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OpenText Network Automation vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 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

OpenText Network Automation
Ranking in Network Automation
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Network Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (1st), Configuration Management (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of OpenText Network Automation is 2.7%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 10.0%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1480065 - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows to upload necessary firmware to your device and perform the upgrade
With OpenText Network Automation, firmware can be uploaded for specific devices. If you need to upgrade a device, you can use this tool, though it may not apply to all devices. The software allows you to upload the necessary firmware to your device and perform the upgrade. Additionally, it enables you to check multiple devices for specific configurations and automates the search process and the configuration of multiple devices.
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

"With OpenText Network Automation, firmware can be uploaded for specific devices. If you need to upgrade a device, you can use this tool, though it may not apply to all devices."
"When compared with SolarWinds, it is more user-friendly, and tasks can be completed more quickly."
"Pushing the network configuration to bulk devices. This saves a considerable amount of time that the engineer spends in pushing the network configuration."
"The initial setup is straightforward. It's not that difficult."
"It has saved us a lot of time and work. It helped us to reorganize some of our service lines, so we could be more efficient. For example, on our open system server team, we had 15 people building servers, now we have two."
"Even with the virtualization, it would take us at least three or four days to create a VM. With vRA we have brought that down to seven minutes. The solution has helped increase infrastructure, agility, speed of provisioning, time to market, application agility. Everything got super fast."
"The solution is intuitive and user-friendly. E.g., you have less number of logins."
"Our users can order VMs using the API."
"I used the technical support during upgrades. They came onsite and are very technical. They are very good"
"vRealize automation stability is pretty good. They are always fixing bugs. The product team is doing a great job of addressing any issues that we might have."
"The automation part is most valuable. Because it is a VMware product, the automation capabilities that come with vRA are pretty extensive. We can integrate and build a lot of features on top of it, which makes it extremely useful for us."
 

Cons

"The tool performs slowly."
"Level one administration task can be defined in Micro Focus Network Automation but it could be more simplified."
"Compatibility of the devices needs to be enhanced, as it seems to be limited."
"It was a complex setup. We had to use the consultant from VMware to make the solution work well."
"vCenter and vRA, I believe they share two different databases so sometimes you have to somehow sync them up. I wish there was only one database between the two or, somehow, one database would rule over the other one, so if you have both products, the vCenter might use the vRA database. Otherwise, when you do stuff in vCenter, you have to write a command on vRA to update the databases."
"The solution could be lighter. As an administrator, I would like to simplify the number of services I need to deploy. They took a significant step in that direction by removing all the Windows dependencies that we had in the past, but there are still a lot of services consuming resources."
"Our primary challenge is upgrading the product to the latest version. This process requires careful communication with the vendor to mitigate risks."
"It's not cheap."
"One of the features that's a struggle today is some of the public cloud extensibility. Some of the plugins that are native to vRA and vRO, I'd like to see them come out earlier for vRO. I understand that in vRA, the plugins are a little bit more polished because the VRA is the GUI. But we'd like to see them released earlier in vRO, prior to a GUI being released. Azure, for example, is a public cloud provider but we have some instability issues with the plugin in vRO. It's okay for us if we separate the vRA from vRO plugin releases. So I'd like to see some increased stability in some of those public cloud plugins."
"I don't think it's intuitive or user-friendly. I think it's a good tool. Any automation tool, these days, the learning curve is kind of high. You're teaching sysadmins who never developed stuff. Maybe they modified a little bit of code and now you tell them, "Hey, here's the tool, use it." But you have to know a little bit of DevOps. So you have to train them how to do the scripting."
"There is certainly room for improvement with some of the little things I was talking about, like either better managing of the upgrade process, or just making the infrastructure deployment a little bit easier. It feels like all of the pieces have been automated on one level or another, like with the PowerShell scripts, doing all the IS, Windows boxes preparation. They just need to get it to be more end-to-end."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is reasonable, but if you compare it with other network Operation Management tools that are available on the market, it's expensive."
"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."
"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."
"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."
"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"Customers say this solution is costlier compared to its competitors."
"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."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Network Automation?
There is a team responsible for network automation to check devices for compliance. I connect to the device, make the necessary configurations, and inform the team that certain rules must be remove...
What advice do you have for others considering Micro Focus Network Automation?
When managing a large number of devices, network automation simplifies the process of locating specific configurations. For example, if you need to find a particular configuration, network automati...
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 Network Automation, HPE Network Automation
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tech Mahindra, Avea, China Merchants Bank, NNIT, Distinctive Software Solutions, Virgin Media, NEC Australia, Osiatis, Hostworks, Retegal, Allianz Shared Infrastructure Services SE (ASIC), State of Kansas Division of Information Services and Communications (DISC)
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Network Automation vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.