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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
22nd
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
5th
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) (20th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 4.4%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation4.4%
BlueCat Gateway2.3%
Other93.3%
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.
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."
"It's extremely convenient to be able to spin something up and be able to work on other things, because it's already done it, making my workload lighter."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster, so we can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"The product's most valuable features are ease of automation."
"It has improved our organization by automating some of our processes."
"The solution is intuitive and user-friendly. E.g., you have less number of logins."
"The whole VMR ecosystem allows us to serve multiple customers, multiple organizations and also multiple units per customer. We can cover every level without using the whole VRA and the rest of the ecosystem. We don't need to use a separate product to provide separate functionalities for the customer. We can cover all the use cases using only one product on our side which is really helpful. T"
"vRA is user-friendly. It has the same layout and walk-through GUI, similar to other VMware products."
"It allows us to deploy servers on a much faster basis, where instead of deploying a VM from a template and going through the process of configuring that VM, with vRA we're able to click once and it does everything: grabs an IP, joins it to the domain, and loads whatever configuration agents are needed, all without manual intervention."
 

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."
"I would like to see a simpler way of provisioning it. As is, we can automate the provisioning of a VM, however, when it comes to the external IPs, that is outside of VMware. But that has to be automated as well. If there was a way for us to have the virtual machines connect to switches that are external to VMware, that would be great. That way, it would handle the entire workflow from creation and provisioning of a VM to the connectivity to the external IP addresses which allow our customers to have access to the VM. Currently, that IP configuration has to be done manually."
"The initial setup is very complex because we have a bunch of customization workflows. They were built-in features that we had to program as code with Orchestration."
"It's a good product. It's very extensible. It is fairly complex to set up, and it's fairly closely tied to VMware's infrastructure, so there's a lack of portability to public clouds and a lack of ability to manage infrastructure as code natively."
"For the administrator, it can be a little challenging. For the administrator, there are a lot of moving parts. It is fine once you figure out where the knobs are you need to twiddle, but it can be a challenge to get it up and running."
"From that perspective, technical support has not done very well."
"Most of the time the upgrade experience has been good but sometimes things break after upgrading. For example, some API codes stopped working."
"The stability needs a lot of work. The troubleshooting component of vRealize is a pain. The administration and the upgrades are not up to the mark. If they were able to improve on that, that would be the best thing and would make it much easier to run it in the enterprise."
"Normally, on the first call to technical support, you don't get the right person. The log analysis takes a long time. This is something which should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is actually quite favorable based on our negotiations."
"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"SaltStack is an open-source product."
"We do plan to see ROI with any new implementation of new technologies being implemented within our environment."
"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"It is an open-source product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
 

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: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.