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Microsoft Entra Permissions Management vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

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 Entra Permissions...
Ranking in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (31st)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra Permissions Management is 6.8%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 4.6%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Sameer Bhat - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides resource-based access and security, but time-bound access can be a problem
Entra ID is the core of the identity management that we have. This is the key product that we are using. I am currently also looking into Entra Private Access because we are planning to deploy about 50,000 desktops into Azure and use Azure Virtual Desktop. We would like to give access to the users from the desktop to on-premises applications. I learned that Entra Private Access is a good solution. That is not yet GA, but that is what we are looking for. Entra provides a single pane of glass for managing user access, but because our company also integrates with Nebula API, only administrators use Entra's pane. A normal person who wants to get onboarded can do self-service using Nebula. The features for whitelisting and other things are definitely there. That is what we use specifically. Application IDs, enterprise applications, and all those things are already there, so we have more efficiency. There is also security because we usually do not allow user identities to get direct access to Azure resources. Usually, we use the service principles from Entra ID, so this way, it increases security. Entra has helped to save time for our IT administrators. We tend to automate a lot of things. We can do automation using Graph APIs and save time. It is hard to quantify the time savings, but there has been a medium amount of time savings. Entra has helped to save our organization money. We care about security and risk more than money, but it also saves money. We are premium customers, and because we have a commit-to-consume contract with Microsoft of multi-million dollars, the money does not come into it because we have to consume those resources.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution integrates well with our infrastructure and other systems without any issues."
"Multifactor authentication is valuable."
"The ability to programmatically describe the desired state of a single, or an entire fleet of servers, on-premises, and in a cloud environment."
"The feature of automated balancing which implemented between two data centers solely for the purpose of a recovery plan is valuable."
"It's quite user friendly. Everyone can use it, even non-technical people. This is good, since we use it to build a self-service portal which even users with not a lot of technical background can use."
"We have faster delivery times through its automation."
"usability; It's very user-friendly. It is not hard to go and find things. There is a one-click Help that you can use to find all the documentation you need to manage it."
"We needed vRA to easily integrate with our hypervisor, orchestration, security (tenant segmentation, PCI), workflows, custom code, and internal monitoring/management tools. Since we didn’t have time to develop our own web front-end during the development sprints, vRA saved considerable time and resource cycles. Its ability to easily integrate with all of the VMware cloud products as well as public cloud providers, like AWS and Azure, out-of-the-box, makes it an even more powerful tool."
"Instead of only deploying templates, we can deploy blueprints which are easier on day-to-day operations."
"The solution has helped us to increase infrastructure agility, mostly because, in addition to it being able to do its thing on its own, it has tie-ins to other parts of our CICD pipeline. We use Jenkins for our build process which, of course, vRA has plugins for, to be able to integrate with it. We use Chef and there is the Chef build as part of our image that we standardized to deploy, and that can tie in with our section of the pipeline that it does for applications."
 

Cons

"The solution's pricing and support services need improvement."
"We use a third-party API called Nebula API to integrate the account for authorization. The time-bound access area in Entra can be a problem. It can be improved in terms of the granularity of the permissions."
"7.5 is not user-friendly, in fact, it's a nightmare. They changed everything on the graphic user interface, the mode where the user interacts with the product."
"Upgrades are always a pain."
"The solution is intuitive, but not necessarily user-friendly. In particular, it's the documentation. It's a lot of going-through-the-weeds types of scenarios. There is just an abundance of information, so it's a matter of understanding how the objects or the relationships exist, and then, obviously, being able to access that information and knowing how to make use of it."
"VMware needs to make it to where it is not as custom. Right now, you spend a lot of time making the services work. In order to get it up and running initially, that takes time."
"The solution could include more integrations and supportability around the container space."
"The connectivity between VMs is easy, but they can be made more effective if we have a single proof point where we can configure all the biggest data at a single point."
"Most of the time the upgrade experience has been good but sometimes things break after upgrading. For example, some API codes stopped working."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are a Fortune 500 company, so we always negotiate with Microsoft."
"The product cost is in the mid to high range."
"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."
"The solution is free of cost."
"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is very high."
"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Entra Permissions Management?
The product cost is in the mid to high range. You need to have a good budget to implement it, so it is considered fairly expensive for our market. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Entra Permissions Management?
The solution's pricing and support services need improvement.
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

CloudKnox Permissions Management
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 Microsoft Entra Permissions Management vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.