Perforce Puppet vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Perforce and Broadcom are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Perforce is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.7, while Broadcom is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1. Perforce holds a 1.9% mindshare in CM, compared to Broadcom’s 5.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Perforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 14, 2025

Perforce Puppet and VMware Aria Automation compete in the automation space. Perforce Puppet has an edge in pricing and support, while VMware Aria Automation excels in feature capabilities, making it a worthy investment despite higher costs.

Features: Perforce Puppet offers robust infrastructure management and configuration automation, with strong scripting capabilities, cross-platform support, and agent-based functionality for stability. It excels in managing Linux, Windows, and UNIX servers with a comprehensive module library. VMware Aria Automation provides superior integration with hybrid cloud infrastructure and offers advanced orchestration capabilities, multi-vendor cloud IT infrastructure personalization, and a self-service portal that streamlines VM deployment.

Room for Improvement: Perforce Puppet could enhance scalability and integration capabilities with third-party tools, improve user interface design for better usability, and expand its cloud automation options. VMware Aria Automation might simplify its deployment process, increase support for newer third-party applications, and enhance its pricing model to make it more competitive in smaller-scale scenarios.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Perforce Puppet is recognized for its straightforward deployment and responsive support, tailored for enterprise needs, making it highly user-friendly. VMware Aria Automation, while offering comprehensive support services, involves a complex deployment model suitable for large-scale environments, often requiring more navigation to resolve issues.

Pricing and ROI: Perforce Puppet presents a competitive setup cost, appealing to organizations with budget constraints, and reliably manages ROI through efficient resource management. VMware Aria Automation demands a higher initial investment yet delivers substantial ROI through its extensive features, optimizing complex operations and long-term value realization.

To learn more, read our detailed Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation

September 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.4%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.4%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Intune	9.4%
VMware Aria Automation	5.4%
Perforce Puppet	1.9%
Other	83.3%

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble

Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24

Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license

The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.

Read full review

Erik Ableson

Owner at Infrageeks

A stable solution that is more suited for larger companies with mature CI/CD structures and image management processes

Puppet Enterprise is more suitable for clients working up much more structured deployment images they manage internally. Before choosing Puppet Enterprise, users should think seriously about what they're trying to accomplish and ensure they put the right pieces in place. Overall, I rate Puppet Enterprise an eight out of ten.

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Le Quang Long

Cloud Engineer at BIDV - Ngân hàng TMCP Đầu tư & Phát triển Việt Nam

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With these improvements, I estimate we've reduced our patching costs by over $100,000 a month, as the MSP previously had to troubleshoot various issues manually."

"The Autopilot feature is the most valuable because it saves significant time on managing devices. We can ship devices globally, and users can set them up on their own. It's convenient."

"The main benefit for us with Microsoft Intune is centralized management of all devices, allowing us to apply one policy across the company from one location."

"The reporting and analytics features in Microsoft Intune have been a lifesaver."

"Implementing Microsoft Intune has provided a more streamlined and consistent method for device management across our multiple domains, effectively consolidating our administrative efforts."

"I rate Intune 10 out of 10."

"For our office workers who are not based in Norway, when we order the PC, we can do some of the settings for them. These are standardized settings. We can set them up exactly as they are in Norway so that they're the same."

"Intune enables us to manage our devices from anywhere."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."

"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."

"The agent-based feature helps me by being stable."

"I rate the stability of Puppet as ten out of ten."

"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."

"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."

"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."

"Anything that we manage through Puppet always runs perfectly."

More Perforce Puppet pros

"SaltStack has given us the ability to deal with systems at scale and rectify issues at scale."

"quality-of-latest-release; Compared to the earlier versions, from my experience, the upgrade process is easier; for example, the compatibility checks. I also don't need to go and find out the resources that are required. It tells me in one report what the current environment is like and, if I want to go to the next level, what things I need to take care of. Based on that I can make things happen."

"The most valuable feature of VMware Aria Automation is the versatile automation and deployments."

"The initial setup is straightforward. It's not that difficult."

"If you do a deployment for a proof of concept, it is simple."

"The most valuable features for us are capacity planning as well as environment life management; putting in specific templates and workflows that we know are secure. That solidifies the environments that we're in or that are being provisioned. We also know that every environment being provisioned has a lifespan. It affects capacity, so it's great for budgeting, from my perspective, and good for my team."

"We have it deployed in a highly-available environment and scalability is nice because we just had another ESX host and then we are able to increase the capacity."

"The setup was straightforward. We upgraded to a newer version seamlessly. It worked really well."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"Intune lags all of its competitors in terms of report generation."

"We need the capabilities of the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) to be enhanced through Intune instead of Azure."

