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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
304
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
71
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 16.0%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform16.0%
Microsoft Intune9.4%
vCenter Configuration Manager0.8%
Other73.8%
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.
Sudhir Kumar Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Have managed thousands of servers with streamlined configuration processes
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very helpful due to passwordless integration and the ability to interact with multiple servers at once, which is especially advantageous when dealing with thousands of servers. The integration aspect of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has optimized my IT ecosystem significantly by consolidating multiple tools, such as a CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins, where we validate everything, including testing and SonarQube code quality. The agentless architecture of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, using the SSH key, makes it passwordless and allows us to push configurations with one click, creating a major advantage. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform's main benefit is that it allows us to push configurations to multiple servers without manually visiting each one, maintaining efficiency.
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

"I would rate the overall solution as a 10."
"It is very easy for me to configure all the things. Once I create policies and applications in Intune, it is very easy for us to enroll users."
"Fortunately, now everything is streamlined into a single, unified platform."
"We have a BYOD policy, and this solution helps us manage our devices."
"Intune is valuable for managing various endpoints and integrating with the Azure cloud, which is essential for our organization."
"Microsoft Intune is the best solution available; we can connect with any device and handle all queries, which sets it apart from other tools available in the market."
"Its direct integration with all the other products that we have from Microsoft is valuable. We're using the E5 license, and we have a whole wealth of different products available. It just makes it easier to have everything from one provider."
"What I like most about Intune is its seamless enrollment process, particularly the Autopilot method."
"I like the fact that Ansible is agentless."
"Role-based access control and agentless architecture are the main features which may attract users."
"The most useful features are the playbooks. We can develop our playbooks and simplify them doing something like a cross platform."
"The Organizations feature, where I can give clear silos and hand them over to different teams, that's amazing; everybody says that it's their own Tower. It's like they have their own Tower out there."
"The biggest thing I liked about Ansible is the check mode so that we can verify, after we've pushed, that the config there is actually what we intended."
"There are no agents by default, so adding a new server is a matter of a couple lines of configuration (on a new server and the configuration master)."
"It does not require staff for deployment and maintenance. It just works."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"My primary use case is for migration"
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The tool's scalability is good and easy, especially when compared to Microsoft Hyper-V."
"I appreciate it because it's very easy to set up and configure new disks and servers."
"The market share of VMware is huge. It is not even necessary to prove the capabilities attached to the product."
"The product's initial setup process is very simple."
"The stability and reliability are great."
"There are a lot of features, but I've found vMotion and VRS most valuable."
 

Cons

"Intune's reporting and logging could be improved. When troubleshooting, it's difficult to collect the logs and determine what's happening. If I want to filter out the compliant devices, I can see it from the logs, but I would like the option to drill down further."
"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."
"It would be interesting to integrate the server side of Intune. Some group policy updates we have on the Windows Server side and possibly some on the client side could also be included."
"Microsoft Intune has a latency response time issue. The latency has room for improvement."
"The product needs to upgrade itself when the server is overloaded."
"There are a few security features that are not available in Microsoft Intune, when compared to other products."
"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 face multiple scenarios where IT decision-makers request specific policy implementations, however, due to product limitations, we cannot fulfill these requests."
"Ansible has just been upgraded, and the only issue that we are seeing at the moment is that the user interface can be slow. We're currently investigating the refresh period with Red Hat when you click a job and run a job. It seems that the buffer no longer runs in real-time. We haven't discovered whether that's partially an issue with our environment, but Red Hat has come back and said that they're working on a couple of bugs in the background. We've upgraded to that version in the last six months, and that's the only issue that we've seen."
"We would like support for the post-integration of this product before cloud frameworks because right now their approach is to avoid using on-premises activities and move everything to the cloud."
"In Community, there's a lot of effort towards testing, standardizing, and testing for module development to role development, which is why Molecule is now becoming real. Same thing with Zuul, which we are starting to implement. Zulu tests out modules from third-party sources, like ourselves, and verifies that the modules work before they are committed to the code. Currently, Ansible can't do this with all the modules out there."
"We are very satisfied with what we have. From a management point of view, whatever makes it easier for my team to help customers write their own playbooks would be something very beneficial. Everything is going as a service. Creating playbooks can become much more consumer-oriented so that customers do not need to contact us to write their own playbooks."
"It would be good to make the solution more user-friendly,"
"One problem that I'm facing right now is the mismatch between the new version of Python and Ansible. Sometimes it's Python 2, and sometimes it's Python 3. When things get a bit dicey, I wish that Ansible would solve this issue by itself. I don't want to have to specify if it is Python 3 or version 2."
"On the Dashboard, when you view a template run, it shows all the output. There is a search filter, but it would be nice to able to select one server in that run and then see all that output from just that one server, instead of having to do the search on that one server and find the results."
"The product could do a better job at building infrastructure."
"The solution could provide even more capacity."
"The Self Service Interface is not very good and it needs improvement."
"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."
"We would like to improve the UI interface and customer experience in vCenter Configuration Manager. We need a speed-based system, which is methodology checked. The migration functions, from one hardware to another and the nodes must be a partner of four nodes, which acts as a weakness. They should have advanced training and course material for vCenter solutions."
"The price could be reduced."
"Not very user friendly, too many configurations."
"vCenter Configuration Manager could improve by having more integration."
"If the solution could manage on-premises and cloud resources with the help of one tool, it would be an extra agent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune has been incorporated into our Microsoft E5 licenses."
"We have a limited budget for security investments, so Microsoft should consider reducing pricing in our region. This would make investment more viable, especially since larger businesses in other countries can afford it easily."
"The price is very reasonable."
"Its pricing seems reasonable."
"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."
"It comes as a bundle, so you do not really know what the prices are. Microsoft does not break it down to the user cost for us. It is just bundled with our E5 license."
"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."
"Intune is inexpensive. It also comes bundled in some Office 365 licenses, so you can choose to purchase it separately or as a package."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"We use the open-source version of the solution."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"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."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."
"While the pricing is reasonable for large corporations, it presents a substantial financial challenge for medium-sized businesses."
"This product is not cheap. I have a yearly license for vCenter and the license is not cheap."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is mid-range so I rate it a six out of ten."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"There is a free license for the standard version. Their enterprise version is expensive. I would advise starting with one server and working your way up as you go. The enterprise version provides support."
"Users need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business116
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise48
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise19
 

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?
My impression on the impact of the real-time monitoring features of vCenter Configuration Manager is that it's somewh...
 

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: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.