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Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 87% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.
VMware Aria Automation
Read 171 VMware Aria Automation reviews
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94% willing to recommend
 

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] and VMware Aria Automation based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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October 2025
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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

Cisco CloudCenter [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Configuration Management (6th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Boingotlo Molefhe - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps with data management and has a straightforward initial setup process
We use the product for demonstration, device provisioning, and data management They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features. We have been using Cisco CloudCenter for a couple of months. I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten. I rate the…
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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.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is fairly straightforward if you have a basic setup."
"The solution includes a lot of features and is useful because you can configure all the way down to ports."
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"Cisco has a lot of published information and documentation that helps users understand the product and its offering very well."
"You can scale it easily."
"I can define all components and create a blueprint for consumption across all services."
"The solution is agile and it has APIs for integration."
"Cisco CloudCenter's scalability is good."
More Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] pros
"value; It has provided my development team a pure self-service portal. We deploy thousands of machines and reclaim. So, their time to business, and their time to market has been improved exponentially."
"Our speed of provisioning has improved. We used to build systems manually, which would take four hours or a day. Nowadays we're able to spin something up off a template... and it takes about 20 minutes."
"The most valuable feature that we have is that it's able to deploy several different operating systems, it's able to deploy whatever we want. We can take a template, spin it up, revise it, save it back off, and be able to have that for other departments. We can have one for our Dev team and one for our research team which has some specific requirements. We can keep track of them and deploy things automatically."
"I find the system to be intuitive and user-friendly. In general, I'm quite happy with the entire setup. Once you configure the system, navigating the portal is pretty simple. They use a lot of the vSphere UI interface structure so it's intuitive, especially if you have used anything vSphere-related before."
"We haven't hit any limits yet, scalability is good."
"Our customers don't have to manage HVAC and space and cooling and all of those things that they used to have to do. Today, all they have to do is provision a server and manage their users."
"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."
"It's extremely convenient to be able to spin something up and be able to work on other things, because it's already done it, making my workload lighter."
More VMware Aria Automation pros
 

Cons

"They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features."
"The tool should improve its security on the XDR part."
"I'm not a big fan of CloudCenter. I don't have anything against it, however, the on-premise version has been so hard to upgrade and maintain."
"You don't get all the solution's benefits if you have older switches."
"The improvement I would like to see is not one thing particular to CloudCenter. I'd say it's more of a message that the system is still using a lot of the different products and if they would all just fit better together, they all could be faster together."
"The solution needs to be more simple."
"For many clients, the main problem with the solution is the price. Cisco is very expensive. If they could somehow make the pricing more competitive, that would be a big draw."
"They can add some of those features to make the platform more usable for different backgrounds and developer skills."
More Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] cons
"It is too broad scale and complicated. It takes too many clicks to do things."
"The upgrade experience is horrible. It's not straightforward, there are a lot of failures, a lot of support interactions. It's not something that we are able to pull off ourselves. I've been with vRA since it was termed vCSA. We've gone through multiple rounds, and it has never been easy."
"A hardened set of tests would be much appreciated."
"I would like to see a simpler way of provisioning it. As is, we can automate the provisioning of a VM, however, when it comes to the external IPs, that is outside of VMware. But that has to be automated as well. If there was a way for us to have the virtual machines connect to switches that are external to VMware, that would be great. That way, it would handle the entire workflow from creation and provisioning of a VM to the connectivity to the external IP addresses which allow our customers to have access to the VM. Currently, that IP configuration has to be done manually."
"For the administrator, it can be a little challenging. For the administrator, there are a lot of moving parts. It is fine once you figure out where the knobs are you need to twiddle, but it can be a challenge to get it up and running."
"The setup needs coding. It's not easy. It's not straightforward."
"We are migrating from vRA version 7 to 8, but the migration is really hectic and time-consuming. There are no straightforward paths to migrate. We are doing an entirely new deployment to go to vRA version 8.0, then somehow get all of the VMs to vRA 8.0. Therefore, it would have been great if VMware had some solutions to upgrade from vRA 7 to 8 seamlessly. This includes the management of all the objects or VMs from the older version. Unfortunately, it is not there."
"vRealize Automation on the back-end is still a little complicated. It has a lot of moving pieces, simplifying that from a pure infrastructure point of view would be a good thing. I would then like to have more out-of-the-box functionality and integrations with VMware components."
More VMware Aria Automation cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is balanced with the market."
"The solution is extremely expensive and has additional fees for things like monitoring."
"The tool's pricing is expensive."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."
"It 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 tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"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."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco CloudCenter?
The initial setup process is straightforward.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Cisco CloudCenter?
They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features.
See all answers
What is your primary use case for Cisco CloudCenter?
We use the product for demonstration, device provisioning, and data management.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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 ...
See all answers
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 ...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time
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Compared 12% of the time
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Compared 10% of the time
VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation Logo
VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation
Compared 6% of the time
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation Logo
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation
Compared 6% of the time
More VMware Aria Automation Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Cisco CloudCenter [EOL]
November 2025
Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] reportDownload Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] product report
Buyer's Guide
VMware Aria Automation
October 2025
VMware Aria Automation reportDownload VMware Aria Automation product report
 

Also Known As

CliQr, CliQr CloudCenter
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] is utilized for tenant creation, VM management, hybrid deployment, cloud management, and port configuration.

Primary users include DevOps teams, telecom companies, and service providers. It integrates well with ACI and ASX-T, offering stability, initial setup ease, and extensive documentation. Known for high trust in Latin America, it excels in workflow automation through Action Orchestrator and supports detailed configuration down to ports. However, improvements are required in DevOps alignment, upgrades, automation, and cost management.

What are the most important features of Cisco CloudCenter [EOL]?
  • Stability: Provides a robust platform with minimal downtime.
  • Ease of Setup: Simplifies the initial setup process to get users started quickly.
  • Documentation: Extensive guides and resources available for user support.
  • Workflow Automation: Action Orchestrator enables cross-infrastructure automation.
  • Blueprint Pattern: Defines middleware and dependencies effectively.
  • API Integration: Offers agility and flexibility with API support.
What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?
  • High Trust Level: Recognized reliability, especially in Latin America.
  • Configuration Support: Capability to configure down to individual ports.
  • Integration: Seamless integration with ACI and ASX-T.
  • Agility: Enhanced flexibility and adaptability to changes.

Among its features, Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] serves industries like telecom and service providers needing hybrid deployment and cloud management. DevOps teams utilize it for tenant creation and VM management. Known for stability and initial setup ease, it supports Latin American regions highly. Action Orchestrator aids in workflow automation, benefitting user workflows. Improvements in DevOps alignment, UI, multi-tenancy, YAML abstraction, and cost management are desirable. It requires better security for XDR and comprehensive cloud offerings, including architecture and network security features.

Cisco

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features. 

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

  • Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.

  • Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.

  • DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.

  • Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.

  • Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

  • VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.

  • Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.

  • Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.

  • Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.

  • Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.

  • Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

  • VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.

  • The solution offers high levels of security and control.

  • This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.

  • VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.

  • The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.

  • The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

Broadcom
 

Sample Customers

NTT, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), CollabNet, Pratt & Miller, PZFlex
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Buyer's Guide
Cloud Management
October 2025
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