Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

Microsoft and Red Hat are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.9. Microsoft holds a 12.3% mindshare in CM, compared to Red Hat’s 17.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Microsoft Configuration Manager and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform compete in the enterprise IT management category. Microsoft Configuration Manager might have the upper hand due to its comprehensive integration with other Microsoft products, making it a strong choice for enterprises already using the Microsoft ecosystem.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager is known for its software deployment, patching with WSUS integration, and extensive inventory management capabilities. Its scalability and integration with other Microsoft products enhance IT operations. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform features an agentless architecture and ease of use, making it appealing for managing multi-environment automation tasks with simplicity and flexibility.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager could streamline integration with cloud solutions like Windows Intune and improve support for non-Windows platforms. Simplifying the setup process and enhancing remote user management are additional opportunities. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could benefit from better documentation, faster execution speed, and improved system integration. Enhancing the Ansible Tower dashboard and expanding module support are also suggested improvements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Configuration Manager is primarily an on-premises solution with extensive documentation and community support, though it occasionally faces criticism for delayed response times. Ansible offers versatile deployment models across on-premises and cloud environments, praised for its simplicity yet suggested for improving documentation quality and technical support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager's licensing model is complex and often seen as costly, particularly for smaller enterprises, yet users find value in its comprehensive service suite. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, with its open-source nature, offers cost-effective use unless enterprise features are needed, which may increase costs based on endpoint count. Both solutions tend to provide favorable ROI, with Microsoft focusing on infrastructure functionalities and Ansible on automation efficiencies.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

June 2025

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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

Microsoft Intune

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 12.3%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 17.3%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Everything has worked better since we started using it

Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.

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MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements

While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

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Muralitharan KS

Software Architect at OSELabs

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…

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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

"One of our clients migrated the model workplace based on Intune, achieving a 78 percent cost reduction, which is quite a lot."

"The features I found most valuable in Intune are its user visibility and troubleshooting options."

"What I like the most about Microsoft Intune is its ability to manage mobile devices. Through integration with System Center, it can also manage desktops and laptops."

"The most valuable features are the ones that make sure that the deployment is of a standard operating system and the Zero Touch deployment, which is very useful. This allows users to have an out of box experience."

"The biggest asset is the range of device management options available with Intune, whether it is a Windows device, a Linux device, a Mac device, or mobile devices."

"The solution is scalable. We currently have tens of thousands of users within our organization using the solution."

"The best features include the management, which is quite good, and endpoints."

"It is quite policy-enabled, so you can build pretty much any policy to manage remote endpoints."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The most valuable features are application deployment and task-sequenced imaging."

"This has made the management of our environment easier."

"Automation of operating system, application, and update deployments massively reduces IT operations effort."

"This solution captures all the devices in our infrastructure."

"Patching is the main feature because SCCM is made to control the entire environment without manually interpreting. So it is good to use for patching."

"What's valuable is the basic management of the systems, being able to control who can access the systems."

"Technical support was helpful and responsive."

"We have found the scalability to be quite good."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

"The solution is very simple to use."

"It has made our infrastructure more testable. We are able to build our infrastructure in CI, then are more confident in what we are deploying will work, not breaking everything."

"I like the agentless feature. This means we don't install any agent in worker nodes."

"It does not require staff for deployment and maintenance. It just works."

"On the network side, I already have a lot of our firewall related processes automated. If it's not automated all the way from the ticket system, our network team members, our tier-one guys in India, can just go into the Tower web interface and fill in a couple of survey questions."

"One of the most valuable features is that Ansible is agentless. It does not have dependencies, other than Python, which is very generic in terms of dependencies for all systems and for any environment. Being agentless, Ansible is very convenient for everything."

"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."

"The capacity to install products on the operating system is very valuable."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pros

Cons

"Intune should support platforms other than Windows. We have encountered several limitations, especially when handling iOS devices."

"Microsoft needs to strategize its licensing structure. When using Microsoft Intune, we bought a small scale of controls, only controlling part of the devices, though Microsoft Intune can do much more. The Intune Suite offers more features, allowing extensive integration with either internal or cloud environments without requiring third-party licensing. However, each feature has a separate license, making logistics and cost management difficult if not strategically bundled together."

"To make it a perfect ten, it would be helpful if there was a better way to troubleshoot user issues, as I've had a few users with corrupt files before and had to redeploy it without knowing the root cause."

"Sometimes, the process is unsuccessful when we attempt to reset a device and wipe the data using Intune."

"The scalability could be improved, and like most other MDM products, Intune is good but not 100% there yet."

"Microsoft Intune has potential for improvement; I would like to see a lot more customization in the reporting tools."

"My main pain point for Microsoft Intune is the contact part. Not all Android or iOS applications have access to integration, for example, contacts."

"We are facing issues with Apple products. With macOS and iOS, there are some difficulties with the updates because we cannot get full control of Apple products. In the case of Windows, it is fine, but in the case of Apple, we have some difficulties. We cannot control everything through Intune."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"The ability to integrate MDM would be great."

"It should provide the ability to remotely connect to mobile devices. There are some solutions that are doing that, but with Microsoft Intune, the only way to remotely connect to devices outside the organization and mobile devices is by using TeamViewer. It is pretty strange for a big company like Microsoft to not have something for that."

