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NetBrain vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 28, 2025

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
4th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (15th)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Network Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st), AWS Pro Service Providers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of NetBrain is 12.2%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 18.1%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform18.1%
NetBrain12.2%
Other69.7%
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Sudhir Kumar Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Have managed thousands of servers with streamlined configuration processes
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 integration aspect of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has optimized my IT ecosystem significantly by consolidating multiple tools, such as a CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins, where we validate everything, including testing and SonarQube code quality. The agentless architecture of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, using the SSH key, makes it passwordless and allows us to push configurations with one click, creating a major advantage. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's main benefit is that it allows us to push configurations to multiple servers without manually visiting each one, maintaining efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to build playbooks. The learning curve is not that steep."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is valuable due to the simplicity of the YAML language."
"Its checking and validating ensures our packages are properly patched."
"It is all modular-based. If there is not a module for it today, someone will write it."
"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."
"It increases our company's efficiency, automating all the simple tasks which used to take hours of somebody's time."
"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."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"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."
"The solution must be made easier to configure."
"Networking needs to be improved."
"Performance has been an issue on larger environments, but it has gotten a lot better over the past two years."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better."
"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."
"On the Dashboard, when you view a template run, it shows all the output. There is a search filter, but it would be nice to able to select one server in that run and then see all that output from just that one server, instead of having to do the search on that one server and find the results."
"They should think of this product as an end-to-end solution and begin to develop it that way."
"The governance features could be improved."
 

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."
"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."
"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"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."
"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."
"It’s an open-source tool."
"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."
"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise48
 

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 do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

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: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.