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OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
378
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
OpenText ZENworks Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.9%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management is 2.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 10.3%, down from 17.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform10.3%
Microsoft Intune4.9%
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management2.1%
Other82.7%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

OluwashileAdeniyi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Security Engineer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Centralized endpoint security has improved and supports hybrid work and BYOD policies
Regarding what I dislike about Microsoft Intune and its downsides, I would say that more Mac controls are needed because we have limited Mac and Linux control. When comparing controls and policies between Windows, Mac, and Linux, Windows has almost everything you can think of, while Mac and Linux have limited types of control. You cannot implement certain things on Mac and Linux that you can on Windows. The limited controls are a major issue. Additionally, if Microsoft could find a way to embed servers into Microsoft Intune, that would be beneficial. Microsoft Intune is not really designed for servers or Windows servers. It is more tailored towards Windows 11 and Windows 10 operating systems. Windows servers are not fully supported. Enterprise organizations usually have both servers and endpoints, which are users' workstations. For servers, most people look for other solutions such as SCCM, which is Configuration Manager. However, SCCM is what Microsoft Intune is trying to replace. Both SCCM and Microsoft Intune belong to Microsoft. Microsoft is trying to transition organizations into Microsoft Intune, the native cloud solution. However, because this update is still in process, servers are not fully compatible with Microsoft Intune and cannot be managed by it. The current policy that has emerged from issues with clients is what they call co-management, which is relatively new, and I do not know if adoption is significant. Many legacy or older customers who have been using these products for decades still have SCCM. When it is time for them to manage their Windows devices, they use what is called cloud attach. Cloud attach is a term whereby your SCCM is connected to your Microsoft Intune. Most people do not know about it, but I have deployed it for several organizations. Cloud attach and co-management work together so that your device is in SCCM, but some policies are pushed from Microsoft Intune. It is like two different solutions working hand in hand. That is what they call co-management. Microsoft Intune does not bring all of your endpoint and security management tools into one place, which is the goal and how it should be. However, as I mentioned, servers are not included. If we talk about end users, Microsoft Intune does bring all your devices together. In a typical enterprise environment, you have end users with workstations, laptops, company-issued phones, and bring your own devices. You can create policies for all of these. However, for the backend, your servers do not have much coverage. Servers are not really covered by Microsoft Intune in that way.
it_user1272306 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at DoITWise
Helpful impact analysis and the discovery capability is quite good
This tool works hand-in-hand with RPA technology. RPA will allow you to control your servers by deploying the server automation agent. You don't have the discovery, but then you can deploy the policies that maintain the authorized versus current state. On top of that, you can use server automation to deploy patches or remediate configuration issues on the operating system. My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to ensure that the process is set up properly, first. Once the process is set up, the tool will do the rest for you. Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
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

