Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Reviews and Pricing

it_user573504

Senior DevOps/Build Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Feb 26, 2017

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Easy to maintain and support.

Pros and Cons

"I like Ansible because it is: Easy to use, easy to read, easy to maintain, easy to support, and it works without an agent."

"There were a few scalability issues. I had no problems as long as the number of servers was less than 500."

What is most valuable?

I like Ansible because it is:

Easy to use.
Easy to read.
Easy to maintain.
Easy to support.
It works without an agent.

How has it helped my organization?

It has made software installation and updates much easier. Tasks including changing or checking configurations and files have been improved especially considering the big scope of servers.

What needs improvement?

It could work with a larger number of servers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with Ansible since v0.7 and still use v2.2.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We only encountered issues with syntax, as sometimes it was changed and then one has to adapt.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were a few scalability issues. I had no problems as long as the number of servers was less than 500. When the number of servers has exceeded 500, I encountered an increased number of failures when trying to provision all together. I tried to play with forks, timeouts, and other options, but as the number of servers grew, I got more failures, so I had to provision smaller groups.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't yet used it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used bash scripts before, but bash is not idempotent and you should write more code whereas Ansible already has them as a module. Ansible gives you an informative report after each task.

How was the initial setup?

It was easy to install and easy to use.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I use the free version with Jenkins, it's enough for my needs.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options.

What other advice do I have?

It should work easily.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user516087

Senior System Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Nov 5, 2016

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Agentless architecture, relying on SSH only. Speed can be improved, but it only can go as fast as SSH does.

Pros and Cons

"Agentless architecture, relying on SSH only."

"A little slow."

What is most valuable?

Agentless architecture, relying on SSH only.
Great documentation.

How has it helped my organization?

Provision and configure from nothing on Amazon.

What needs improvement?

Speed but it only can go as fast as SSH does.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

6 months

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

A little slow.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Used S before.

Switched because of coworkers and even if I find SaltStack easier to learn, the documentation of Ansible made me choose it over Salt.

How was the initial setup?

Not at all, just need to have general knowledge of SSH.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Open source.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

October 2026

Free Report: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.

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921,148 professionals have used our research since 2012.

it_user8784

Consultant at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 18, 2014

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Easy, straight to the point for a non programmer. But it's a young product - improvement needed on the module side.

Pros and Cons

"We can now go to a customer and deploy all software in a few minutes instead of hours."

"It's a young product so there is still room for improvement on the module side."

What is most valuable?

The simplicity of the programs is the best part and the fact that there is no need to install clients on your hosts makes it unique compared to other orchestration tools.

How has it helped my organization?

We can now go to a customer and deploy all software in a few minutes instead of hours.

What needs improvement?

It's a young product so there is still room for improvement on the module side. There are about 150 modules at the moment but there are still many missing.

For how long have I used the solution?

For a couple of months

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment is easy, it cannot be any easier.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The software is so small and well written that there are no stability issues. At the moment there is a new update every 2 months so if there is an issue with a bug it will be fixed in the next release.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It scales from a few up to 1000's of servers so does it scale - YES!

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service: No idea. It's so simple and there is so much support on the internet that so far I have had no need to look for support.Technical Support: People at Ansible have been very nice to me so far even without a support contract. I get pointed to the help boards to get answers to my questions by their support staff.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We use all kinds of solutions like puppet, chef, .... Why do I like Ansible more? Ansible is easier, it makes use of yaml, and templating is done with jinja2. With other solutions there is a steeper learning process. Ansible is so easy that it takes you only a few minutes to get going. Where other solutions are more for programmers, Ansible is made for system engineers without any need to program or script in any language derivatives. Ansible puts all the intelligence in the modules.

How was the initial setup?

Setup is easy. Every distro has packages available and if you have a weird distro that hasn't one, you can install it easily with python pip or download it from github.

What about the implementation team?

We installed it in-house. It is so simple for an IT person that with the online documentation that it should be easy to set you up in minutes.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is free, at least if you make use of the command line version. There is also a graphical version that has some extra features in reporting, etc. Here the price depends on the number of clients you want to manage. For us the cost was the time it took to learn the product which was only a day or two.