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OpenText Cloud Service Automation vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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

OpenText Cloud Service Auto...
Ranking in Cloud Management
45th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (21st), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of OpenText Cloud Service Automation is 1.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.5%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation5.5%
OpenText Cloud Service Automation1.2%
Other93.3%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

SunpritSingh - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
A user friendly solution that makes it easy to submit and view jobs
The most valuable feature of Micro Focus Cloud Service is how user-friendly the solution is. Traditionally, when we use a mainframe system to submit jobs, we have to see the spool or any error we might get in the spool. It is very command-based and uses a green screen, which is not user-friendly. Micro Focus enterprise makes it easy to submit and view jobs. We just have to log into the particular portal, go to the catalog and view any files we want. The same can be said about submitting jobs. We know what JCL we want to submit, give it the path, and then submit it with no command required. It is very user-friendly.
VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We really look at infrastructure as a service as the major trend in IT, at least for a service provider like us, for the next 3 to 4 years, so we really want to have a precise, clearly defined, but very dynamic and flexible private cloud where we can easily provision and deploy infrastructure as a service to our end customers."
"The ability to tie the pieces together, supporting multiple providers across both HPE and non-HPE products, is crucial in a heterogeneous environment composed of many different commercial and in-house developed components."
"These products let us integrate multiple tools together and help to automate the processes by cutting down time and effort through the modules and reusable contents."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus Cloud Service is how user friendly the solution is."
"The tool's most valuable feature is life cycle management."
"Scalability is the most valuable feature to us."
"The repetitive tasks which took provisioning storage, network, and compute two to three weeks, now takes five minutes."
"You should look at the complexity and size of your environment, and when utilizing that background for your requirements, I personally would recommend VMware."
"The self service portal: People don't have to come to us to request something. They can just go fill out a form. Within 30 minutes, they have what they requested."
"The most valuable feature that we have is that it's able to deploy several different operating systems, it's able to deploy whatever we want. We can take a template, spin it up, revise it, save it back off, and be able to have that for other departments. We can have one for our Dev team and one for our research team which has some specific requirements. We can keep track of them and deploy things automatically."
"Before, it took us two days to provision new machines, and today the whole process is done in about two hours."
"The automation function itself and how to group and publish those groupings is quite easy for customers to learn with Aria."
"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."
"Scalability is perfect. We haven't had any issues."
 

Cons

"I haven't found very user friendly things, some are a little tricky."
"Deployment has been extremely painful for the production environment. This was mostly due to the decision to use our internal Microsoft-based Certificate Authority (CA)."
"I’d like to see better monitoring visibility. We have to rely on HPE Technical Services to tell us when those challenges and problems occur."
"OpenText Cloud Service Automation needs to incorporate easier installation. It should improve skills and quality of support."
"I would like fewer restrictions as a software tester."
"Once you get in there and start to understand the product, it is more intuitive. However, for somebody coming in from the outside, it takes a while to understand it."
"I would also like to see them streamline the install. It's split between Windows and Linux appliances, and it would be easier if it was all appliances. I think they're going that way."
"For the administrator, it can be a little challenging. For the administrator, there are a lot of moving parts. It is fine once you figure out where the knobs are you need to twiddle, but it can be a challenge to get it up and running."
"vRealize Automation on the back-end is still a little complicated. It has a lot of moving pieces, simplifying that from a pure infrastructure point of view would be a good thing. I would then like to have more out-of-the-box functionality and integrations with VMware components."
"I don't feel that, with our implementation of vRealize Automation, we have really gotten very far."
"They can improve on the dashboard representations and the options for non-technical people. I would like to see the ability to customize that and maybe provide them with helpful guides to what subscriptions they have. Sometimes, I find that I have to do more explanation to people who do approvals. I would really like to customize the display to the terms they use in their particular business unit. So a little bit more of a nod to the customization of the UI for non-technical users would be helpful."
"We have seen some issues with upgrades or installations. This means we have to raise a call every time with VMware."
"Support: It's not bad or poor, but there are some issues. On the one hand, it's about development and progress; on the other, there were some issues that took too long to get fixed by the SaltStack team and forced users to invent workarounds."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OpenText Cloud Service Automation's pricing is average."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"It is an open-source product."
"It is pricey for what you get."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
 

Questions from the Community

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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

Micro Focus Cloud Service Automation, Cloud Service Automation Manager, HPE Cloud Service Automation
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China Merchants Bank, Osiatis
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Cloud Service Automation vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.