SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor vs. VMware Aria Automation

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 6.9%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is 1.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 4.8%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune	6.9%
VMware Aria Automation	4.8%
SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor	1.5%
Other	86.8%

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble

Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24

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.

Read full review

Akhil Reddy

Software Developer at NOESIS Portugal

Alerting has helped us detect server issues across our environment

The alert mechanism is the biggest advantage of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor. The customizability of the alerting system is particularly valuable. Whatever devices are in the environment, whether EC2 servers or on-premises servers, all of them can be monitored using this service. I can easily find out what exactly is going wrong in the environment. The clear audit trail aids in troubleshooting and optimization. The tool is effective for detecting unauthorized changes across platforms.

Read full review

VasilisGiannitsiotis

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We like Intune's Autopilot functionality, which enables one-touch deployment. Dynamic grouping is another feature we find valuable working in academia. We have people in buckets based on their roles in the university, such as faculty, staff, alum, or grad. Sometimes, they will fit into multiple places, and dynamic grouping helps with that."

"The most valuable feature is the policy CSPs."

"One of the standout features of Intune is its seamless accessibility to work data, eliminating the need to be tied to an office or a desktop."

"I can see that the patch management process is much improved with the bundled patch management option available in Microsoft Intune compared to the KPI deployment required by the other deployment solutions."

"As an IT administrator, I appreciate Intune's ability to implement granular device-level policies for our organization's employees."

"The solution is easy to use, simple to understand for those new to using it, and combined with the other Microsoft products it makes for an overall good package."

"The technical support of Microsoft Intune is good."

"Intune's compliance features are valuable because they allow immediate visibility into ongoing situations."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"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."

"SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is a good-to-have solution for all customers who are under audit pressure, especially from regulatory authorities."

"The product’s alert feature is good. We receive notifications whenever some failures occur in the configuration."

"The customizability of the alerting system is particularly valuable; whatever devices are in the environment, whether EC2 servers or on-premises servers, all of them can be monitored using this service."

"Our users can order VMs using the API."

"It's cut our server deployment times down from weeks to an hour."

"We have developed a complete, multi-tiered, stable build system for our Internet servers with SaltStack as the base of the build system, and it is stable and easy to modify as we grow and change our needs."

"We have scaled from two servers to about 140 servers in a very short period of time, which would have been a nightmare had it not been for the SaltStack configurations."

"vRA has enabled us to derive value from the cloud faster. It is five to six times faster than traditional solutions."

"Another valuable feature is the flexible user interface. They can manage all of the servers, the full lifecycle of VMs, on one screen."

"We have been able to reduce the process to around 30 minutes."

"This product has saved us time in standing up new servers, as well as allowed us to automate the deployment of these servers and the applications that run on them."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"The configuration and pricing can be improved."

"To make it a perfect ten, it would be helpful if there was a better way to troubleshoot user issues, as I've had a few users with corrupt files before and had to redeploy it without knowing the root cause."

"In the past, I raised some tickets for the enhancement feature, which was missing in Intune."

"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."

"During the onboarding of Microsoft Intune, we faced the problem that the policies were not getting synced."

"There can be some added features, such as an improved dashboard."

"The only issues I have had with Microsoft Intune were with applications where if they are not an MSI file, I cannot really upload it as an application."

"A feature I would want to see added in Microsoft Intune is the ability to manage other non-Microsoft devices."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"The price of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is not reasonable, it is slightly on the higher side."

"Some dashboards I observed in Dynatrace are not available in SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor."

"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."

"In terms of usability, It has had its challenges. It requires a lot of custom code to integrate into our environment. It can take a little while to get it to do what we want, takes some code instead of having built-in functionality. Part it is how we use it. It would be a lot easier to use in a greenfield scenario versus brownfield, which is the way we using it."

"The upgrade process 6.x to 7.3 was a significant effort. I'm hoping that 7.3 to the next version is much smoother."

"The initial setup is complex. There are too many components to integrate, especially when we integrated with different storage types and backup vendors. All the integration made it more complex."

"I would like to see better integration capabilities. Maybe if they could develop libraries within Aria Automation for simpler integration with other third-party solutions, instead of just basic integration."

