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BlueCat Gateway vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

 

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

BlueCat Gateway
Ranking in Network Automation
20th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.9
Number of Reviews
2
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 (3rd), Configuration Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of BlueCat Gateway is 2.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 14.4%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform14.4%
BlueCat Gateway2.3%
Other83.3%
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

David Muscat - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect, System Design /Enterprise-Hybrid Cloud DNS Lead at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Is priced well, provides good visibility, and easily integrates
What I dislike is that there are limitations on how the data is viewed within BlueCat IPAM. As a result, we need to examine it from two different perspectives. While observing the tool's operation in Cloud Discovery visibility within its environment, we can witness it extracting the data and showing us the data's origin and location in the cloud – all of which is quite informative. However, upon importing this data into BlueCat for actual analysis, many of these informative components seem to be absent. We are hopeful version ten of BlueCat IPAM might resolve this matter. Currently, the data present there, when I inspect, let's say, a newly arrived or discovered device, I can see that device. Nevertheless, we lack a method to determine its location. For instance, if another person were to access that device aside from me, they wouldn't find information regarding its location. Although we can view the device itself and its configurations, its Azure-based location is not provided. Regrettably, certain essential flags are not transferred. I am presently engaged in an ongoing discussion with BlueCat's senior leadership regarding this matter. I am collaborating closely with them on resolving this issue, and they are acknowledging the problems. Given the complexities of our extensive presence in Azure, they also comprehend the rationale behind our configuration choices in CDNV. Consequently, we are also considering potential adjustments in IPAM to better align with the required data presentation. The biggest issue is the visibility of cloud discovery in the IPAM database and how it structures data. This is currently a significant hindrance.
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

"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."
"Agentless architecture, relying on SSH only."
"Ansible provides great reliability when coupled with a versioning system (git). It helps providing predictability to the network by knowing exactly what's being pushed after validating it in production."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"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."
"It increases our company's efficiency, automating all the simple tasks which used to take hours of somebody's time."
"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."
"The Organizations feature, where I can give clear silos and hand them over to different teams, that's amazing; everybody says that it's their own Tower. It's like they have their own Tower out there."
"The capacity to install products on the operating system is very valuable."
 

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."
"Ansible is great, but there are not many modules. You can do about 80% to 90% of things by using commands, but more modules should be added."
"It would be helpful to have templates for common configurations. It would make it much easier and faster rather than creating a whole script. The templates would decrease the learning curve as well."
"Ansible is great, but there are not many modules. You can do about 80% to 90% of things by using commands, but more modules should be added. We cannot do some of the things in Ansible. In Red Hat, we have the YUM package manager, and there are certain options that we can pass through YUM. To install the Docker Community Edition, I'll write the yum install docker-ce command, but because the Docker Community Edition is not compatible with RHEL 8, I will have to use the nobest option, such as yum install docker-ce --nobest. The nobest option installs the most stable version that can be installed on a particular system. In Ansible, the nobest option is not there. So, it needs some improvements in terms of options. There should be more options, keywords, and modules."
"Some of the Cisco modules could be expanded, which would be great, along with not having to do so much coding in the background to make it work."
"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..."
"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."
"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."
"The documentation for the installation step of deployment, OpenStack, etc., and these things have to be a bit more detailed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is actually quite favorable based on our negotiations."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."
"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."
"Everything is generally fair. No one ever likes to pay a lot of money, but we are getting the value. We also get support with it. It has been fair and worthwhile."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"It’s an open-source tool."
"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
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

BlueCat Network Automation
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

US Department of Energy, Swisslos, DXC, Edeka SouthWest
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about BlueCat Gateway vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.