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Perforce Puppet vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 8, 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
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
384
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (3rd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Perforce Puppet
Ranking in Configuration Management
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Configuration Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Network Automation (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (29th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.2%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 4.0%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 3.9%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.2%
VMware Aria Automation3.9%
Perforce Puppet4.0%
Other87.9%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
MS
Unix Consultant at ExxonMobil
Have managed configurations efficiently with an adaptable tool
I am using Perforce Puppet in the IT industry. I have experience with configuration management tools, specifically Perforce Puppet. I am a user of Perforce Puppet. I have used modular architecture to customize and integrate with my current IT environment. It is flexible and able to address my specific needs. I have worked with event-driven automation, and it helps to identify potential issues when someone manually changes any configuration on the server. Perforce Puppet reinforces the intended configuration that we have set earlier. I recommend Perforce Puppet as it's a good tool for all kinds of business and easy to use. It takes less than three months to learn how to use Perforce Puppet. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Perforce Puppet an eight.
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

"By using Microsoft Intune, I can control my Outlook on my phone, and whenever I try to open any file attachment, it will be more secure."
"It works well if you have a Microsoft environment."
"Microsoft's cloud comes with a lot of extra features that are free of charge."
"The user experience of Microsoft Intune is quite good because there's not much disturbance in the background; it's just running in the background."
"Microsoft Intune brings all our endpoint and security management tools into one place, acting as a comprehensive solution where we can manage numerous devices and configuration profiles, and block specific URLs, among many other capabilities."
"Autopilot is a feature I really like."
"We are a remote company, and the product helps us manage the global endpoints. It helps us natively manage the endpoints in the cloud from anywhere."
"I would rate the stability of Microsoft Intune nine out of ten."
"Puppet Enterprise provides an autonomous delivery solution and agent-server architecture that was really helpful on our case for Internet base device management."
"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes, freeing our engineers to spend their time on creative, visionary work instead of repetitive tasks."
"The agent-based feature helps me by being stable."
"I rate the stability of Puppet as ten out of ten."
"The versatility is great."
"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."
"Before we began using Puppet, everything was manual; once we moved to Puppet, it opened up a completely new world of automated management, which was amazing."
"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the consistency it delivers, at the end of the day. We know that we have consistent images based off consistent Blueprints, check-pointed or QA'ed in a consistent manner."
"Another valuable feature is the flexible user interface. They can manage all of the servers, the full lifecycle of VMs, on one screen."
"It’s very helpful for us to have this product; we already gained the benefits after installation and configuration."
"The most valuable feature is being able to deploy a virtual machine from a low level. We can automate everything including network configuration, firewall configuration, storage, storage attachment, OS deployment, middleware, and so forth."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to see both compliance and vulnerabilities in a dashboard view."
"It has reduced provisioning time from roughly three to six weeks to about an hour on a private cloud, and about 25 minutes on public cloud."
"We have given internal IT developers the ability to self-provision VMs for development and testing, which has drastically increased their efficiency and increased the communication and transparency between IT development and IT operations."
 

Cons

"My main pain point for Microsoft Intune is the contact part. Not all Android or iOS applications have access to integration, for example, contacts."
"It would be helpful if there was proactive remediation."
"It doesn't economize when you scale up. We have over 14,000 employees, and we have between 7,500 and 8,000 city-owned or personal devices being used to conduct city business. Its price can be improved. It is not a cheap solution."
"The only drawback or challenge is that it does not support server deployment."
"Lacking in features such as Wi-Fi and network security."
"Microsoft Intune could be improved by making the UI more intuitive, enhancing reporting and analytics for better visibility, simplifying troubleshooting and error messaging, and improving performance and policy sync speed in larger environments."
"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."
"I would like Intune to natively support easier report generation. This improvement would enable less experienced staff to run reports more efficiently without relying on additional tools or functions."
"Puppet has a steep learning curve so you need to spend some time before you can use Puppet daily."
"Clients with less technical expertise may find Puppet complex to configure. Our team may struggle if technical team members leave the organization, leaving others uncertain about using the tool."
"It needs GUI based automation. There is way too much command line work involved."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."
"The compliance side needs work. Puppet doesn't have much in terms of dealing with compliance."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
"It's a bit of a pain point to make sure that everything works once we've upgraded it because Puppet has been evolving pretty fast."
"Salt Cloud Windows support isn't that mature."
"In terms of usability, It has had its challenges. It requires a lot of custom code to integrate into our environment. It can take a little while to get it to do what we want, takes some code instead of having built-in functionality. Part it is how we use it. It would be a lot easier to use in a greenfield scenario versus brownfield, which is the way we using it."
"The integration is a bit tight. I need the right package to use it properly. The new automation processes for VMware are messy, and support could be better."
"Salt does not support performing remote actions that require a sudo password with Salt SSH (agentless Salt execution)."
"Not as good, but there are some components in vRA that you can scale out a lot more quickly than other pieces."
"If you are using Aria Automation by itself, you won't get the features you want, and the license cost is high."
"I don't find it to be entirely user-friendly. There are a lot of complicated menus within menus within menus. Things move around from version to version."
"The initial setup is complex. There are too many components to integrate, especially when we integrated with different storage types and backup vendors. All the integration made it more complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Intune is linked with Microsoft. We can deploy the Microsoft E365 license to users by Intune. There are different types of licenses, such as device administrator licenses, E5 licenses for device enrollment manually, and P1 and p2 licenses for device enrollment automatically. These are the licenses required for the administration."
"Microsoft licenses are costly."
"We don't pay for Intune because it is bundled with the premium subscription to Office 365. It includes Intune and Defender. I don't have to buy two extra products to manage my enterprise."
"I rate Intune five out of 10 for pricing. It's expensive."
"Most of our clients come to us with licensing already in place. On average, it costs $6 per device per month to add Intune to an Office 365 subscription, but I am not sure."
"With one user base license, we can use Intune for up to five devices. However, with Soti MobiControl, each license is tied to a single device, meaning one license is dedicated to one device only."
"The product is expensive."
"The cost of the license and the features are justified for myself as a technical person."
"Depending on the size of the organization there is a point when the price of Puppet Enterprise should be lower. However, they provide really good functionality, features, and capabilities."
"The main thing that we noticed when we switched from the enterprise version to the community version was the difference in cost — the infrastructure is pretty expensive."
"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."
"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."
"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."
"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."
"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."
"I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."
"We do plan to see ROI with any new implementation of new technologies being implemented within our environment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business195
Midsize Enterprise64
Large Enterprise190
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Puppet Enterprise?
Regarding the cost, I find it expensive, always. I don't know how much the license would cost per year or per user ap...
What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?
I don't know what could be improved in Perforce Puppet to make this tool better for the next release. I can't think o...
What is your primary use case for Puppet Enterprise?
My main use case for Perforce Puppet is for configuration management.
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 y...
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 fre...
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 compa...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Puppet
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Los Alamos National Laboratory, GitHub, IP Commerce, Cedexis, Spiceworks, Server Density, Swisstopo, Chockstone, Constant Contact, NICS, Citrix
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.