"I don't feel that, with our implementation of vRealize Automation, we have really gotten very far."

"Not as good, but there are some components in vRA that you can scale out a lot more quickly than other pieces."

"Broadcom has acquired the tool, which could lower its pricing. Many customers are moving away from VMware infrastructure towards enterprise systems like Azure or AWS. This shift could be due to two main reasons: pricing and uncertainty about the future, especially regarding how Broadcom will handle licenses and strategy."

"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Intune is included in the E5 license at no additional cost."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Microsoft offers some licensing where it's included at no extra cost when customers are already using the licenses. In such a case, it's a really good value. If you have to buy the licensing for it, it's probably on par with other solutions. It isn't substantially more or less expensive. The great thing is that it is included in some of Microsoft's licensed packages. So, some customers don't have to spend additional money for it. Typically, most providers that support Intune do charge a management fee of some sort or some fee. Certainly, we're no exception."

"The clients pay for a license and each can have a different type of license, such as an E3 or E5."

"It is expensive. The cost depends on the license that we choose."

"It's affordable. In comparison to the competitors, the price depends on what features you need from Intune, but it's affordable. There are no hidden costs, but there are some features that go for a premium price. Those are the add-ons for which you have to pay extra."

"The cost of the license and the features are justified for myself as a technical person."

"I rate Intune an eight out of ten for affordability. It's bundled with the 365 licensing, which is competitive overall."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor has medium pricing compared to other solutions."

"The price of SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is not reasonable, it is slightly on the higher side."

"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."

"The pricing is very high."

"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."

"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."

"SaltStack is an open-source product."

"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."

"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."

"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."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

No data available

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	124
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	167

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	130

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 your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor?

In general, I think that licensing for SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor is acceptable, and the solution is qui...

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor?

Some dashboards I observed in Dynatrace are not available in SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor. The dashboard f...

What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor?

I work only with SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor. My major use case is the monitoring of environment servers ...

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...

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Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 4% of the time

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HashiCorp Terraform vs SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Config vs SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager vs SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

Perforce Puppet vs SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 10% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 6% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

HashiCorp Terraform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Microsoft Intune

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Configuration Management

Download SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor product report

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor report

VMware Aria Automation

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

SolarWinds SCM

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

Overview

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service designed for device management, security, and compliance. It supports automation and facilitates endpoint management for Windows, iOS, and Android devices, ensuring data protection and efficient policy enforcement.

Microsoft Intune offers seamless integration with tools like Windows Autopilot to automate device setup and deployment. Integrated with Azure Active Directory, it enhances policy management while providing robust reporting and analytics tools for compliance tracking. Despite its intuitive interface aimed at simplifying navigation and device security management, there are challenges such as compatibility issues with Linux and Mac, limited policy support for Android, and demands for better third-party integration. It's widely used for both corporate-owned devices and BYOD scenarios in dynamic IT environments.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Windows Autopilot: Automates device setup for rapid deployment.
Azure Active Directory Integration: Enhances user policy management.
Reporting and Analytics: Improves compliance visibility.
Mobile Application Management: Ensures app security without compromising personal data.
Cloud-Based Management: Allows management from any location.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Time Efficiency: Automation reduces time in policy enforcement and configuration updates.
Enhanced Security: Ensures data protection across corporate-owned and BYOD devices.
Improved Compliance: Advanced reporting tools enhance compliance visibility.
Flexible Management: Cloud-based nature supports management from any location.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure data protection and compliance with regulatory standards. Manufacturing sectors utilize Intune for managing a distributed workforce across global locations, while educational institutions employ it to secure and manage devices in learning environments supporting both students and faculty.

Microsoft

Network compliance
Network automation
Configuration backup
Vulnerability assessment
Network Insight for Cisco and Palo Alto
Integration with Network Performance Monitor

SolarWinds

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features.

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.
Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.
DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.
Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.
Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.
Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.
Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.
Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.
Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.
Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.
The solution offers high levels of security and control.
This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.
VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.
The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.
The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Information Not Available

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor vs. VMware Aria Automation