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Apstra Operating System vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 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

Apstra Operating System
Ranking in Network Automation
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Network Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (4th), Configuration Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of Apstra Operating System is 2.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 14.7%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform14.7%
Apstra Operating System2.1%
Other83.2%
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

HF
Works at wolterskluwer
Highly secure, useful AB test, and stable
I am using Apstra Operating System for some classes and for my personal use Apstra Operating System's most important features are the security and AB test to define what approach we need to take in my company. Additionally, the solution does not take a lot of maintenance. The report data could…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Apstra Operating System's most important features are the security and AB test to define what approach we need to take in my company. Additionally, the solution does not take a lot of maintenance."
"I find Apstra Operating System very good to use and would recommend this solution to others."
"For my client, it has improved a lot of the problems that we had."
"It saves time; it cut our configuration time; it is very easy to use, and there is less room for error."
"The user interface is well-built and very easy to navigate around."
"It is all modular-based. If there is not a module for it today, someone will write it."
"When you have an enterprise-level number of network devices, the ability to quickly push out security updates to thousands of devices is the biggest thing"
"One of the most valuable features is that Ansible is agentless. It does not have dependencies, other than Python, which is very generic in terms of dependencies for all systems and for any environment. Being agentless, Ansible is very convenient for everything."
"We can have an easy to go, ready demonstration set up in less than five minutes."
"It has made our infrastructure more testable, as we are able to build our infrastructure in CI and are more confident that what we are deploying will work without breaking everything."
 

Cons

"The report data could improve in Apstra Operating System."
"Ansible has just been upgraded, and the only issue that we are seeing at the moment is that the user interface can be slow. We're currently investigating the refresh period with Red Hat when you click a job and run a job. It seems that the buffer no longer runs in real-time. We haven't discovered whether that's partially an issue with our environment, but Red Hat has come back and said that they're working on a couple of bugs in the background. We've upgraded to that version in the last six months, and that's the only issue that we've seen."
"It needs better documentation."
"It is a little slow on the network side because every time you call a module, it's initiating an SSH or an API call to a network device, and it just slows things down."
"In my opinion, one thing that needs improvement is mass updates: How I can parallelize that process a little bit better?"
"There were a few scalability issues. I had no problems as long as the number of servers was less than 500."
"There needs to be improvement in the orchestration."
"Ansible can face scalability issues, such as limitations when trying to scale up infrastructure. It might struggle with connection dropping or spawning additional VMs under certain conditions."
"Documentation could be improved. Many times, if I'm looking for something, I have to Google it in a lot of places, then figure out what the best approach will be. There are some best practices documents, but they don't give you the information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is competitive."
"The cost is high, but it still works well."
"We have to be mindful of how we use Ansible because of the licensing model. I am not saying that it is unfair or we do not find value in it. Because we are trying to automate so many different things, we have to be mindful of what we are doing and how we are doing it because we are trying to stay in compliance with it."
"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"I don't see the pricing or licensing features, but from what I understand, it is fairly reasonable."
"You don't need to buy agents on servers or deploy expense management when using the solution, which affected our decision to go with it."
"We use the open-source version of the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

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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 have been outstanding. If you have a large environment, patching systems is much ...
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 the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
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 is no pricing and no licensing required, as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform ...
 

Also Known As

Apstra OS, AOS
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bloomberg Television, Energy Corporation, A mid-sized financial services company
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Infoblox, Cisco and others in Network Automation. Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.