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Cisco Intersight vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Intersight reduces costs and time via hyper-converged tech, simplifying management and improving user satisfaction over time.
Sentiment score
7.5
VMware Aria Automation significantly reduces provisioning times and workload, enhancing productivity and cost efficiency with varied ROI among users.
It simplifies the onboarding of new hardware, reducing time spent on manual installations and configurations.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco Intersight's support is available 24/7, praised for competence but can be slow for complex issues. Ratings vary.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware Aria Automation support receives mixed reviews, with varying responsiveness, community reliance, and documentation improvement needed.
For complex issues, it's challenging to get the right engineer quickly unless you have a specific contract like CX.
Cisco technical support is helpful.
Cisco provides better support than anyone else.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Intersight is highly scalable, effortlessly managing multi-environments and automating tasks, with high user satisfaction across various settings.
Sentiment score
7.5
VMware Aria Automation is praised for scalability and efficiency, though configurations can pose challenges; updates improve adaptability for enterprises.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten due to its capability to manage multiple domains and automate service requests.
Cisco Intersight is scalable enough for our needs, allowing management in a multi-environment setup and working remotely while deploying servers.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Intersight is generally stable and secure, but upgrades and documentation gaps may pose challenges, affecting stability ratings.
Sentiment score
6.8
VMware Aria Automation is reliable, but experiences issues with upgrades and integrations, though recent versions show improvements.
Some steps are not included in the official documentation, which can create challenges.
It is always accessible online, secure, and allows access from any location, following strict authentication standards.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Intersight needs improved hybrid cloud integration, enhanced automation, AI assistance, easier migration, setup, and broader device management.
VMware Aria Automation needs better UI, domain integration, broader cloud support, stability, migration, pricing, documentation, and automation features.
There is a significant issue regarding migration from UCS Manager into Intersight without formatting the Fabric Interconnects (FI), which is problematic in a production environment.
When registering our devices and servers using tokens, auto-detection could make it easier by automatically identifying resources and adding them to the platform.
It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like ChatGPT.
It operates for both of my products, however, as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.
 

Setup Cost

Opinions on Cisco Intersight pricing vary, though most agree it offers fair value and justifiable investment for enterprises.
Users appreciate VMware Aria Automation's features but criticize its confusing and costly licensing structure and potential extra support costs.
Cisco Intersight's license cost is very high compared to AWS and Azure solutions, which have lower initiation costs.
The pricing is fair and reasonable, particularly for enterprises.
The pricing mechanism sounds fair.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Intersight provides integration, orchestration, analytics, and automation for enhanced manageability, scalability, and security in data centers.
VMware Aria Automation enhances cloud management, automating tasks with user-friendly features, efficiency, cost reduction, and flexible integration.
It also provides predictive analysis, predicting data leaks and making it easy to scale up servers remotely without requiring physical interference.
It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure.
This solution has provided time savings and required fewer people to operate this tool, rather than direct cost savings.
It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Intersight
Ranking in Cloud Management
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (12th)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 2.6%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 11.8%, up from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

ItzikLiberman - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides data center management and full infrastructure visibility
Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management. It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure. We have visibility to other products and storages, some networking. It is also valuable for its integration capabilities with other products.
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.
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856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
34%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Intersight?
Intersight can validate our environment.
What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?
I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight. It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?
We use Cisco Intersight ( /products/cisco-intersight-reviews ) for operational tasks. We run patches and import firmware updates from the Cisco site. In the event of a component failure, such as a ...
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

Intersight
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EXMAR, RapidScale
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Intersight vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.