BlueCat Gateway vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

BlueCat and Red Hat are both solutions in the Network Automation category. BlueCat is ranked #18, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.9. BlueCat holds a 2.0% mindshare in NA, compared to Red Hat’s 14.6% 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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289 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...

Read 72 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform reviews

9,486 Views
2,087 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

BlueCat Gateway

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 28, 2025

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and BlueCat Gateway are competitive products in IT automation and network management. Ansible Automation Platform has the edge in automation capabilities and extensive community support. BlueCat Gateway leads in network reliability and DNS management.

Features: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers automation capabilities, integration with diverse environments, and simplified IT tasks. BlueCat Gateway provides DNS management, network security, and control over configurations. Ansible focuses on broad IT automation, while BlueCat emphasizes network integrity and efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform benefits from a larger support community and accessible resources. BlueCat Gateway offers streamlined deployment and specialized customer service focused on networking needs. Ansible has a broader support base, while BlueCat provides network-specific assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers competitive pricing, providing strong ROI for comprehensive automation. BlueCat Gateway, with higher setup costs, justifies expenses through specialized network features and ROI in performance improvements. The significant difference lies in initial costs versus long-term benefits, catering to distinct organizational priorities.

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

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Gateway vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

January 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

18th

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

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of BlueCat Gateway is 2.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 14.6%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform	14.6%
BlueCat Gateway	2.0%
Other	83.4%

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

Senior 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

"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."

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

"The solution can scale."

"The most valuable features of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are the agentless platform and writing the code is simple using the Yaml computer language."

"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very helpful due to passwordless integration and the ability to interact with multiple servers at once, which is especially advantageous when dealing with thousands of servers."

"There are so many models that I don't have to create one."

"It's nice to have the Dashboard where people can see it, have it report to our ELK stack. It's far more convenient, and we can trigger it with API and schedules, which is better than doing it with a whole bunch of scripts."

"I like being able to control multiple systems and push out updates quickly with just a couple of clicks of a button and commands. I like the automation because it is a time saver."

"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."

"The automation manager is very good."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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."

"The tool should allow us to create infrastructure. It has everything when it comes to management, but it lacks the provisioning aspect."

"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."

"The job workflow needs to be worked on. It's not really clear to how you actually link things together. What they probably could do is provide an example workflow on how to stitch things together. I think that would be very helpful."

"Networking needs to be improved."

"Accessibility. Ansible uses a CLI by default. Those accustomed to it can find their way and adopt the YAML files easily over time. But, some users are more comfortable using UIs..."

"Additional features could be added."

"More library support for microservices architecture and Kubernetes would be helpful."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"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."

"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."

"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."

"Ansible is a lot more competitive than any of the others. Its setup was also straightforward. In fact, we just implemented Ansible on OpenShift, so that is how we are running the Ansible Automation Platform now."

"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."

"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."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pricing and cost advice

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Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
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 ...

See all answers

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 do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.

See all answers

Comparisons

No data available

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Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 4% of the time

BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

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More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Competitors

Product Reports

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Network Automation

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

January 2026

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform report

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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

January 2026

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