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Firefly 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

Firefly
Ranking in Cloud Management
34th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (21st), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Firefly is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.5%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation5.5%
Firefly0.5%
Other94.0%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

MR
Senior Software Consultant at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees
Design workflows have been transformed and now enable rapid ad visuals and campaign launches
Firefly offers several best features in my opinion. We have the TTS feature and TTV feature. Additionally, suppose I have a single image from the creative designer and I want to generate different variations or different sizes of that image that will get adapted mostly on Google Ads. For example, I want to generate different renditions of that same image in different resolutions. I can quickly go to Firefly and from a single image generate different multiple images in different renditions. Firefly also helps us expand images. For example, I have a small image that is a portrait and I want to convert that as a full image or a hero image, which fits on a wide screen. Firefly helps us generate the images. It will not be stretching or squeezing your image. Instead, Firefly takes the context from your image and generates the next object which could appear. For example, if I am standing on a beach, it will generate the beach. It will generate a few people, it will generate some pictures of the sea, maybe some coconut trees. Firefly has positively impacted my organization a lot. I can say it is helping us reduce the effort and cost, saving the cost. For example, I have to create one image for our social media post. For that, we have to request our creative team, and then a creative designer will work on that idea and take one day or two days to get the design complete. After that, it comes to the review. With the help of Firefly, we can quickly generate the images and get them reviewed. Our go-to-market becomes easy. Within two hours or three hours, we can complete this whole process: generation, review, and all, and go to the market instantly. Additionally, if we have one image available and I want to quickly launch a Google Ad campaign that requires different renditions of the image, I can quickly use Firefly and generate different renditions of the image using the single image. So, it also reduces the dependency which we had earlier with the creative designers and the creative team.
VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Firefly has a positive impact on my organization by improving cloud governance, infrastructure consistency, and engineering productivity."
"Firefly saves one employee, it saves 5 million annually, and we are currently improving 40% of our go-to-market time while reducing cost by 30% and increasing revenue by approximately 20%."
"Firefly has a positive impact on my organization by improving cloud governance, infrastructure consistency, and engineering productivity."
"Firefly has impacted my work positively by making it more creative and productive."
"SaltStack is a one-stop-shop for your datacenter's management, monitoring and state control needs."
"The main benefit of vRA is a faster deployment for our customers, because before implementing vRA we were building VMs from scratch, but vRA allows us to create images so we can deploy a VM in just a few minutes."
"vRA is user-friendly. It has the same layout and walk-through GUI, similar to other VMware products."
"Using the solution we are able to automate database refreshment; this process used to consume a number of working days, but with vRA fully automating this process, it is now down to five or 10 minutes."
"It has cut down the time for building out a machine; a process that used to take three hours is down to 20 to 30 minutes, so if the users need a machine fast, we can get it presented to them quicker."
"The most valuable feature is being able to deploy a virtual machine from a low level. We can automate everything including network configuration, firewall configuration, storage, storage attachment, OS deployment, middleware, and so forth."
"Another valuable feature is the flexible user interface. They can manage all of the servers, the full lifecycle of VMs, on one screen."
"It's cut our server deployment times down from weeks to an hour."
 

Cons

"I feel that Firefly can be improved by getting more models to generate high-end videos."
"If I talk about the cost, the cost is a little high."
"Some of the areas Firefly can improve are a simpler onboarding process for organizations with large and multi-cloud environments, more customization for generated Terraform code to better match existing coding standards and module structures, and more native integrations with DevOps and ITSM tools."
"Some of the areas Firefly can improve are a simpler onboarding process for organizations with large and multi-cloud environments, more customization for generated Terraform code to better match existing coding standards and module structures, and more native integrations with DevOps and ITSM tools."
"vRO can get out of sync with vRA. We've run into every once in a while."
"I hate harping on the authentication issue, but it is huge."
"Licensing's expensive."
"Something as simple as formatting the catalog in a different way would be helpful because there is no option for doing so. A lot of the contents for the virtual machine, blueprints that you can request, are hidden from view and there's no way to change the view."
"Our current use cases aren't very complex, but as our environment grows, we're seeing a greater need for automation. We're considering expanding our automation efforts, especially since other competitive products are starting to offer similar features."
"Normally, on the first call to technical support, you don't get the right person. The log analysis takes a long time. This is something which should be improved."
"I would like them to improve the product training."
"Upgrade has been a issue, we always have to call in and open up the ticket for assistance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"The pricing is very high."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"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."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"As far as value is concerned, it has been essential to our environment. We have been able to deploy VMs quickly and the developers have their own sandbox, so they can spin up and destroy VMs at their own will."
"I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Firefly?
Some of the areas Firefly can improve are a simpler onboarding process for organizations with large and multi-cloud environments, more customization for generated Terraform code to better match exi...
What is your primary use case for Firefly?
My main use case for Firefly is cloud infrastructure management and Infrastructure as a Code governance. Specifically, I use it to discover and inventory cloud resources, detect configuration drift...
What advice do you have for others considering Firefly?
My advice for others looking into using Firefly would be to start with a well-organized Infrastructure as a Code strategy. Firefly delivers the most value when Terraform or another IaC tool is alre...
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

No data available
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Firefly vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.