"It would be better if I could integrate it with my core group policy. I would like to have a group policy in my current environment, which has strict control, but those things are still missing. Although it has maximum compliance and security, it's not available on-premise."

"Intune is not the most user-friendly mobile device management platform available."

"The reporting dashboard is really limited."

"I would like to see the ability to deploy custom packages as a Windows 64-bit package, as opposed to the Windows 32-bit, which is the only one available now."

"There should be more focus on mobile device security and integration."

"An issue we have run into with Microsoft Endpoint Manager is that we cannot patch third-party products like Adobe and Chrome with it."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."

"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."

"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."

"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."

"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."

"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."

"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."

"The upgrade process 6.x to 7.3 was a significant effort. I'm hoping that 7.3 to the next version is much smoother."

"The stability on the 6.2 version is very bad. It crashes. VMware tech support knows the IIS component is a bit buggy."

"I don't find the solution to be intuitive and user- friendly. The GUI is really complicated. Tracking down logs and errors is very hard. Then, it takes a specialized JavaScript person to build. Also, I'm not sure how the upgrades are going now, but they definitely need to evolve the upgrade process. Finally, the logs are very generalized. Giving more of an indicator of what's actually going wrong, rather than just a generic error code, would help."

"It would be nice in the next release if they added in tool tips. Whether you're putting it together, adding a blueprint, or you're making a change in the system, highlighting or selecting something and having it tell you what it does or what it will do would be nice. Because it's such a complex system, it's hard to work with unless you've been using it for years to know what everything is doing."

"Web UI."

"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."

"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."

"It would be better if VMware would provide API documentation for developers and customers on the Internet."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you're ever going to buy an Office 365 environment, then pricing is reasonable given all that it does, but if you're not, then you might find the pricing expensive."

"Microsoft Intune is more expensive than other solutions, but it offers a wider range of features and control."

"I would rate the price a four out of ten with ten being the most expensive."

"Cost is not my department, but the product is included in the E5 license that we already pay for every user, so no additional cost is incurred."

"The price of Microsoft Intune is reasonable."

"The price is reasonable, but they should lower it a bit to make it more competitive. It's cheaper than AirWatch and other products, but I still feel like Microsoft can make a base version or with Exchange online or a la carte only Intune version which will be useful. A customer who doesn't want to go full-fledged E3 or E5 can take out or consume an Intune solution only for their purpose, and we want to target that customer."

"Its price is quite okay. I wish they provide certain additional features with the same license."

"The cost is handled through our Office 365 license, so I have yet to be able to compare it directly with other tools in its class."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."

"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."

"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."

"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."

"It is pricey for what you get."

"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."

"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."

"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

14%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	116
Midsize Enterprise	46
Large Enterprise	152

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	130

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 ...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Puppet Enterprise?

Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution.

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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...

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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...

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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 y...

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 10% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 6% of the time

IBM MaaS360 vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

AWS Systems Manager vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 24% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 21% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 16% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 10% of the time

Chef vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 7% of the time

More Perforce Puppet Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 12% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 10% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

October 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet

October 2025

Download Perforce Puppet product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

October 2025

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Puppet

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Perforce Puppet provides robust features for configuration management, compatible with Linux, Windows, and UNIX. It simplifies infrastructure management with automation and role-based access control, though it requires mastering command-line operations due to limited GUI.

Perforce Puppet utilizes a hub-spoke architecture to enhance automation across production environments, excelling in provisioning and configuration management for on-prem servers. Its infrastructure as code approach eases deployment and maintenance, supported by community resources for stabilization. Support for diverse devices makes it adaptable for complex configurations, but pricing and integration gaps, especially with Infosec tools, pose challenges for some.

What are the key features of Perforce Puppet?

Remote Package Installation: Centralized server management for remote installations
File Management: Streamlined file operations from a single point
Infrastructure as Code: Simplifies infrastructure maintenance
Scalability: Grows with organizational demands
Role-Based Access Control: Ensures secure user management
Device State Control: Efficient device integration and configuration

What benefits should users expect?

Automation Efficiency: Reduces manual tasks with hub-spoke architecture
Versatility: Supports multiple operating systems
Community Support: Backed by a stable and organized community
Configuration Simplicity: Simplifies and streamlines setup processes

Puppet is implemented across industries for managing production servers, especially in regulated environments. Its security compliance checks ensure adherence to required standards, while public configurations assist in device network integration. Industries benefit from its ability to streamline Linux server automation and explore expansion into Windows systems to meet cross-platform requirements.

Perforce

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features.

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.
Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.
DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.
Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.
Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.
Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.
Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.
Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.
Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.
Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.
The solution offers high levels of security and control.
This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.
VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.
The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.
The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

Broadcom

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

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation

September 2025

Free Report: Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation

Find out what your peers are saying about Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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