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Azure Automation vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Azure Automation

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AAzure Automation is a solution to automate frequent, time-consuming, and error-prone cloud management tasks, and ensures consistent management for Windows and Linux. Users can write runbooks graphically in PowerShell or Python to integrate Azure services and other public systems required for deploying, configuring, and managing end-to-end processes. It can also be used to orchestrate across on-premises environments using a hybrid runbook worker to deliver on-demand services. Automations from…N/A

    Ansible

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AThe Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (acquired by Red Hat in 2015) is a foundation for building and operating automation across an organization. The platform includes tools needed to implement enterprise-wide automation, and can automate resource provisioning, and IT environments and configuration of systems and devices. It can be used in a CI/CD process to provision the target environment and to then deploy the application on it.

    $5,000

    per year

    Pricing
    Azure AutomationAnsible
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Basic Tower
    5,000
    per year
    Enterprise Tower
    10,000
    per year
    Premium Tower
    14,000
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Azure AutomationAnsible
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Azure AutomationAnsible
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Red Hat
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Would buy again
    181 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    148 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    179 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    112 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    140 Answers
    Features
    Azure AutomationAnsible
    Workload Automation
    Comparison of Workload Automation features of Azure Automation and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    Feature
    Azure Automation
    7.2
    1 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-platform scheduling5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Central monitoring8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Logging8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Alerts and notifications8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Analysis and visualization8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application integration6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Configuration Management
    Comparison of Configuration Management features of Azure Automation and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    Feature
    Azure Automation
    -
    Ratings
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    8.6
    44 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Infrastructure Automation00 Ratings9.244 Ratings
    Automated Provisioning00 Ratings8.841 Ratings
    Parallel Execution00 Ratings8.840 Ratings
    Node Management00 Ratings8.432 Ratings
    Reporting & Logging00 Ratings7.841 Ratings
    Version Control00 Ratings8.738 Ratings
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    Azure AutomationAnsible
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    Score8.6 out of 10
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    Enterprises
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    AWS Config
    Score7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Azure AutomationAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.5
    (108 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Azure AutomationAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    We have found Azure Automation to be well-suited for tasks that must be performed on a scheduled basis. No matter how simple or tedious tasks are to perform manually, if they run on a scheduled basis, it makes sense to have them automated. If the tasks at hand are only performed once or infrequently, then it may be best to continue performing them manually.
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    For automating the configuration of a multi-node, multi-domain (Storage, VM, Container) cluster, Ansible is still the best choice; however, it is not an easy task to achieve. Creating the infrastructure layer, i.e., creating network nodes, VMs, and K8s clusters, still can't be achieved via Ansible. Additionally, error handling remains complex to resolve.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Scheduled automation of Microsoft 365 and Azure tasks
    • Scheduled automation of scripting (e.g. Powershell)
    • Perform periodic maintenance
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • Debugging is easy, as it tells you exactly within your job where the job failed, even when jumping around several playbooks.
    • Ansible seems to integrate with everything, and the community is big enough that if you are unsure how to approach converting a process into a playbook, you can usually find something similar to what you are trying to do.
    • Security in AAP seems to be pretty straightforward. Easy to organize and identify who has what permissions or can only see the content based on the organization they belong to.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Microsoft
    • An automation template library would be nice
    • Clear estimation of costs - this goes for the entire Azure Automation platform
    • It can be daunting at first due to all the settings and menu levels, but it is not difficult once you get started.
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    • I can't think of any right now because I've heard about the Lightspeed and I'm really excited about that. Ansible has been really solid for us. We haven't had any issues. Maybe the upgrade process, but other than that, as coming from a user, it's awesome.
    • Give out Lightspeed for free.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Even is if it's a great tool, we are looking to renew our licence for our production servers only. The product is very expensive to use, so we might look for a cheaper solution for our non-production servers. One of the solution we are looking, is AWX, free, and similar to AAP. This is be perfect for our non-production servers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    It's overall pretty easy to use foe all the applications I've mentioned before: configuring hosts, installing packages through tools like apt, applying yaml, making changes across wide groups of hosts, etc. Its not a 10 because of the inconveinience of the yaml setup, and the time to write is not worth it for something applied one time to only a few hosts
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    I spoke on this topic today!
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    We did not evaluate any other automation products since we are already using Microsoft 365 and the Azure platform. Additionally, Azure Automation allows for a reasonable number of tasks to be performed each month at no cost, which is especially nice when testing the platform. We found Azure Automate's integration of Powershell invaluable when working directly with Microsoft 365, Sharepoint, Azure AD, and other systems via API.
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    AAP compares favorably with Terraform and Power Automate. I don't have much experience with Terraform, but I find AAP and Ansible easier to use as well as having more capabilities. Power Platform is also an excellent automation tool that is user friendly but I feel that Ansible has more compatibility with a variety of technologies.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Ensures tasks are not forgotten
    • Saves times - routine tasks no longer have to be performed manually
    • Complicated tasks are no longer an issue
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    • POSITIVE: currently used by the IT department and some others, but we want others to use it.
    • NEGATIVE: We need less technical output for the non-technical. It should be controllable or a setting within playbooks. We also need more graphical responses (non-technical).
    • POSITIVE: Always being updated and expanded (CaC, EDA, Policy as Code, execution environments, AI, etc..)
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots