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Scalr vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Scalr
Ranking in Cloud Management
25th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (21st), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Scalr is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.5%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation5.5%
Scalr0.9%
Other93.6%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Shubham Mandavkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Technical Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Modern API design has transformed documentation workflows and supports interactive testing
Scalr helps with API testing and client functionality, which includes a built-in Try It tool similar to Postman, allowing developers to test endpoints, manage environment variables, and see request history. The faster response is due to the CI/CD workflow integrating with GitHub Actions and another tool to automatically update and version documentation as the codebase evolves. Other features include data formatting, where I can convert strings to uppercase, trim white spaces, or concatenate first and last names into a full name field. In scientific contexts, a scalar is a physical quantity described only by magnitude with no direction. In environmental aspects, monitoring and measuring temperature, pressure, or humidity, resource tracking, and calculating mass, volume, density, or time duration reflect the best impact on my organization. One specific outcome I have noticed is scholarly publishing. Scalr is also an open-source platform for born-digital, media-rich publishing, allowing scholars to create interactive online books that integrate high-resolution media with sophisticated archival structures.
VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I was able to deal with requests without needing every server on; I could turn them off."
"After all the years of helping enterprises implement API strategies at SmartBear, I can confidently say Scalr is what the industry has been waiting for."
"The self-service capabilities are by far the best that we've seen in terms of features. If the user is being able to log in and make requests himself, from the onboarding process all the way to the end, that's very helpful."
"Configuration management: We were using SaltStack for orchestration in liaison with OpenStack."
"It's cut our server deployment times down from weeks to an hour."
"We like vRA because it helps make systems available on time for our customers, on demand."
"We have seen quite a bit of return on our investment, and we've actually been able to really change the way that we're doing build and deployments of virtual machines."
"usability; Ease of use, the GUI, is probably the best feature, so that really anybody can use it. You don't have to be technical to be able to deploy a VM. I find it to be intuitive and user-friendly. Regarding some of the files that you feed it, you don't have to do a ton of development. You can feed it pretty standard configuration files. You don't have to be a developer, you don't have to know C# or Java or the like to get it going."
"The IT support for developers is nice as well because they are able to manage the environment themselves."
"The new version is user-friendly and intuitive."
 

Cons

"Regarding licensing, if I buy a licensing key, it is beneficial, but if I have a lesser standing, it is not as good."
"We did use AWS autoscaling but Rackspace left something to be desired."
"Sometimes, we encountered scalability issues but they were negligible."
"It would be better if VMware would provide API documentation for developers and customers on the Internet."
"I would like to see more integration to do things like DR, from a court perspective. Today, for us, SRM doesn't scale because each of our customers has a local vCenter environment as well as the vCenter in our environment. So we can't get SRM to scale to the point to which we need. From an integration perspective, DR inside of that would be good."
"It's not cheap."
"vCenter and vRA, I believe they share two different databases so sometimes you have to somehow sync them up. I wish there was only one database between the two or, somehow, one database would rule over the other one, so if you have both products, the vCenter might use the vRA database. Otherwise, when you do stuff in vCenter, you have to write a command on vRA to update the databases."
"With the workflow aspect, which has manual intervention, a policy needs to be approved by somebody. There could be better management of that piece with better templates. It is like a workflow engine, but does not have enough example templates to do certain things. A lot of people waste a lot of time trying to figure out the same thing, and everybody is trying to figure out the same thing, e.g., how to make a MySQL cluster in a Windows environment?"
"I would like to see a simpler way of provisioning it. As is, we can automate the provisioning of a VM, however, when it comes to the external IPs, that is outside of VMware. But that has to be automated as well. If there was a way for us to have the virtual machines connect to switches that are external to VMware, that would be great. That way, it would handle the entire workflow from creation and provisioning of a VM to the connectivity to the external IP addresses which allow our customers to have access to the VM. Currently, that IP configuration has to be done manually."
"It is not super-intuitive. It does require some skills to understand how to use it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"SaltStack is an open-source product."
"The pricing is very high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
University
8%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Scalr?
Scalr can be improved by logical simplification, wrapping complex logic into reusable functions to keep main queries readable. Data validation using functions like is null provides default values w...
What is your primary use case for Scalr?
Scalr refers to several distinct technologies, with the most common modern use case involving API documentation and database function. Scalr is a modern alternative to Swagger UI used for creative ...
What advice do you have for others considering Scalr?
Scalr is deployed on-premises only because Scalr is a physical quantity fully described by magnitude value. Regarding the mathematical engine and scripting language, the core features are generally...
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 you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
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 free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
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 companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JPL, Expedia, Samsung, Acxiom, Accenture, Sony, Merkle, Autodesk
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Scalr vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
911,436 professionals have used our research since 2012.