BlueCat Gateway vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

BlueCat and Red Hat are both solutions in the Network Automation category. BlueCat is ranked #17, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. BlueCat holds a 2.3% mindshare in NA, compared to Red Hat’s 14.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of BlueCat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

BlueCat Gateway

Read 2 BlueCat Gateway reviews

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370 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...

Read 72 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform reviews

10,071 Views
2,518 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

BlueCat Gateway

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and BlueCat Gateway compete in the network automation and management space. Ansible Automation Platform often has the upper hand due to its advanced automation capabilities and scalability, while BlueCat edges forward in network-specific features like DNS management and security.

Features: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is known for its advanced automation capabilities, easy scalability, and vast module library. BlueCat Gateway specializes in DNS management, integration with IP Address Management, and enhanced network security features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers straightforward deployments and strong community support, making implementations faster. BlueCat Gateway has a structured deployment process with network security focus, providing dedicated guidance for complex setups, but has a steeper learning curve.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform usually requires a higher initial investment but delivers substantial ROI by boosting efficiency and reducing manual efforts over time. BlueCat Gateway tends to have competitive pricing, with ROI gained from improved network reliability and reduced downtime.

To learn more, read our detailed BlueCat Gateway vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Gateway vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

March 2026

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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

BlueCat Gateway

Ranking in Network Automation

17th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.9

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st), AWS Pro Service Providers (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of BlueCat Gateway is 2.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 14.9%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Automation Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform	14.9%
BlueCat Gateway	2.3%
Other	82.8%

Network Automation

Featured Reviews

Frederic Girard

Developer for DDI Team at Cgi Deutschland KG

Simple to use, straightforward to deploy, and provides good support and documentation

One area for improvement in BlueCat Gateway is the time it takes to fill in the dropdown in the UI of the solution because the speed with which the data loads isn't that fast. It would be better if you didn't have to wait for old items to load before seeing the first data. Another area for improvement in BlueCat Gateway is the discovery probe, as it doesn't allow you to see all the setup parameters after you've set it up. This may not be a big issue, but it's something my team noticed that may not be good in the solution.

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Manas Kashyap

DevOps Engineer at Elevenxcapital

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to develop a kiosk-like solution for in-person assistance is crucial."

"We found IP and Network Discovery the most valuable features of BlueCat Gateway. Our team found it very easy to build, verify, and validate APIs in BlueCat Gateway, mainly if the users have a background in development and APIs. Our team found that BlueCat Gateway answers our needs well."

"It allows control over thousands of servers, whether virtual or physical."

"To me, a great thing about Ansible is that it can do everything: cloud, on-prem, Windows, Linux, networking, and I've not seen any other orchestration tool able to do that as easily."

"We can manage all the configuration consistency between all our servers."

"The API for exposing all our infrastructure services is the most valuable feature."

"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."

"It was easy to read and learn. It is a YAML-based syntax, which makes it easily understand and pick up."

"The solution can scale."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pros

Cons

"My most significant concern is that the documentation has problems."

"One area for improvement in BlueCat Gateway is the time it takes to fill in the dropdown in the UI of the solution because the speed with which the data loads isn't that fast. It would be better if you didn't have to wait for old items to load before seeing the first data."

"We'll probably use it in conjunction with Puppet, because Puppet is more a solution where every 30 minutes it's going to check, whereas Ansible doesn't do that."

"At this time, I do not have anything to improve. What we struggle with is the knowledge base, but that is more about us having to go and find it and learn the platform on our own rather than an actual Ansible issue."

"The scalability of the solution has some shortcomings."

"It doesn't work well with large-scale infra."

"One problem that I'm facing right now is the mismatch between the new version of Python and Ansible. Sometimes it's Python 2, and sometimes it's Python 3. When things get a bit dicey, I wish that Ansible would solve this issue by itself. I don't want to have to specify if it is Python 3 or version 2."

"From Red Hat Insights point of view, the product is not on top as it is not responding as per the demand...Like on cloud platforms, you can see the main parts of Red Hat Insights, along with the inventory of all your apps. So, that is missing in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform."

"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."

"Ansible could use more public relations and marketing."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is actually quite favorable based on our negotiations."

"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."

"If you only need to use Ansible, it's free for any end-user, but when you require Ansible Tower, you need to pay per Ansible Tower server."

"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."

"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."

"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."

"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."

"The pricing is pretty standard."

"The pricing for us is huge because we use twenty thousand nodes, so that is a huge infrastructure, but if someone is using a small infrastructure, then the pricing is not so much."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	48

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 ...

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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...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

NetBrain vs BlueCat Gateway

Compared 27% of the time

BMC TrueSight Automation for Networks vs BlueCat Gateway

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco DNA Center vs BlueCat Gateway

Compared 13% of the time

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager vs BlueCat Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs BlueCat Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

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VMware Aria Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Network Automation

February 2026

Download BlueCat Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

March 2026

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform report

Download Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product report

Also Known As

BlueCat Network Automation

Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS

Overview

BlueCat Gateway allows you to automate and transform mission-critical business requirements into DNS, DDI, DHCP, and IPAM workflows, plugins, and applications and enables the rapid development of turn-key integrations with existing technology investments. Using zero-touch automation frees IT teams from time-consuming, error-prone, and repetitive network configuration and provisioning tasks so they can focus on the innovation business needs. BlueCat’s automation platform automates the DNS services necessary to provision and deallocates cloud and on-premises resources, enabling IT to respond faster to user requests.

BlueCat

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform streamlines IT operations with features like a simplified GUI and extensive module support. Its agentless architecture and YAML ease make it an adaptable choice for managing diverse infrastructures efficiently.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers a robust automation framework that supports multiple environments and integrates well with various applications. Its agentless Python-based architecture facilitates efficient server management and rapid update deployment. Users benefit from centralized management through Ansible Tower, role-based access control, and dynamic inventory. However, improvement areas include documentation, API integration, network support, and UI scaling. Enhanced community contributions could address module availability and compatibility gaps.

What are the most important features of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

Agentless Architecture: Leverages Python for seamless management without needing local agents.
Extensive Module Support: Provides modules for managing multiple environments effectively.
Ansible Tower GUI: Offers a centralized interface for easy automation management.
Role-Based Access Control: Ensures user-specific permissions for improved security.
Integration Capabilities: Connects with a variety of applications to enhance functionality.
Dynamic Inventory: Automatically updates inventory, simplifying large infrastructure management.

What benefits and ROI should one consider?

Automation Efficiency: Significantly reduces manual intervention, saving time and resources.
Adaptability: Easily integrates with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, and Azure.
Security Compliance: Automates compliance checks, ensuring up-to-date security protocols.
Cost Management: Lower operational costs through streamlined processes.
Scalability: Supports infrastructure growth without requiring major adjustments.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and technology, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is used for network management, security compliance, and configuration tasks. Organizations utilize its capabilities for cloud and on-premises deployment, infrastructure provisioning, and workflow orchestration. Many integrate it with tools such as Puppet or Terraform to enhance CI/CD processes, benefiting from its agentless design in adapting to cloud environments.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

US Department of Energy, Swisslos, DXC, Edeka SouthWest

HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Gateway vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

March 2026

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