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Perforce Puppet vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Perforce Puppet
Ranking in Configuration Management
14th
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
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Network Automation (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (27th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.4%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 4.2%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 4.1%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.4%
VMware Aria Automation4.1%
Perforce Puppet4.2%
Other87.3%
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.
reviewer2284542 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Automated configuration management ensures consistent server setups
The strength of Puppet is in automated configuration management. We can configure a server once and set rules with Puppet so that future server configurations are automatic and consistent with company requests. Puppet is declarative, meaning it finds the best state for itself and corrects any deviations in the configuration.
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

"Microsoft Intune simplifies device management by replacing the traditional method of installing OS, joining a domain, and configuring everything manually."
"Autopilot is a feature I really like."
"The most valuable features in Microsoft Intune for me are application deployment, Defender deployment, and asset management."
"The user experience of Microsoft Intune is very friendly and the interface is very good."
"Overall, my user experience with Microsoft Intune has been great."
"It works pretty well for us."
"The most valuable feature for us is the security, including risk analysis and patch management."
"The feature I like the most is that we can perform remote tasks. If we want to retire or wipe out personal data or corporate data from a device, we can use Microsoft Intune remotely, and with the click of a button, data is removed automatically. Nothing needs to be done from the end-user side."
"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."
"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 versatility is great."
"Puppet Enterprise has good functionalities."
"I rate the stability of Puppet as ten out of ten."
"The organization of the overall product in terms of usage is very good."
"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."
"Puppet Enterprise provides an autonomous delivery solution and agent-server architecture that was really helpful on our case for Internet base device management."
"There are a lot of different benefits with this product, because there are a lot of things that we're trying to automate."
"We have integrated our CICD pipeline into an automatic catalog request through some API calls. It can request and provision new virtual machines behind the NSX load balancer, straight out of the CIDC pipeline and add those nodes to the load balancer, request SSL certs, do SSL termination at the load balancer so that it's not encrypted behind the scenes, all of which has really been helpful."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to see both compliance and vulnerabilities in a dashboard view."
"Another valuable feature is the flexible user interface. They can manage all of the servers, the full lifecycle of VMs, on one screen."
"We are part of a Cloud service provider; it has helped our business to grow and scale."
"We were able to reduce the delivery time of requesting a VM from three weeks to under 10 minutes using the vRealize Automation Suite."
"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 of VMware Aria Automation is the versatile automation and deployments."
 

Cons

"The reporting dashboard is really limited."
"It would be great to see on-premises mailboxes and for the solution to have geofencing capabilities."
"My whole team is saying that they would rate technical support a three or four out of ten."
"I'd suggest adding more features for macOS in Intune. There should be more functionality for managing macOS. There should be a better capability for pushing things down on macOS. Currently, Intune is not capable of managing macOS at the same level as Windows."
"Microsoft Intune has a latency response time issue. The latency has room for improvement."
"The reports aren't complete, and it's not easy to build custom reports."
"We would like to see support for Chrome and/or devices for Chromebooks."
"Every time we call, we get bounced to a new team... there is no cohesive end-to-end support, which is very frustrating and time-consuming."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"The compliance side needs work. Puppet doesn't have much in terms of dealing with compliance."
"There's a lot of scope for enhancement on the DevSecOps side. They should definitely include features for compliance, for both the Linux and Windows side of the devices, as well as for network devices. Compliance is something they need to work on."
"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."
"Puppet has a steep learning curve so you need to spend some time before you can use Puppet daily."
"The solution has really complex code, you have to understand the Ruby language. However, once you know the code then you can move ahead without any problems."
"It needs GUI based automation. There is way too much command line work involved."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
"The initial setup was complex."
"A hardened set of tests would be much appreciated."
"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."
"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."
"It is quite hard to maintain, especially since a lot of work has to be custom-built, which takes a lot of effort."
"Implementation directly with our SRM product, because we know what the other products are out there that VM is offering, such as Site Recovery Manager (SRM). There are ties which you can customize to put them into that, but it would be nice if it came as an out-of-the-box feature."
"There are a lot of improvements required with regards to vRealize Automation."
"Master/minion connections are subject to hijacking, privilege escalation, and/or information leaks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune's costliness stems from licensing fees and the overhead associated with its management, user experience, and device remediation."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."
"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."
"All security solutions worldwide are expensive. Microsoft has allowed a small scale of features within Microsoft Intune for cost-efficient solutions. If you want the full suite, you need to invest more to gain better security features."
"The solution is cost-efficient."
"The pricing is competitive, but it is not cheap."
"The price could be better."
"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."
"The pricing is very high."
"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."
"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 is free of cost."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"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
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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 Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
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: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.