"Microsoft Intune has positively impacted my organization by giving a centralized way to manage and secure devices across the organization, improving consistency in how devices are configured, updated, and monitored, and making it easier to support remote users as many management and troubleshooting tasks can be performed without needing physical access to the device."
"Intune does consolidate all endpoint and security management tools into one place, making everything easier to manage."
"The security posture is very good. It's very customizable."
"The one feature we find most useful is the Mobile Application Manager. There are two types, we have the complete MDM and the Mobile Application Manager(MAM). We don't give our users phones, it is their own personal phone, and we need to allow them to have access to the company detail on their phone. We need to create a balance between their own personal data and the company data. We deploy the Mobile Application Manager for them so that we won't be able to interfere with their own personal data."
"When a user receives the machine, sets it up, and turns it on, it connects to the domain and begins installing software, becoming ready within approximately half an hour, which represents a significant time savings for IT departments."
"The cloud base is perfect for me."
"Microsoft Intune's autopilot has been nice to have."
"The most valuable feature is that we can manage workstations or Android devices remotely without needing the device to be connected to our local network."
"Automatic Spiral Discovery: This feature enables deep and dynamic configuration and change management."
"We use it for managing our desktops; we have 350,000 desktops and it allows us to manage and control them relatively easily."
"Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"The most valuable features of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are the agentless platform and writing the code is simple using the Yaml computer language."
"Since it is in YAML, if I have to explain it to somebody else, they can easily understand it."
"Ansible provides great reliability when coupled with a versioning system (git). It helps providing predictability to the network by knowing exactly what's being pushed after validating it in production."
"There are no agents by default, so adding a new server is a matter of a couple lines of configuration (on a new server and the configuration master)."
"It has improved our organization through provisioning and security hardening. When we do get a new VM, we have been able to bring on a provisioned machine in less than a day. This morning alone, I provisioned two machines within an hour. I am talking about hardening, installing antivirus software on it, and creating user accounts because the Playbooks were predesigned. From the time we got the servers to the actual hand-off, it takes less than an hour. We are talking about having the servers actually authenticate Red Hat Satellites and run the yum updates. All of that can be done within an hour."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to build playbooks. The learning curve is not that steep."
"It allows control over thousands of servers, whether virtual or physical."
"Automation tracking is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Regarding the pricing of Microsoft Intune, there are many features being introduced, but most features should be available in a license such as EMS E3, which is a high-quality license but does not include them."
"The most significant issue I encounter is troubleshooting when a policy is not applying or a device is showing non-compliant; the error messages can be pretty vague, which makes it necessary for me to dig around and piece things together myself."
"Its configuration is fairly complicated. You have to do quite a bit of discovery to be able to deploy it for a customer. You have to ask them a lot of questions. So, its initial deployment is the biggest challenge. They should make it easier to deploy with the use of Wizards or something else. During the deployment stage, there could be profiles for the customers who are particularly wanting to use certain feature sets of Intune."
"One drawback of Intune is that we cannot find devices based on a user's region or location."
"They should improve its compatibility with other operating systems such as iOS and Linux. It supports Linux but they still need to work on the iOS part."
"Customer support can be improved and simpler policy management can be implemented."
"Back in 2020, there were significant problems with report accuracy, particularly regarding web patching."
"The add-ons must be integrated into the solution."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
"It needs dashboards."
"The infrastructure itself is stable, but the agent has a lot of problems."
"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."
"The tool should allow us to create infrastructure. It has everything when it comes to management, but it lacks the provisioning aspect."
"Ansible could probably help here with better documentation."
"It is a little slow on the network side because every time you call a module, it's initiating an SSH or an API call to a network device, and it just slows things down."
"There are some options not available in the community edition of the solution."
"I have observed that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could improve by creating modules for upcoming AI and ML tech stacks, as currently, specific modules for these are not available."
"I would like to see improvements in the dashboards. More detailed dashboards would be beneficial because there is a lack of dashboards on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform."
"There should be better Windows support. We have had to develop a lot of our own roles because of the Windows platform. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux ones existed but not the Windows versions, so I have had to develop a bunch of Windows ones."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a bit expensive from a licensing perspective, especially as we look to have organizations with tenants across the globe."
"We have the business premium licenses for the solution."
"It is reasonable for the features it has."
"Any bundle package, such as Security E3, covers multiple things, such as AAP, BitLocker, etc. If you go for them individually, they would be more expensive. Bundling makes the price more attractive and competitive."
"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."
"The pricing is inherently reasonable, as Microsoft leverages market insights to maintain the total cost of ownership at around ninety to ninety-five percent of what would be incurred in an on-premise scenario."
"This cost is approximately $30 USD per user per month."
"It is not expensive."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."
"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 Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"Everything is generally fair. No one ever likes to pay a lot of money, but we are getting the value. We also get support with it. It has been fair and worthwhile."
"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."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
University
30%
Construction Company
10%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business190
Midsize Enterprise65
Large Enterprise185
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
 

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Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.