Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Automation

Read 172 VMware Aria Automation reviews

13,067 Views
7,579 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

VMware Aria Automation

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] and VMware Aria Automation based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Nutanix, IBM and others in Cloud Management.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Management Report (Updated: May 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

May 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

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Automation

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

172

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (3rd), Configuration Management (8th), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677

BS Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

A simple interface and helpful support for a solution that grows with us

It's a flexible enough tool to submit the changes that you want. It gives you the ability to cancel any loop. You can connect new orchestrations together. It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device. The user interface is simple and easy to use.

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VasilisGiannitsiotis

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.

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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

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

"It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device."

"The infrastructure has helped us to greatly increase our agility."

"Our time to deliver a fully unified three-tier app, at the right version, is one-twentieth what it was before. There is no manual intervention. No IP management. It just dramatically simplifies all of our processes."

"Now the customer can manage their own server requirements directly. This is very important because, before that, the process included signing off on forms and sending them to the IT Director. It took at least 10 days to create a VM and send it to the person who needed it. Now, it's no more than a half hour to activate a new VM at the customer's site."

"Our speed of provisioning has also improved; we used to build systems manually, which would take four hours or a day, but nowadays we're able to spin something up off a template that we update every so often and it takes about 20 minutes."

"I can build machines quickly and deploy them from a central location to whichever worldwide datacenter we need."

"Integrating this tool with other technologies/third-party tools, that are not part of the VMware family, is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"We have seen quite a bit of return on our investment, and we've actually been able to really change the way that we're doing build and deployments of virtual machines."

"I recommend the product due to its effectiveness in automation and integration."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."

"We have seen couple of bugs."

"There are some issues with stability. We discovered some bugs and we constantly have to work with VMware to figure out a way to fix them."

"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."

"The costing and pricing models of their product."

"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."

"The initial setup was complex because we have a high availability cluster. Especially when it comes to upgrades, we have a lot of downtimes and problems. The upgrade experience has been painful."

"The basic support is not there for Google Cloud and Azure. They are unable to provision nor do cost controls."

"We had a lot of issues at first. Especially with doing any kind of upgrades, it was a complete tear-down and a complete rebuild of all the Blueprints. The upgrade process was not easy or intuitive at all. But it seems to be getting better."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It is an open-source product."

"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."

"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."

"As far as value is concerned, it has been essential to our environment. We have been able to deploy VMs quickly and the developers have their own sandbox, so they can spin up and destroy VMs at their own will."

"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."

"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."

"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."

"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	131

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...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Abiquo vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 18% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

CloudStack vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

More Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 8% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 4% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 4% of the time

HashiCorp Terraform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

May 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

April 2026

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

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

Overview

Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) is an enterprise grade cloud operating system meeting the security and governance needs of enterprises wanting to use OpenStack for their infrastructure services. pentOS is an OpenStack distro that builds on top of the OpenStack codebase adding some proprietary features to meet the security and governance needs of the enterprise customers.

Cisco

VMware Aria Automation is known for its automation capabilities, integrating with VMware and third-party tools to enhance workflow efficiency, save time, and manage resources effectively.

VMware Aria Automation offers a diverse set of features including a self-service portal and a streamlined user-friendly interface, which make it ideal for organizations aiming to automate virtual machine provisioning. The platform supports extensive automation capabilities across multi-cloud environments, featuring flexible blueprint designs and comprehensive integration with platforms like AWS, Azure, and ServiceNow. Though improvements are desired in areas like logging, template management, and vCenter integration, its robust framework facilitates IT infrastructure services, disaster recovery, and development operations. It is specifically beneficial for orchestrating workflows, automating routine tasks, and managing workloads efficiently in private and hybrid cloud environments.

What are the most important features of VMware Aria Automation?

Self-Service Portal: Empowers users with easy access to resources and tools needed for automation.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and usage for both technical and non-technical users.
Extensive Automation Capabilities: Streamlines VM deployment and processes across various platforms.
Integration with VMware and Third-Party Tools: Enhances workflow automation and extends functionality.
Flexible Blueprint Designs: Allows for customized and scalable deployment solutions.

What are the benefits and ROI users should consider?

Efficiency: Reduces manual workload, leading to time and cost savings.
Scalability: Supports dynamic growth and resource management.
Enhanced Workflow Automation: Improves process efficiency with comprehensive integrations.
Customizable Orchestration: Enables tailored solutions that meet specific requirements.
Resource Management: Efficiently utilizes resources, reducing waste and optimizing operations.

VMware Aria Automation is implemented across industries for automating the provisioning of virtual machines and managing cloud environments. It is used in sectors requiring efficient server deployment, network configurations, and seamless integration with tools such as AWS and Azure. It aids in reducing manual efforts, supporting IT infrastructure services, and enhancing disaster recovery protocols.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Nutanix, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: May 2026.

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