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BMC Helix Cloud Security vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

BMC Helix Cloud Security
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (22nd)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Cloud Security is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

GregoireSoukiassian - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively addresses security concerns but could use enhancement in terms of integration
BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features. It currently consists of separate point solutions that don't flow together as seamlessly as they could. This lack of integration, unlike platforms like ServiceNow, may be due to historical factors. Enhancing this integration would make it a more compelling choice from a business perspective and offer a smoother user experience. In the next release of BMC Helix Cloud Security, I would like to see additional features, particularly AI integration, which has already been announced. AI integration could bring more precision to the platform, making it even more interesting and effective.
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

"Role-based security is a valuable feature."
"It's also multi-cloud. You can look at several cloud providers: AWS, Azure, or GCP."
"The cool feature of Helix Cloud Security is that you can do all that — understand and remediate issues — in one dashboard, based on the different policies that are available for security, out-of-the-box."
"The best feature is time to value. With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud. If you have Azure and AWS deployments, you might have multiple subscriptions in Azure and usually multiple accounts in AWS. You may even be doing some GCP work (around Google Cloud Platform). It's very difficult to manage a common set of policies, even less reporting, across multiple subscriptions, accounts, and cloud environments. What BMC Helix Cloud Security does is provide a unified view or single pane of glass as to your baseline. Then, it also facilitates the ability for Level 1 or 2 operations support to take action and report on security vulnerabilities."
"The features that I've found most valuable are its container security aspect. I also like its vulnerability management tools."
"The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities."
"The automation functionality has been most valuable. With a click of a button, we are able to automate provisioning, the build of new hardware and apply patches. These are all extremely important and differentiated tasks that can be automated in SaltStack."
"vRA has enabled us to derive value from the cloud faster. It is five to six times faster than traditional solutions."
"vRA is user-friendly. It has the same layout and walk-through GUI, similar to other VMware products."
"It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method."
"value; It does a lot of things automatically that would take our group, when we're already strapped for time, a lot of time to go through and clean stuff out of databases and the like."
"Valuable features include integration with Infoblox, for IP management; and three-tier app deployment as one unified Blueprint."
"The blueprint functionality of the product is intuitive and user-friendly. The concept of the blueprints is visual and easy to use."
"The most valuable features are that it's multi-tenant and the ability for scale."
 

Cons

"The UI could be more user-friendly."
"Every organization out there doesn't rely on just one control body. They use FISMA control. They may use HIPAA, CIS, PCI, or SOX, then blend them. One of the things that is now in big demand for BMC Helix Cloud Security is content. That's the next journey in its lifespan, making it easier for the community to share and collaborate on content for security controls that can be measured and remediated."
"I want the role-based security feature to be improved."
"We've had some with issues connectors. The connectors have seemed to have caused a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment. The only time I've had to reach out to tech support was for that. It seems it may not have been scanning correctly or I wasn't seeing data within a specific time. But we've set up a couple of connectors in the past couple of weeks and they actually scanned the AWS environment and we had data within about 10 minutes. It's working a lot faster and I think they're making improvements as they go."
"BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features."
"It needs to be more dynamic with variable customization to make new workloads more reliable. It also needs to be faster. We are exploring vRA version 8 right now and maybe what I'm requesting is available in the new version, but we haven't yet explored it fully."
"My impression of its stability is "middle of the road." We've had some issues where it seems to be a little bit sensitive, where deployments fail and we don't really know a specific reason why. We'll dig through logs and try and figure out what's going on, but it's not always apparent as to why it failed. And you can kick it off again and it'll succeed. So stability could be better."
"The back-end has a steep learning curve."
"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."
"They can improve on the dashboard representations and the options for non-technical people. I would like to see the ability to customize that and maybe provide them with helpful guides to what subscriptions they have. Sometimes, I find that I have to do more explanation to people who do approvals. I would really like to customize the display to the terms they use in their particular business unit. So a little bit more of a nod to the customization of the UI for non-technical users would be helpful."
"It is complex to use for new users. It should have automated tools or drag-and-drop functionality."
"Web UI."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a subscription model with term licensing that is usually yearly. This includes, not only the product, but support and maintenance. It is based on cloud assets. Therefore, if you have 100 cloud assets, those cloud assets are measured based on evaluation or transactions. For example, if I'm evaluating that cloud asset for CIS compliance, PCI compliance, and AWS best practices, that asset gets evaluated three times, as those are three transactions. However, the license model is based on peak asset usage. So, over a year, if you deploy 100, 1000, 500, and then 2000 assets, you will be charged for the 2000 peak of assets managed by Helix Cloud Security."
"The pricing is based on an annual subscription, upfront, and it's based on cloud assets. Whether your assets are in Azure and AWS combined, the tool tells you how many assets are being scanned and that's the number used for pricing."
"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."
"The solution is free of cost."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"Customers say this solution is costlier compared to its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix Cloud Security?
The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Cloud Security?
I would rate the price of BMC Helix Cloud Security as a seven in terms of costliness. It is not the cheapest option available, as it tends to be more expensive than some competitors, but it offers ...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Cloud Security?
BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features. It currently consists of separate point solutions that don't flow together as seamlessly as they coul...
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

TrueSight Cloud Security, SecOps Policy Service
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NHS, Vodafone, Kansas City Life, SKY Italia, Cybera
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.