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ManageEngine OS Deployer vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
335
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
ManageEngine OS Deployer
Ranking in Configuration Management
24th
Average Rating
6.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st), AWS Pro Service Providers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 6.9%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine OS Deployer is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 11.9%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform11.9%
Microsoft Intune6.9%
ManageEngine OS Deployer1.8%
Other79.4%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24
Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license
The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.
it_user363621 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a engineering company with 51-200 employees
It adds necessary drivers for hardware on desktop and notebooks. I'd like to see more detailed explanations and support for how to use it through PXE.
It's helped us to install OS's onto desktops and notebooks It adds a simple solution for adding specific, necessary drivers for hardware on desktops and notebooks when they arrive. I'd like to see more detailed explanations and support for how to use it through PXE. I've never gotten this…
Manas Kashyap - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Remote control is the feature I like the most, as I can take control of devices so that we can work hands-on and create access with access restrictions."
"Microsoft Intune is easy to use, and it is able to enforce policies towards multiple devices. It is able to bring multiple classes of devices into the same security posture. I found that very useful."
"I can reach devices or computers over the internet. I don't need to worry about the network connectivity between the offices. I can manage any device. That is the most important part."
"I can control applications, and I can secure applications by using the MAM policy, which is very effective and very helpful in protecting our users' data on mobile devices such as iPhones and Android phones."
"It's normally able to meet 100% expectations of our customers."
"Mobile device management is most valuable."
"It is helpful for managing devices anytime and any place without requiring dependency on the local networks."
"The features I found most valuable in Intune are its user visibility and troubleshooting options."
"Before OS Deployer, I used Microsoft WDS, which requires more manual labor than OS Deployer."
"It enabled me to take the old build manifest and automated everything. So when it came time to spin everything up, it was quick and simple. I could spin it up and test it out. And then, when it came time to roll production, it was a done deal. When we expanded to multiple data centers, it was same thing: Change a few IP addresses, change some names, and off we went."
"It is very extensible. There are many plugins and modules out there that everybody helps create to interact with different cloud providers as well."
"The Organizations feature, where I can give clear silos and hand them over to different teams, that's amazing; everybody says that it's their own Tower."
"The most valuable feature of Ansible is repeatability because when you're working at the DoD, you want things to be cookie-cutter and replicable."
"You can literally automate everything."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very helpful due to passwordless integration and the ability to interact with multiple servers at once, which is especially advantageous when dealing with thousands of servers."
"The biggest thing I liked about Ansible is the check mode so that we can verify, after we've pushed, that the config there is actually what we intended."
"I like being able to control multiple systems and push out updates quickly with just a couple of clicks of a button and commands."
 

Cons

"I'd like some more reporting so that I don't have to delve into PowerShell and I can pull more of the local device information such as memory, apps installed, etc. It would be nice to be able to see the apps that are present there but might not be managed. For example, if they installed 7Zip, it could report that back via an installed program or feature to see what was currently installed."
"The reporting dashboard is really limited."
"It would be awesome if Microsoft opened their API so we could filter more properties. If we have to do anything outside of Intune that requires a third-party solution to talk back to it, we're very limited in what we can do. Trust your people. We promise not to break your stuff. Open it up just a tiny bit wider."
"The granular support for other device types in Microsoft Intune could be improved."
"Reporting and troubleshooting for the application deployment could be better. It's very difficult to understand."
"It just doesn't handle software updates well at all by itself. You need to be a scripting wizard to make those happen properly, or you use third-party tools. The Windows feature updates are very difficult to implement. I would like to see a proprietary built-in remote control tool. I know that they have Team Viewer integrated, but it is not seamless. It would be nice if they had a seamless remote desktop capability directly from the Intune console."
"The configuration and pricing can be improved."
"For an existing customer who has an SCCM, it would need to be upgraded to an MECM first before I can introduce Microsoft Intune."
"I'd like to see more detailed explanations and support for how to use it through PXE."
"The web GUI can be a little bit better. There should be a couple of more features."
"When compared to Terraform, the execution speed of Ansible is very slow due to the way it executes things."
"Additional features could be added."
"There should be better Windows support. We have had to develop a lot of our own roles because of the Windows platform. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux ones existed but not the Windows versions, so I have had to develop a bunch of Windows ones."
"If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this."
"There is always room for improvement in features or customer support."
"The job workflow needs to be worked on. It's not really clear to how you actually link things together."
"I have observed that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could improve by creating modules for upcoming AI and ML tech stacks, as currently, specific modules for these are not available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a cost benefit of using Microsoft Intune because of the packaging with other Microsoft products."
"With one user base license, we can use Intune for up to five devices. However, with Soti MobiControl, each license is tied to a single device, meaning one license is dedicated to one device only."
"Its licensing model is not complex, but it is very expensive compared to other solutions. They can bring more models and reduce the pricing. They should allow customers to select the features they want and price it accordingly."
"It's affordable. In comparison to the competitors, the price depends on what features you need from Intune, but it's affordable. There are no hidden costs, but there are some features that go for a premium price. Those are the add-ons for which you have to pay extra."
"Microsoft Intune has been incorporated into our Microsoft E5 licenses."
"For Microsoft 365 E5 clients, cost is not an issue as this product is one of the benefits."
"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."
"The price of Intune is often included as part of a bundle with other Microsoft licenses, which makes it somewhat cheaper."
Information not available
"If you only need to use Ansible, it's free for any end-user, but when you require Ansible Tower, you need to pay per Ansible Tower server."
"Ansible is a lot more competitive than any of the others. Its setup was also straightforward. In fact, we just implemented Ansible on OpenShift, so that is how we are running the Ansible Automation Platform now."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"We have to be mindful of how we use Ansible because of the licensing model. I am not saying that it is unfair or we do not find value in it. Because we are trying to automate so many different things, we have to be mindful of what we are doing and how we are doing it because we are trying to stay in compliance with it."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"You don't need to buy agents on servers or deploy expense management when using the solution, which affected our decision to go with it."
"We use the open-source version of the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business124
Midsize Enterprise53
Large Enterprise167
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise48
 

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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 ...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
No data available
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
EMC, Costco Wholesale Australia, Canyon Bicycles, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, WashingtonFirst Bank, SunEdison, Stafford Development Company, City of Redondo Beach, Columbia Medical Associates, Pratt Institute, Novati Technologies, Toyota Boshoku America, Flight Centre UK, RapidAdvance
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Microsoft, HashiCorp and others in Configuration Management. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.