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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs vCenter Configuration Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

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
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.3%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 9.9%, down from 15.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Configuration Manager is 2.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.3%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform9.9%
vCenter Configuration Manager2.1%
Other83.7%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
Manas Kashyap - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Dev Ops Engineer at 11 East Capital
Automation has transformed server patching and has reduced months of work to minutes
The best features that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers is that it does not require any additional resources inside the servers. Python is the only requirement, and since Python is already present inside the servers, we can run it from our location and it automatically deploys things and does the work for us. The minimal requirements and easy deployment have definitely impacted my daily work and my team's efficiency. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is one of the best features that we depend on. We have evaluated other options, but Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was the best choice because it has saved us a tremendous amount of time. We do not need to manually intervene in the servers or install third-party software to maintain these things. It is very easy to write playbooks for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Ansible Galaxy contains many playbooks that are readily available and ready to be used. It is highly configurable with Jinja templating, making it easy to maintain. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has positively impacted my organization. Previously, we needed to go into the servers and maintain them manually, which used to take a lot of time. For 200 to 300 servers, the maintenance took about one to two months. New patches would arrive and we would have to repeat the process. Now, it is a one-night work or a 10 to 15 minutes task. We write a playbook, maintain an inventory, and roll out the updates and it starts working for us. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform uses conditional clauses and has rollback options, functioning like a standard coding language that is simple to use. There is definitely a reduction in errors with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform because we have playbooks written with all the necessary clauses and rollback options. Manual work automatically creates more errors, whereas in automation, we have written sets that we do not forget every time we run it. We have protected written sets that we execute consistently.
Nikhil Nikhil - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Operations Lead at TT Systems LLC
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability of Microsoft Intune is good."
"The most valuable features in Microsoft Intune for me are application deployment, Defender deployment, and asset management."
"Autopilot is the most valuable feature."
"We already use a lot of Microsoft products in our company, and therefore, it made sense to also use this product."
"It is a cloud-based service. It is easy to use and offers privacy."
"The best features include the management, which is quite good, and endpoints."
"It helps us manage user certificates."
"It is very easy to use. It has a very easy interface."
"So far, the main thing we've been doing with it is using it to automate our monthly patching of servers, and we can, in one hour, do a patch that would take people one night to do."
"The most useful features are the playbooks; we can develop our playbooks and simplify them, doing something like a cross platform."
"Ansible, as an orchestrator, has filled the gap, allowing you to manage an almost unlimited number of nodes with a single body and delivering an 80 to 90 percent time savings for service deployment, moves, and updates."
"Having the Dashboard from an admin point of view, and seeing how all the projects and all the jobs lay out, is helpful."
"Ansible has increased our speed of deployment, given us a source of truth, sped everything up, and saved a lot of people's time."
"It increases our company's efficiency, automating all the simple tasks which used to take hours of somebody's time."
"The biggest thing I liked about Ansible is the check mode so that we can verify, after we've pushed, that the config there is actually what we intended."
"I like the inventory management. It's a very nice, simple, concise way to keep all that data together. And the API allows us to use it even for things that are not Ansible."
"In large implementations, especially in regulated environments, vCenter's automation capabilities prove invaluable for implementing new processes efficiently."
"The most valuable features that VMware's vCenter Configuration Manager have, when compared with other solutions, are their disaster recovery and business connectivity capabilities."
"The platform's automation capabilities help reduce manual configuration efforts, speeding up deployment and management tasks."
"vCenter is very easy to use if you have good skills. It takes a little time to configure everything. It is template-based, so you click, click, and then reboot. It takes 15 minutes."
"The platform is straightforward and user friendly."
"This product is very stable, it's a very good product."
"The management of vCenter Configuration Manager can support the UI interface. It helps in monitoring, logging alert and performance, forecasting the system to provide services in the environment."
"There are a lot of features, but I've found vMotion and VRS most valuable."
 

