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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs vCenter Configuration Manager 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
7.3
Number of Reviews
255
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
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 17.4%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
Surya Chapagain - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to manage and simple to learn
We use Red Hat a lot. I open tickets for the Red Hat cases, however, with Ansible, I haven't opened any cases. My manager worked with them a bit. If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this.
Nikhil Nikhil - PeerSpot reviewer
Compliance management has improved efficiency but licensing changes pose challenges
I am not using any advanced features or AI. I am employing a basic VMware vCenter setup for my infrastructure. Scalability has no major limitations, and the solution is efficient. Overall, it's satisfactory. I would rate the vCenter experience as seven out of ten due to concerns regarding license, pricing, and AI features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has significantly improved managing a diverse range of devices. We have observed enhancements across Android, iOS, and Windows devices."
"Intune simplifies compliance. The ability to manage software updates and policies on endpoints has helped us meet contract requirements."
"We can securely manage both company-owned devices and personal devices enrolled in our BYOD program."
"I would say the biggest benefit is the single-pane view. There's no jumping around multiple UI's to do your overall management."
"Everything has worked better since we started using Intune."
"The ability to push applications on devices is valuable. You do not have to manually install applications one by one. If you like to use ten different applications, you do not have to manually go and download them one by one. Intune can compile a package for you, and then you can just push them from the admin center."
"The stability of Microsoft Intune is ten out of ten."
"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."
"The initial setup is easy and takes a few hours to complete."
"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."
"We can automate a few host configurations using the product."
"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."
"Its checking and validating ensures our packages are properly patched."
"RBAC is great around Organizations and I can use that backend as our lab. Ingesting stuff into the JSON logs, into any sort of logging collector; it works with Splunk and there are other collectors as well. It supports Sumo and that helps, I can go create reports in Sumo Logic. Workflows are an interesting feature. I can collect a lot of templates and create a workflow out of them."
"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."
"Some colleagues and other companies use it and comment that it is easy to use, easy to understand, and offers good features."
"The solution is excellent at automating processes."
"There are a lot of useful features, such as DRS, ease of use, and many configuration options."
"The product's deployment phase was easy."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to see which virtual machines need more resources or are over-committed."
"My experience managing virtual environments using vCenter Configuration Manager has been quite smooth. Over time, I've observed that there's been a significant local competency built around the product, especially in India, where ESXi and VMware dominate the market. It's evident that vCenter Configuration Center is the preferred management tool in this context, and it's relatively easy to find expertise in the market."
"vCenter Configuration Manager is pretty simple."
"The most valuable feature of vCenter Configuration Manager is the ease of provisioning."
"This solution is good for individual storage."
 

Cons

"They could also make it easier to use because there are some other products that may be easier to use in terms of the look and feel of the dashboard."
"They should make it easier to order it, however, that's generally true for everything from Microsoft."
"Microsoft Intune lags market leaders, such as Apperian, in its MAM capabilities."
"Enhancements for managing MacOS more comprehensively would be beneficial."
"Reporting in Microsoft solutions is pathetic. With Intune, I'm getting a free inventory tool, but I don't get a reporting tool. When I go to Intune, I can see one machine's entire data in terms of the hardware and the software running on it, but I cannot generate a report for all the machines in the organization. The reporting is the only feature holding back the functionality that is already there."
"I rate Microsoft support between six to eight. The support often involves third parties hired by Microsoft who are knowledgeable, but sometimes the help I receive is not adequate."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve reporting. Sometimes, it shows double or triple entries of the same thing, which affects the count's accuracy. Also, some applications onboarded in Microsoft Intune do not get updated. When we look for solutions online, there is often no clear answer."
"Improvements should be made in terms of execution speed, which is, I believe, the most lacking feature. Aside from that, re-triggering a failed task is another useful feature."
"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."
"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."
"It would be good to make the solution more user-friendly,"
"They should think of this product as an end-to-end solution and begin to develop it that way."
"The solution must be made easier to configure."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better."
"It could be easier to integrate Ansible with other solutions. No single tool can do everything. For example, we use Terraform for infrastructure and other solutions for configuration management and VMs."
"The solution should allow for more customization."
"The technical support could be faster."
"Error reporting should be more precise and descriptive, and there is no way to filter the logs. It would be helpful if its logs analysis can be more detailed, and the logs can be filtered."
"Users need to pay a licensing fee for the solution, which could be cheaper."
"The product's high price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The product's price could be lesser."
"There could be an option for clients to manage the tool as well."
"Their licensing needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Generally, we get favorable discounts, so it's not too bad. Obviously, we're looking at decreasing those wherever we can to bring value back to the public purse because it's all charity based. It's all publicly funded."
"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."
"We are partners, so we receive some discount. However, from the customer's perspective, Microsoft Intune's pricing is competitive with non-Microsoft technology, and the price is good compared to other market competitors."
"It is not a cheap solution. The price for a device when you start using it at a large scale can be improved. It is covered under our enterprise agreement. We pay once a year. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"Microsoft Intune's costliness stems from licensing fees and the overhead associated with its management, user experience, and device remediation."
"Microsoft Intune's pricing is reasonable."
"It is expensive. The cost depends on the license that we choose."
"The tool is cheaper than our company's other MDM tools."
"We use the open-source version of the solution."
"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."
"The cost is high, but it still works well."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"The pricing is okay."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"It's a large application. It consumes a lot of resources. Sometimes the price is too high for our customers. If they buy it directly from VMware, its hard to convince the customer that we will bring down the total cost of ownership, in the end."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten. The product has increased its cost by at least two to three times its previous cost."
"The price of the solution is too expensive for us and we are looking to move to another solution."
"We have to pay for the whole bundle and individual pricing is not available. One license costs us almost $200 every year."
"It is on a yearly basis."
"It is an expensive product."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The product price and licensing fees are reasonable, especially when compared to other products in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
27%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 vCenter Configuration Manager?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Configuration Manager?
Nowadays, it is a bit expensive. It's costly, primarily due to the licensing aspect.
What needs improvement with vCenter Configuration Manager?
Regarding the licensing part, previously I was able to acquire the license with an eight-core configuration. Now it r...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Ansible
vCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.