"This solution needs to be supported on all Operating systems."

"The time the solution takes for updating systems could be quicker. For example, the system information status is not updating as it should. Additionally, the database synchronization querying is slow and could be improved."

"There should probably be better remote support. They should also continue to improve on patch management, patching, and creating or turning products in software into deployable apps."

"It is a bit of an old and outdated product."

"They need to improve the support for the Mac operating system."

"The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"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."

"Ansible has just been upgraded, and the only issue that we are seeing at the moment is that the user interface can be slow. We're currently investigating the refresh period with Red Hat when you click a job and run a job. It seems that the buffer no longer runs in real-time. We haven't discovered whether that's partially an issue with our environment, but Red Hat has come back and said that they're working on a couple of bugs in the background. We've upgraded to that version in the last six months, and that's the only issue that we've seen."

"It is a little slow on the network side because every time you call a module, it's initiating an SSH or an API call to a network device, and it just slows things down."

"They should think of this product as an end-to-end solution and begin to develop it that way."

"The solution must be made easier to configure."

"It could be easier to integrate Ansible with other solutions. No single tool can do everything. For example, we use Terraform for infrastructure and other solutions for configuration management and VMs."

"The documentation for the installation step of deployment, OpenStack, etc., and these things have to be a bit more detailed."

"The SSM connection access needs improvement"

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Intune is included in the Microsoft 365 licensing package that we have."

"I am not that aware of the pricing, but as compared to other MDM solutions, Microsoft is providing a lot of things at the organizational level. So, it is quite reasonable as compared to other MDM solutions."

"It's monthly for us, but it's built into the license cost that we pay our IT each month. It's maybe 129 Kroner per head, which translates to £10. There are some additional costs. Our IT had to set up and configure their own server, so there is an extra cost for that, but I'm not sure what that costs."

"Even if they charge a premium, they aim to provide equal value."

"Microsoft Intune is reasonably priced for large organizations that already have Microsoft Enterprise licenses, but it is less affordable for smaller businesses."

"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."

"It is reasonable for the features it has."

"It comes as a bundle, so you do not really know what the prices are. Microsoft does not break it down to the user cost for us. It is just bundled with our E5 license."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive."

"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."

"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."

"There is not a license needed to use the solution."

"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."

"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."

"The price could be better."

"The price model is different for every client."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is pretty standard."

"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."

"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."

"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."

"Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible."

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

"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."

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

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

21%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?

Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...

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What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?

Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...

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How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?

Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...

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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 ...

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How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?

ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. Wh...

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What do you like most about SCCM?

One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...

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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 h...

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What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.

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

I know Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform costs money since I am using a trial license. The pricing is high, and sin...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 12% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 12% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

BMC Client Management vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

VMware Aria Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

May 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

May 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

May 2025

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform report

Download Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )

Ansible

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a powerful network automation solution that allows organizations to handle every aspect of their application launch process within a single product. It enables users to share their automations so that teams within an organization can collaborate on various projects with ease. Ansible Automation Platform is designed to be used by all employees involved in the network automation process.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform include:

Maximum benefit for reduced overhead. Ansible Automation Platform is an all-in-one solution that can enable users to do the jobs of multiple products with one. Users do not need to purchase multiple products to handle their network automation and application development needs. It is equipped with prefabricated content from more than one hundred companies that are partnered with it.

Scalable. Ansible Automation Platform is a highly scalable solution. It can easily be scaled up so that automations can be extended across the various devices that make up an organization’s network.

Flexibility. Ansible Automation Platform is highly flexible. It enables users to tackle any and all automation-related tasks.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Features

Automation analytics. Ansible Automation Platform comes equipped with an automation analytics feature. This feature enables organizations to measure the effects of their automations and plan how they are going to implement automations moving forward. It makes it easy for administrators to spot anomalies in their automations and resolve them before they can escalate and become major issues.

Integration suite. Ansible Automation Platform gives organizations access to a wide variety of integrations that enable them to connect to Ansible’s partners. Now users can augment their capabilities without needing to purchase additional solutions that will enable them to run features that are not normally a part of Ansible’s array of tools. The Ansible environment is built to handle the wide variety of integrations that their partners offer. In order to accomplish this it includes the APIs that users need in order to fully benefit from the integrations.

Centralized interface. Ansible Automation Platform comes with a centralized GUI interface that enables users to manage all of their network automation and application creation activities from a single location. Businesses can guarantee that their operations are going to be handled efficiently and according to a single standard. The management process is greatly simplified. All of the tools that users need are located in one place.

Reviews from Real Users

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its automation manager and its comprehensive centralized GUI-based management interface.

MD J., a solution architect at STBL, says, “The automation manager is very good and makes things easier for customers with multi-cloud platforms.”

Aankit G., a Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS, writes, “We like the GUI-based interface for the tower. Before, we only had a command-line interface to run all the Ansible tasks. Now, the Ansible tower provides the complete GUI functionality to run, manage, and create the templates and the Ansible jobs. This includes the code and YAML file we can create. The GUI interface is the added advantage of this solution, including some integration with the different plugins.”

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

June 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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