Cons

"I think that there is room for improvement with the reporting. If this is done, it will be a better product."
"Regarding the pricing of Microsoft Intune, there are many features being introduced, but most features should be available in a license such as EMS E3, which is a high-quality license but does not include them."
"Microsoft Intune could be improved by adding short video tutorials or direct links to Microsoft articles in the information button."
"I cannot think of any particular features which I consider to be most valuable."
"The configuration and pricing can be improved."
"Microsoft Intune lacks the ability to provide seamless remote assistance or remote control."
"You can have a bad day where 80% of the enrollments failed. The next day it's running with the same devices without any changes, and you don't know why."
"It is not very stable. Sometimes, it works instantly, and sometimes, something goes wrong, and you get stuck there."
"It can use some more credential types."
"It needs better documentation."
"Some of the modules in Ansible could be a bit more mature. There is still a little room for further development. Some performance aspects could be improved, perhaps in the form of parallelism within Ansible."
"The area which I feel can be improved is the custom modules. For example, there are something like 106 official modules available in the Ansible library. A year ago, that number was somewhere around 58. While Ansible is improving day by day, this can be improved more. For instance, when you need to configure in the cloud, you need to write up a module for that."
"Error codes are not very descriptive."
"What I would like to see is a refined Dashboard to see, when I log in: Here are all my jobs, here are how many times they've executed; some kind graphical stitching-together of the workflows and jobs, and how they're connected. Also, those "failed hosts," what does that mean? We have a problem, a failed host can be anything. Is SSH the reason it failed? Is the job template why it failed? It doesn't really distinguish that."
"There have been some differences between the operating systems that we have noticed. It could be down to cryptographic policies, but we have noticed some speed issues. They should work on the speed of deployment on different operating systems."
"The solution should add a nice self-service portal."
"Configuration Manager's reporting could be better. I need to use a third-party reporting solution to get the details. They could add reporting features similar to RVTools."
"The Self Service Interface is not very good and it needs improvement."
"The cost of this solution should be improved."
"My impression on the impact of the real-time monitoring features of vCenter Configuration Manager is that it's somewhat good, but you cannot find the full log message; you have to dig deep in order to get it."
"The ease of setup and installations could be improved."
"It would be better to integrate this infrastructure with native cloud environments, but we can't do it. We are trying to improve our experience by converting our infrastructure through virtualization on native cloud environments and workloads."
"This product is not cheap. I have a yearly license for vCenter and the license is not cheap."
"The functions are not running in HTML 5, this is a problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Previously the price was $4 per month per user. Now it's $2.25 per user per month."
"Microsoft Intune's costliness stems from licensing fees and the overhead associated with its management, user experience, and device remediation."
"The price of Microsoft Intune is reasonable."
"Its pricing seems reasonable."
"While I don't have access to high-level financial information, I believe we have achieved lower costs with this implementation."
"We use Defender ATP and E5 licenses."
"I don't have any problem as far as cost is concerned. It is bundled with our license."
"If you're subscribing to Premium or E3, there are no additional costs for Intune, it's included."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"The pricing is okay."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."
"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible."
"It is an expensive product."
"The pricing is mid-range so I rate it a six out of ten."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The product is highly-priced."
"Their licensing costs are high. But I think for the scale that we are using, it's suitable. If you use it on a larger scale with many servers, you have to pay a lot of money for them. I think it's suitable for organizations that don't need expert people that want more money each year or each month because it's a straightforward solution. We prefer to pay for these products that are integrated and straightforward."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"I am not knowledgeable with the pricing of the product."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
6%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business191
Midsize Enterprise63
Large Enterprise187
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise20
 

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 the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?
Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management h...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was very simple. There ...
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?
My impression on the impact of the real-time monitoring features of vCenter Configuration Manager is that it's somewh...
What is your primary use case for vCenter Configuration Manager?
My usual use cases for vCenter Configuration Manager mainly involve migration, shift and lift mainly, and some type o...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
vCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.