see runs on the other one that are happening when you're not logged into that one."
"One of the features that's a struggle today is some of the public cloud extensibility. Some of the plugins that are native to vRA and vRO, I'd like to see them come out earlier for vRO. I understand that in vRA, the plugins are a little bit more polished because the VRA is the GUI. But we'd like to see them released earlier in vRO, prior to a GUI being released. Azure, for example, is a public cloud provider but we have some instability issues with the plugin in vRO. It's okay for us if we separate the vRA from vRO plugin releases. So I'd like to see some increased stability in some of those public cloud plugins."
"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."
"I would like to see more automation, more ways to automate automation tasks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is actually quite favorable based on our negotiations."
"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."
"The pricing is very high."
"SaltStack is an open-source product."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"The solution is free of cost."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BlueCat Gateway?
We found IP and Network Discovery the most valuable features of BlueCat Gateway. Our team found it very easy to build, verify, and validate APIs in BlueCat Gateway, mainly if the users have a back...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BlueCat Gateway?
I have no information on BlueCat Gateway pricing, as the management team handles that area.
What needs improvement with BlueCat Gateway?
One area for improvement in BlueCat Gateway is the time it takes to fill in the dropdown in the UI of the solution because the speed with which the data loads isn't that fast. It would be better if...
What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

BlueCat Network Automation
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

US Department of Energy, Swisslos, DXC, Edeka SouthWest
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about BlueCat Gateway vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.