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BlueCat Gateway vs VMware Aria Automation 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
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Network Automation
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Configuration Management (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (19th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

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 VMware Aria Automation is 6.0%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation6.0%
BlueCat Gateway2.3%
Other91.7%
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

FG
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.
VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

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."
"There are a lot of different benefits with this product, because there are a lot of things that we're trying to automate."
"It is a very stable solution; it's a state-of-the-art kind of solution that gives a lot of flexibility, is customizable, and can be tailored according to how you want vRA to work for your organization."
"Our users can order VMs using the API."
"To manage when VM's aren't being used, we have it set up so that it will auto-destroy them after a certain amount of time, obviously with permission from the user who owns it."
"It's scalable; as the needs of the university grow, it's growing with us."
"We've seen that typically, the people who are provisioning VDIs and server VMs can now utilize most of their time towards other projects and moving the environment forward, instead of just hammering out virtual machines all day."
"One of the most valuable features is lifecycle management. It allows my teams to create, manage, and retire all of our infrastructure objects in the data center."
"The feature of automated balancing which implemented between two data centers solely for the purpose of a recovery plan is valuable."
 

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."
"Minion-based deployment is not very smooth. Most of the time, many minions were in a stale state and didn't respond to the salt-master."
"It would be nice in the next release if they added in tool tips. Whether you're putting it together, adding a blueprint, or you're making a change in the system, highlighting or selecting something and having it tell you what it does or what it will do would be nice. Because it's such a complex system, it's hard to work with unless you've been using it for years to know what everything is doing."
"Multitenancy management is a little bit difficult to do, so it is an area that can be improved."
"Sometimes it feels like there are more moving parts than is necessary, and maybe something simpler would do."
"The stability is 95 percent. There are some situations where it gets a little bit clumsy. When it gets really big, when you're dealing with a very large deployment, it can be a little bit difficult, but it's better than nothing. It does a significant job, given what it's tasked to do."
"It is not super-intuitive. It does require some skills to understand how to use it."
"This appeared by early estimation over engineered and under tested, and lost momentum."
"Having an overview and managing all this is a bit difficult in the beginning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is actually quite favorable based on our negotiations."
"Customers say this solution is costlier compared to its competitors."
"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"The solution is free of cost."
"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."
"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

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What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

BlueCat Network Automation
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

US Department of Energy, Swisslos, DXC, Edeka SouthWest
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about BlueCat Gateway vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.