Forward Enterprise vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

Forward Networks and Red Hat are both solutions in the Network Automation category. Forward Networks is ranked #19, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. Forward Networks holds a 3.2% mindshare in NA, compared to Red Hat’s 14.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Forward Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Forward Enterprise

Read 1 Forward Enterprise review

617 Views
450 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...

Read 72 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform reviews

10,071 Views
2,518 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Forward Enterprise

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Forward Enterprise compete in automation and network visibility. Ansible Automation Platform appears to dominate with its superior scalability and integration capabilities.

Features: Ansible Automation Platform offers robust scalability, seamless integration, and support for complex automation tasks. Forward Enterprise provides detailed network visibility, path analysis, and clear diagnostics for network components.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Ansible Automation Platform benefits from straightforward deployment, extensive community support, and comprehensive documentation. Forward Enterprise offers simplified deployment with strong customer support, efficiently resolving implementation issues.

Pricing and ROI: Ansible Automation Platform has flexible pricing models, cost-effective through open-source foundations providing strong ROI. Forward Enterprise, though with higher initial costs, delivers significant ROI with specialized network analysis features.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Automation Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Network Automation

March 2026

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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

Forward Enterprise

Ranking in Network Automation

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Modeling and Simulation (21st)

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...

Ranking in Network Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st), AWS Pro Service Providers (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of Forward Enterprise is 3.2%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 14.9%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Automation Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform	14.9%
Forward Enterprise	3.2%
Other	81.9%

Network Automation

Featured Reviews

Rozita Ahmadi

IT Architectural System Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Plenty of useful features, and simple implementation

Forward Enterprise has improved the way my organization functions All the features are valuable in Forward Enterprise. Forward Enterprise could improve by increasing flexibility. Additionally, there should be an Android version or desktop. I have been using Forward Enterprise for approximately…

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Manas Kashyap

DevOps Engineer at Elevenxcapital

Automation has transformed server patching and has reduced months of work to minutes

The best features that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers is that it does not require any additional resources inside the servers. Python is the only requirement, and since Python is already present inside the servers, we can run it from our location and it automatically deploys things and does the work for us. The minimal requirements and easy deployment have definitely impacted my daily work and my team's efficiency. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is one of the best features that we depend on. We have evaluated other options, but Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was the best choice because it has saved us a tremendous amount of time. We do not need to manually intervene in the servers or install third-party software to maintain these things. It is very easy to write playbooks for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Ansible Galaxy contains many playbooks that are readily available and ready to be used. It is highly configurable with Jinja templating, making it easy to maintain. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has positively impacted my organization. Previously, we needed to go into the servers and maintain them manually, which used to take a lot of time. For 200 to 300 servers, the maintenance took about one to two months. New patches would arrive and we would have to repeat the process. Now, it is a one-night work or a 10 to 15 minutes task. We write a playbook, maintain an inventory, and roll out the updates and it starts working for us. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform uses conditional clauses and has rollback options, functioning like a standard coding language that is simple to use. There is definitely a reduction in errors with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform because we have playbooks written with all the necessary clauses and rollback options. Manual work automatically creates more errors, whereas in automation, we have written sets that we do not forget every time we run it. We have protected written sets that we execute consistently.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Forward Enterprise has improved the way my organization functions."

"All the features are valuable in Forward Enterprise."

"To me, a great thing about Ansible is that it can do everything: cloud, on-prem, Windows, Linux, networking, and I've not seen any other orchestration tool able to do that as easily."

"The playbooks and the code the solution uses are quite useful."

"We used to have 120 employees, and now we have just 25 for the same amount of activities."

"It saves time when it comes to service deployment, moves, or updates."

"It is quick to production. It has an API in the back which allows for integrations."

"The ease of being able to use the modules and collections to define what our business processes are is valuable. We are able to give non-technical people the ability to look at a process and say, "We need a step here. Someone do something and put it right here.""

"It has made our infrastructure more testable, as we are able to build our infrastructure in CI and are more confident that what we are deploying will work without breaking everything."

"It was easy to read and learn. It is a YAML-based syntax, which makes it easily understand and pick up."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pros

Cons

"Forward Enterprise could improve by increasing flexibility. Additionally, there should be an Android version or desktop."

"A little slow."

"Performance has been an issue on larger environments, but it has gotten a lot better over the past two years."

"The product could do a better job at building infrastructure."

"Ansible could use more public relations and marketing."

"On the Dashboard, when you view a template run, it shows all the output. There is a search filter, but it would be nice to able to select one server in that run and then see all that output from just that one server, instead of having to do the search on that one server and find the results."

"There needs to be improvement in the orchestration."

"What I'm trying to figure out, personally, is, when doing mass updates, how I can parallelize that a little bit better. It seems right now - and maybe, it's a shortcoming on my end - that I run through one set of servers, and then another set of servers, ad then another set of servers, but it seems like I could throw a lot of these checks out. Different types of servers, like web servers and DB servers, if I could parallelize that a little bit to make everything run a little bit more efficiently, that would help."

"Documentation could be improved. Many times, if I'm looking for something, I have to Google it in a lot of places, then figure out what the best approach will be. There are some best practices documents, but they don't give you the information."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for the solution annually."

"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."

"It’s an open-source tool."

"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."

"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."

"The pricing for us is huge because we use twenty thousand nodes, so that is a huge infrastructure, but if someone is using a small infrastructure, then the pricing is not so much."

"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."

"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."

"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

19%

Government

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	48

Questions from the Community

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What is the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?

Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management have been outstanding. If you have a large environment, patching systems is much ...

See all answers

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was very simple. There is no pricing and no licensing required, as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform ...

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Comparisons

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Compared 75% of the time

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager vs Forward Enterprise

Compared 17% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Automation

March 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

March 2026

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform report

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Also Known As

No data available

Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS

Overview

The company provides a robust network assurance and verification platform to reduce business risk and improve network operations.

Forward Networks

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform streamlines IT operations with features like a simplified GUI and extensive module support. Its agentless architecture and YAML ease make it an adaptable choice for managing diverse infrastructures efficiently.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers a robust automation framework that supports multiple environments and integrates well with various applications. Its agentless Python-based architecture facilitates efficient server management and rapid update deployment. Users benefit from centralized management through Ansible Tower, role-based access control, and dynamic inventory. However, improvement areas include documentation, API integration, network support, and UI scaling. Enhanced community contributions could address module availability and compatibility gaps.

What are the most important features of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

Agentless Architecture: Leverages Python for seamless management without needing local agents.
Extensive Module Support: Provides modules for managing multiple environments effectively.
Ansible Tower GUI: Offers a centralized interface for easy automation management.
Role-Based Access Control: Ensures user-specific permissions for improved security.
Integration Capabilities: Connects with a variety of applications to enhance functionality.
Dynamic Inventory: Automatically updates inventory, simplifying large infrastructure management.

What benefits and ROI should one consider?

Automation Efficiency: Significantly reduces manual intervention, saving time and resources.
Adaptability: Easily integrates with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, and Azure.
Security Compliance: Automates compliance checks, ensuring up-to-date security protocols.
Cost Management: Lower operational costs through streamlined processes.
Scalability: Supports infrastructure growth without requiring major adjustments.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and technology, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is used for network management, security compliance, and configuration tasks. Organizations utilize its capabilities for cloud and on-premises deployment, infrastructure provisioning, and workflow orchestration. Many integrate it with tools such as Puppet or Terraform to enhance CI/CD processes, benefiting from its agentless design in adapting to cloud environments.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Cisco, Broadcom and others in Network Automation. Updated: March 2026.

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