Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

VMware Aria Automation vs vCenter Configuration Manager comparison

Sponsored
 

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
7.4
Number of Reviews
269
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (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
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Configuration Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (1st), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.4%, down from 5.6% 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.
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.
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Asset Management and Auto Pilot are valuable features."
"Microsoft Intune is very stable due to its cloud-based infrastructure and its reliability in performance."
"Microsoft's cloud comes with a lot of extra features that are free of charge."
"Intune has significantly benefited our organization by providing comprehensive visibility into our device ecosystem."
"Intune provides a centralized management solution, although its suitability depends on specific needs and comparisons with alternatives like Jamf, Kandji, or ManageEngine."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"The ability to manage devices with different sets of policies is most valuable."
"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."
"vCenter Configuration Manager is the best tool for centrally managing resources"
"vCenter alone is enough for me because vCenter is a cluster environment and cluster solution for virtualization environments."
"vCenter Configuration Manager is a stable solution that is very easy to manage and deploy."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It has many valuable features that serve many purposes."
"The most valuable feature of vCenter Configuration Manager is the ease of provisioning."
"In large implementations, especially in regulated environments, vCenter's automation capabilities prove invaluable for implementing new processes efficiently."
"This solution is good for individual storage."
"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to provide environmental security."
"Scalability is perfect. We haven't had any issues."
"Now the customer can manage their own server requirements directly. This is very important because, before that, the process included signing off on forms and sending them to the IT Director. It took at least 10 days to create a VM and send it to the person who needed it. Now, it's no more than a half hour to activate a new VM at the customer's site."
"It is also intuitive and user-friendly... With vRealize, we can have a Help Desk individual, who might not be that techy, provision the different elements quite easily, with no almost training at all."
"It's quite user friendly. Everyone can use it, even non-technical people. This is good, since we use it to build a self-service portal which even users with not a lot of technical background can use."
"Before it would take months to deploy a VM, now, with this solution, we can deploy many VMs in one hour. We can do a stack of them with Mediaware."
"The extensibility of it and the customization of a lot of the Blueprints, that you can customize, and the community as a whole. There's a ton of community-generated Blueprints that might be (helpful) to set up a design for your automation needs, that you can use as a base and go on from there and make changes to it."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of automation."
 

Cons

"Manually syncing devices to enforce policies is cumbersome."
"It could offer more attributes for authentication."
"Some customers have reported experiencing slowness when using lower versions of the Android system."
"More integration with monitoring tools is needed."
"Intune should improve the management of non-Microsoft devices. It would be better to manage Mac, Android, and other non-Microsoft operating system devices within the same Intune interface."
"It would be helpful if there was proactive remediation."
"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."
"I would like to see better integration with Microsoft. There are a few things I can still do with Jamf that I am unable to do with Intune yet."
"There is room for improvement in operating and managing cluster environments and maintenance. And hardware environment visibility."
"The reporting could be improved."
"The solution needs to add its own backup system because it has issues integrating with third-party solutions."
"The interface itself is not very user-friendly."
"The solution's pricing is very high and could be improved."
"The pricing and security could be improved."
"The dashboards in vCenter Configuration Manager are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The solution could provide even more capacity."
"Most of the time the upgrade experience has been good but sometimes things break after upgrading. For example, some API codes stopped working."
"They should make it a little bit more dynamic, a little bit easier to deal with large-scale AD deployments. They need to make it a little more enterprise-ready. That is the one thing that kills us."
"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."
"Our primary challenge is upgrading the product to the latest version. This process requires careful communication with the vendor to mitigate risks."
"The solution could include more integrations and supportability around the container space."
"7.5 is not user-friendly, in fact, it's a nightmare. They changed everything on the graphic user interface, the mode where the user interacts with the product."
"Deploying and configuring the solution takes a lot of time."
"I have not found this solution to be user-friendly. It's really complicated. The demo shows that you can automate anything but they only show basic scenarios. If you want to do anything more complicated than that, it becomes very complicated to set up."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Any bundle package, such as Security E3, covers multiple things, such as AAP, BitLocker, etc. If you go for them individually, they would be more expensive. Bundling makes the price more attractive and competitive."
"We work with the subscription rather than a server license. I think it's economical this way because we don't have to have a server license for that, and I think that works in our favor."
"Microsoft Intune is more expensive than other solutions, but it offers a wider range of features and control."
"There is a license required to use the solution. If you're core users in Office 365, for example, you have Outlook email and E3 license, this is only email. You have to buy an EMS license to have Microsoft Intune. It is expensive."
"Microsoft Intune's pricing is reasonable."
"Our enterprise agreement includes Microsoft Intune at no additional cost."
"While Microsoft Intune boasts a wide range of features, its user-friendliness and bundled licensing cost are key considerations for me."
"While I don't have access to high-level financial information, I believe we have achieved lower costs with this implementation."
"While the pricing is reasonable for large corporations, it presents a substantial financial challenge for medium-sized businesses."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The product price and licensing fees are reasonable, especially when compared to other products in the market."
"Price-wise, the product is an affordable one. The additional expenses, apart from the licensing costs of the solution, are attached to the support a user wants to receive from vCenter Configuration Manager's end."
"It is an expensive product."
"I have a license to cover four hosts."
"The solution comes with three-year support. We have to renew the support annually after the three years are up."
"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."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"Customers say this solution is costlier compared to its competitors."
"I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"The pricing is very high."
"As far as value is concerned, it has been essential to our environment. We have been able to deploy VMs quickly and the developers have their own sandbox, so they can spin up and destroy VMs at their own will."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Configuration Management solutions are best for your needs.
853,960 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware Aria Automation vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
853,960 professionals have used our research since 2012.