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BlueCat Gateway vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

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
7th
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
7.2
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of BlueCat Gateway is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 17.7%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

David Muscat - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Muralitharan KS - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient server management and detailed reporting with flexible deployment capabilities
We are primarily using Ansible for automation purposes as it is a configuration management tool. It is utilized for various activities such as DNS activity, changes to web servers, virtual host settings, and other day-to-day tasks, all of which are templated in Ansible Ansible allows us to manage…

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 user interface is well-built and very easy to navigate around."
"It has made our infrastructure more testable. We are able to build our infrastructure in CI, then are more confident in what we are deploying will work, not breaking everything."
"The most useful features are the playbooks. We can develop our playbooks and simplify them doing something like a cross platform."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is easy to integrate; the platform is simple to use."
"Ansible Tower offers use a UI where we can see all the pushes that have gone into the server."
"We can automate a few host configurations using the product."
"There are new modules available, which help to simplify the workflow. That is what we like about it."
"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."
 

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."
"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."
"We are not using the Dashboard a lot because we have higher expectations from it. The default Dashboard from Tower doesn't give that much information. We really want to get down into more than if the job succeeded or what was the percentage of success. We want to get down to task-level success. If, in a job, there are ten tasks, we want to see this task was a success, and this was not, and how many were not. That's the kind of granularity we are looking for, that Tower does not give right now."
"For Ansible Tower, there are three tiers with ten nodes. I would like them to expand those ten nodes to 20, because ten nodes is not enough to test on."
"They should think of this product as an end-to-end solution and begin to develop it that way."
"The support could be better."
"The solution requires some Linux knowledge."
"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."
"The user interface on the Ansible Tower product could be better, but it is functional."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is actually quite favorable based on our negotiations."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"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."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"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 solution is inexpensive compared to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BlueCat Gateway?
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 back...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BlueCat Gateway?
I have no information on BlueCat Gateway pricing, as the management team handles that area.
What needs improvement with BlueCat Gateway?
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...
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 do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

Also Known As

BlueCat Network Automation
Ansible
 

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: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.