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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
SolarWinds Server Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.9%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 16.6%, down from 18.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Muralitharan KS - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient server management and detailed reporting with flexible deployment capabilities
We are primarily using Ansible for automation purposes as it is a configuration management tool. It is utilized for various activities such as DNS activity, changes to web servers, virtual host settings, and other day-to-day tasks, all of which are templated in Ansible Ansible allows us to manage…
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful version control, high availability, and scales well
We are in touch with the management of the SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor team, and we have made recommendations to them for quite a few changes. One area that could improve is the configuration download. Instead of only showcasing the differences between the baseline and the current configuration, or a specific version of the configuration, they should show the entire configuration getting downloaded. It could be in the form of a flat file or in the form of a binary file. If it is a flat file, it can use as a reference, and preserved for auditing purposes. That is one area where the product can see quite a lot of improvement. They have a feature where you can download by section, what I mean is, you can download the configuration of the hardware, software, or driver information, or the file folder settings or permissions. It is a section download, but not a complete download. That is one area of improvement. The other area of improvement is specific to the customer use cases. They would like to compare two servers as to what the configuration drift is but not only within the server comparison. For example, I would like to take a server in the DR setup that is in the primary data center to do a comparison between the primary server and the DR server. Currently, the configuration comparison is within the server itself. In a feature release, they could enhance the reporting. However, we have not evaluated this part of the solution extensively.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The many policies available in Microsoft Intune for managing our devices are valuable."
"I have no issues with the scalability and ability to expand Microsoft Intune."
"The user experience with Microsoft Intune is excellent because we can manage users and maintain security and policies anywhere they are."
"We have one MDM that works with Windows, iOS, and Android."
"Microsoft Intune is reliable, scalable, and user-friendly."
"What I like the most about Microsoft Intune is its ability to manage mobile devices. Through integration with System Center, it can also manage desktops and laptops."
"Its protection policies are most valuable. It protects mobile devices as well as individual apps. It is pretty scalable, and its documentation is also pretty good. It is also pretty straightforward to deploy."
"There are no complaints about the stability. It works one hundred percent of the time."
"It is quick to production. It has an API in the back which allows for integrations."
"Being a game-changer in configuration management software is what has made Ansible so popular and widespread. Much of IT is based on SSH direct connectivity with a need for running infrastructure in an agentless way, and that has been a big plus. SSH has become a great security standard for managing servers. The whole thing has really become an out-of-the-box solution for managing a Unix estate."
"The development tools are decent and being able to consistently manage those servers is really the key, which is why we went with Ansible in the first place."
"I like Ansible's ease of use. If you have Linux skills, you can create a reusable template for the dependencies and other configurations. I can store the templates in a repository and share them with my customers or other developers. It's a popular solution, so there is a large user base that can share templates."
"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."
"It is very easy to use, and there is less room for error."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"On the network side, I already have a lot of our firewall related processes automated. If it's not automated all the way from the ticket system, our network team members, our tier-one guys in India, can just go into the Tower web interface and fill in a couple of survey questions."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is version control. For example, if we began on the first of the month and we considered that as the configuration of the server, I could set that configuration as my baseline. On a daily basis, if there was the operations team that did, for example, server patching, the tool will maintain all levels of versions."
"The product’s alert feature is good. We receive notifications whenever some failures occur in the configuration."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in server patch management and allowing direct uploads of EXE applications instead of needing to convert them to Intune format, which would save time."
"The reports that are generated aren't so great. They don't give a lot of meaning so far, but that could be down to user knowledge than the actual reporting side of things. I'm not a big user of it, but I was a bigger user of MaaS360, and we used to be able to run weekly and monthly reports. In the case of any deviations. we'd get a warning immediately. That's not so easy to do or to get in place for Intune. This could be just a user issue, but when I compare both, that's the only thing that's lacking for me."
"Integrating certain group policies can be challenging and may necessitate using on-premises systems to integrate them with Microsoft Intune."
"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"Microsoft Intune's app deployment presents challenges for non-MSI and non-store apps, particularly EXEs, requiring the use of a Win32 wrapper tool and adding overhead to the process."
"They need to integrate more with security options."
"We are facing issues with Apple products. With macOS and iOS, there are some difficulties with the updates because we cannot get full control of Apple products. In the case of Windows, it is fine, but in the case of Apple, we have some difficulties. We cannot control everything through Intune."
"The solution requires Mac support."
"The job workflow needs to be worked on. It's not really clear to how you actually link things together. What they probably could do is provide an example workflow on how to stitch things together. I think that would be very helpful."
"There should be consistency. I know that it is always changing, but when we are trying to get some users to do something in basic Ansible that they are not really interested in doing but their job requires them to do it, they start finding inconsistencies."
"It needs better documentation."
"It can use some more credential types. I've found that when I go looking for a certain credential type, such as private keys, they're not really there."
"It would be good to make the solution more user-friendly,"
"Ansible can face scalability issues, such as limitations when trying to scale up infrastructure. It might struggle with connection dropping or spawning additional VMs under certain conditions."
"There are challenges in using the graphical interface, particularly in open-source versions."
"For Ansible Tower, there are three tiers with ten nodes. I would like them to expand those ten nodes to 20, because ten nodes is not enough to test on."
"The product’s support services and licensing models need improvement."
"In a feature release, they could enhance the reporting. However, we have not evaluated this part of the solution extensively."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with the E5 plan. We bought the E5 plan from Microsoft."
"Microsoft Intune is included in the E5 license at no additional cost."
"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."
"Microsoft's licensing is more flexible and adaptive than its competitors."
"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."
"Microsoft Intune has a user-based subscription model. You can go for a monthly or a yearly payment."
"While I don't have access to high-level financial information, I believe we have achieved lower costs with this implementation."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"We use the open-source version of the solution."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"It’s an open-source tool."
"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."
"You don't need to buy agents on servers or deploy expense management when using the solution, which affected our decision to go with it."
"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."
"Ansible is a lot more competitive than any of the others. Its setup was also straightforward. In fact, we just implemented Ansible on OpenShift, so that is how we are running the Ansible Automation Platform now."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"The price of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is not reasonable, it is slightly on the higher side."
"SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor has medium pricing compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?
Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management h...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
What do you like most about SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor?
The product’s alert feature is good. We receive notifications whenever some failures occur in the configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor?
SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor has medium pricing compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor?
The product’s support services and licensing models need improvement.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Ansible
SolarWinds SCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.