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Microsoft Entra Permissions Management [EOL] vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 25, 2025

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 Entra Permissions...
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Configuration Management (10th), Network Automation (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (27th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sameer Bhat - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President at Goldman Sachs
Provides resource-based access and security, but time-bound access can be a problem
Entra ID is the core of the identity management that we have. This is the key product that we are using. I am currently also looking into Entra Private Access because we are planning to deploy about 50,000 desktops into Azure and use Azure Virtual Desktop. We would like to give access to the users from the desktop to on-premises applications. I learned that Entra Private Access is a good solution. That is not yet GA, but that is what we are looking for. Entra provides a single pane of glass for managing user access, but because our company also integrates with Nebula API, only administrators use Entra's pane. A normal person who wants to get onboarded can do self-service using Nebula. The features for whitelisting and other things are definitely there. That is what we use specifically. Application IDs, enterprise applications, and all those things are already there, so we have more efficiency. There is also security because we usually do not allow user identities to get direct access to Azure resources. Usually, we use the service principles from Entra ID, so this way, it increases security. Entra has helped to save time for our IT administrators. We tend to automate a lot of things. We can do automation using Graph APIs and save time. It is hard to quantify the time savings, but there has been a medium amount of time savings. Entra has helped to save our organization money. We care about security and risk more than money, but it also saves money. We are premium customers, and because we have a commit-to-consume contract with Microsoft of multi-million dollars, the money does not come into it because we have to consume those resources.
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

"The solution integrates well with our infrastructure and other systems without any issues."
"Multifactor authentication is valuable."
"We did the POC and we managed to cut those six or seven hours to around half an hour a day or so."
"Today, if I want to provision one VM, it takes me five minutes. Earlier, it would take a minimum of 30 minutes to go and choose everything. Now, I can just do one click and it can provision my whole VM. We also integrated with our Alexa, so even through voice functionality, I can create a VM. One of the guys at VMware, along with our partner, deployed that in our environment. If I say, "Hey, Alexa, I need a VM with four gigs of RAM," it will go and start creating it."
"It has helped our company by speeding things up."
"Valuable features include integration with Infoblox, for IP management; and three-tier app deployment as one unified Blueprint."
"As it provides maximum functionality, it keeps automation short and sweet, and this helps writing automation in a modular format."
"What we do with it is we've taken a very lengthy deployment process and we have shrunk it from what was a months-long process down to a matter of hours."
"There are a lot of different benefits with this product, because there are a lot of things that we're trying to automate."
"Overall, VMware is very good, it's very stable, very extensible, but it does have a relatively high learning curve."
 

Cons

"The solution's pricing and support services need improvement."
"We use a third-party API called Nebula API to integrate the account for authorization. The time-bound access area in Entra can be a problem. It can be improved in terms of the granularity of the permissions."
"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."
"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."
"Normally, on the first call to technical support, you don't get the right person. The log analysis takes a long time. This is something which should be improved."
"From my experience, vRA requires a highly skilled team to maintain, version upgrades without downtime are not possible, and overall it doesn’t scale fast."
"A hardened set of tests would be much appreciated."
"New versions are quite scalable, but when it comes to managing a Telco environment, it has bottleneck."
"I would also like to see them streamline the install. It's split between Windows and Linux appliances, and it would be easier if it was all appliances. I think they're going that way."
"It has some limitations for scalability, especially for remote data center management. For some components, everything need to be centralized."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are a Fortune 500 company, so we always negotiate with Microsoft."
"The product cost is in the mid to high range."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

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

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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

CloudKnox Permissions Management
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
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