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IBM Workload Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
IBM Workload Automation is valuable for complex setups with trained teams, despite maintenance costs and slower performance on simpler networks.
Sentiment score
7.3
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform accelerates provisioning, saves time, enhances scalability, and optimizes resources, improving maintainability and reducing burnout.
Sentiment score
7.5
VMware Aria Automation significantly reduces provisioning times and workload, enhancing productivity and cost efficiency with varied ROI among users.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
Opinions on IBM Workload Automation's support vary; some praise it, while others face delays and inconsistent service.
Sentiment score
7.3
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers strong documentation and support, with high user satisfaction in community and technical assistance.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware Aria Automation support receives mixed reviews, with varying responsiveness, community reliance, and documentation improvement needed.
I would rate their support between eight and nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
IBM Workload Automation is preferred for scalability in complex scheduling, with minor challenges at higher scales, especially in time zones.
Sentiment score
7.4
Red Hat Ansible scales well in small to mid-sized environments but faces challenges and performance issues in large deployments.
Sentiment score
7.5
VMware Aria Automation is praised for scalability and efficiency, though configurations can pose challenges; updates improve adaptability for enterprises.
Ansible can face scalability issues, such as limitations when trying to scale up infrastructure.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
IBM Workload Automation is viewed as reliable and stable, with minor issues resolved swiftly, boosting user confidence.
Sentiment score
7.9
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is highly stable, with updates enhancing its reliability, users rating stability 8-10/10.
Sentiment score
6.8
VMware Aria Automation is reliable, but experiences issues with upgrades and integrations, though recent versions show improvements.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Workload Automation requires interface improvements, enhanced automation, better support, and lower maintenance costs to improve user experience.
Red Hat Ansible Automation needs improved scalability, usability, integration, module support, and enhanced Windows and non-expert user features.
VMware Aria Automation needs better UI, domain integration, broader cloud support, stability, migration, pricing, documentation, and automation features.
The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial.
More detailed dashboards would be beneficial because there is a lack of dashboards on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
More library support for microservices architecture and Kubernetes would be helpful.
It operates for both of my products, however, as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Workload Automation is costly but offers flexible pricing models with cloud advantages and justifies expense with reliability and features.
Red Hat Ansible offers free and paid options, with costs based on node management and additional features like Ansible Tower.
Users appreciate VMware Aria Automation's features but criticize its confusing and costly licensing structure and potential extra support costs.
The pricing is high, and since I'm not using all functionalities, it would be better if the price depended on the functionalities used.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Workload Automation excels with dynamic scheduling, multiplatform integration, user-friendly GUI, real-time updates, and effective monitoring.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is valued for its agentless architecture, ease of use, scalability, and robust community support.
VMware Aria Automation enhances cloud management, automating tasks with user-friendly features, efficiency, cost reduction, and flexible integration.
One valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is the ability to combine different applications and platforms to organize jobs together, creating dependencies.
The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors.
It makes it simple to develop Ansible playbooks and roles, which aids in simplifying my daily administrative tasks.
It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method.
 

Mindshare comparison

Workload Automation
Configuration Management
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ilhami Arikan - PeerSpot reviewer
With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes
Sometimes we have issues with the solution's stability. So, stability can be improved. Reporting and visibility of the solution need improvement. These days, we need more visibility. We need to access the logs and databases easily. You need to keep track of the running number of logs, like which ones are executed, completed, etc. So if there would be a good reporting dashboard, then it would be good. There's room for improvement in the solution since it is a challenging thing when we want to use the solution's technology with our new technologies. For example, if we need to use TWS on our OpenShift platform, the solution's API is not capable enough. So the product itself needs to be aligned with new technologies.
Muralitharan KS - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient server management and detailed reporting with flexible deployment capabilities
We are primarily using Ansible for automation purposes as it is a configuration management tool. It is utilized for various activities such as DNS activity, changes to web servers, virtual host settings, and other day-to-day tasks, all of which are templated in Ansible Ansible allows us to manage…
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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Educational Organization
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?
IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly,...
What is your primary use case for IBM Workload Automation?
We use IBM Workload Automation ( /products/ibm-workload-automation-reviews ) as a scheduler. We install agents on the...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Workload Automation?
I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product. However, the cost is a concern. Th...
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 h...
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 ...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
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 y...
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 fre...
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 compa...
 

Also Known As

IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS
Ansible
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Broadcom, Redwood Software and others in Workload Automation. Updated: May 2025.
858,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.