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NetBrain vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

 

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

NetBrain
Ranking in Network Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (18th)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Network Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of NetBrain is 8.0%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 14.3%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform14.3%
NetBrain8.0%
Other77.7%
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President at Asset Track for Cloud, LLC
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.
Manas Kashyap - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Dev Ops Engineer at 11 East Capital
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

"Once it's up and running and you don't have the strange requirements I had, and you just want some basic maps, it'll work."
"NetBrain is very good when it comes to network mapping, as it looks for different assets within the network available, so router, firewall, applications, et cetera, and it gives you the full mapping, asset mapping along with the full range including the firmware software update and all those things."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"This tool is exactly what we wanted and needed."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that you can click once and have a link test, see your network, and get an overall view of your network and its state."
"Other advice to users considering the solution would be: go with NetBrain."
"It saves time when it comes to service deployment, moves, or updates."
"It increases our company's efficiency, automating all the simple tasks which used to take hours of somebody's time."
"We can automate a few host configurations using the product."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to build playbooks. The learning curve is not that steep."
"I like Ansible because it is: Easy to use, easy to read, easy to maintain, easy to support, and it works without an agent."
"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."
"Some colleagues and other companies use it and comment that it is easy to use, easy to understand, and offers good features."
"One of the most valuable features is automation. We are doing automation infrastructure, which allows us to automate regular tasks. This solution provides us with a service catalog, like building new services and automating daily tasks."
 

Cons

"If you're comparing NetBrain as an NDR, I would rate it as a four or five, however, NetBrain has a different aspect of looking at things within the network."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"When I used the installed product before, I wasn't very satisfied with the support."
"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"It's okay on the value, a bit expensive for just maps, but makes it a lot easier to see things visually and take it from there."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"Netbrain must get AWS functionality done."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"One problem that I'm facing right now is the mismatch between the new version of Python and Ansible. Sometimes it's Python 2, and sometimes it's Python 3. When things get a bit dicey, I wish that Ansible would solve this issue by itself. I don't want to have to specify if it is Python 3 or version 2."
"The SSM connection access needs improvement"
"Ansible is great, but there are not many modules. You can do about 80% to 90% of things by using commands, but more modules should be added. We cannot do some of the things in Ansible. In Red Hat, we have the YUM package manager, and there are certain options that we can pass through YUM. To install the Docker Community Edition, I'll write the yum install docker-ce command, but because the Docker Community Edition is not compatible with RHEL 8, I will have to use the nobest option, such as yum install docker-ce --nobest. The nobest option installs the most stable version that can be installed on a particular system. In Ansible, the nobest option is not there. So, it needs some improvements in terms of options. There should be more options, keywords, and modules."
"Ansible is great, but there are not many modules. You can do about 80% to 90% of things by using commands, but more modules should be added."
"There should be consistency. I know that it is always changing, but when we are trying to get some users to do something in basic Ansible that they are not really interested in doing but their job requires them to do it, they start finding inconsistencies."
"I have seen indications that the documentation needs improvement. They are providing a "How to Improve Your Documentation" presentation at this conference."
"The support could be better."
"Error codes are not very descriptive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"The cost is high, but it still works well."
"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."
"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."
"I don't see the pricing or licensing features, but from what I understand, it is fairly reasonable."
"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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
 

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 ...
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBrain vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.