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ManageEngine OS Deployer vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
384
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (3rd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
ManageEngine OS Deployer
Ranking in Configuration Management
27th
Average Rating
6.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Client Desktop Management (9th)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (4th), Network Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.2%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine OS Deployer is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 10.6%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform10.6%
Microsoft Intune4.2%
ManageEngine OS Deployer1.5%
Other83.7%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Senior Business Development Executive at Digitaltrack
Centralized device management has automated onboarding and improves remote security compliance
One thing I feel Microsoft Intune could improve is troubleshooting visibility. In many cases, when a policy or application deployment fails, the error messages are a bit generic. So, admins still spend time checking logs manually or testing on devices one by one. Compared to the simplicity of deployment, troubleshooting sometimes feels less mature. I also think reporting and real-time monitoring could be stronger. The dashboard gives useful information, but in large environments, many teams still depend on additional tools or scripts for deeper reporting and analytics. If I had to focus on one area first, I would probably choose troubleshooting and reporting. Deployment through Microsoft Intune is generally straightforward, but when something fails, identifying the exact root cause can still take more time than expected. Error messages are sometimes too generic, and admins often have to dig through logs, sync status, or multiple portals to understand what actually happened. I think user experience and policy management could also improve further. Microsoft Intune has become much better over the years, but sometimes the admin portal still feels fragmented because certain configurations open in different sections or redirect to older interfaces. For new admins, especially, it can take time to understand where everything is located. Another thing is policy conflict handling. In larger organizations, multiple device policies, compliance rules, and configuration profiles can overlap. When conflicts happen, the visibility is not always very clear, so admins spend time figuring out which policy actually won or caused the issue.
it_user363621 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a engineering company with 51-200 employees
It adds necessary drivers for hardware on desktop and notebooks. I'd like to see more detailed explanations and support for how to use it through PXE.
It's helped us to install OS's onto desktops and notebooks It adds a simple solution for adding specific, necessary drivers for hardware on desktops and notebooks when they arrive. I'd like to see more detailed explanations and support for how to use it through PXE. I've never gotten this…
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

"ROI is very high at the end."
"The reporting and analytics features in Microsoft Intune have been a lifesaver."
"What I like most about Intune is its seamless enrollment process, particularly the Autopilot method."
"Microsoft Intune has been a valuable solution for improving endpoint management, security compliance, and remote administration in my environment; it has highly simplified device management operations and improved overall visibility and control over managed devices."
"The best part of Intune is application deployment. We can deploy an application to several users with a single click. We can use conditional access, granting access to users based on certain conditions, such as location, platform, etc."
"The feature that we need occasionally but is really important is the ability to remotely wipe a device, control it, and perform similar functions."
"There are no complaints about the stability. It works one hundred percent of the time."
"The tool's most valuable feature is Autopilot."
"Before OS Deployer, I used Microsoft WDS, which requires more manual labor than OS Deployer."
"There is a return on investment as a technical person; it has saved time and effort in maintaining the deployment environment, so on the technical side, it's saved lots of time and effort on the configuration."
"The initial setup is easy and takes a few hours to complete."
"Ansible is agentless. So, we don't need to set up any agent into the computer we are interacting with. The only prerequisite is that the host with which we are going to interact must have the Python interpreter installed on it. We can connect to a host and do our configuration by using Ansible."
"We can have an easy to go, ready demonstration set up in less than five minutes."
"It increases our company's efficiency, automating all the simple tasks which used to take hours of somebody's time."
"Saved time as well as helped support compliance and standards."
"Ansible has increased our speed of deployment, given us a source of truth, sped everything up, and saved a lot of people's time."
"Automation is valuable. It saves us time in performing tedious tasks or repetitive tasks."
 

Cons

"Historically, Group Policy has simplified the management of various items, such as printer and drive mappings and while Intune offers workarounds, it lacks native support for these functionalities. This is an area I believe needs improvement."
"We are facing issues with Apple products. With macOS and iOS, there are some difficulties with the updates because we cannot get full control of Apple products. In the case of Windows, it is fine, but in the case of Apple, we have some difficulties. We cannot control everything through Intune."
"It isn't easy to use. It's very complicated, but as long as you take the time to learn it, you can do just about anything you want with your device."
"The solution does require maintenance, and it is complex to maintain, especially regarding updates, patching, and releases."
"The most significant issue I encounter is troubleshooting when a policy is not applying or a device is showing non-compliant; the error messages can be pretty vague, which makes it necessary for me to dig around and piece things together myself."
"Yes, there are a couple of issues with stability."
"Integrating certain group policies can be challenging and may necessitate using on-premises systems to integrate them with Microsoft Intune."
"The interface is not as modern as some competitors in terms of single pane of glass visibility across the entire landscape. It has a very Azure vibe and may not be as graphically appealing as other products."
"I'd like to see more detailed explanations and support for how to use it through PXE."
"The documentation for the installation step of deployment, OpenStack, etc., and these things have to be a bit more detailed."
"When compared to Terraform, the execution speed of Ansible is very slow due to the way it executes things."
"The SSM connection access needs improvement"
"The web GUI can be a little bit better. There should be a couple of more features."
"We are very satisfied with what we have. From a management point of view, whatever makes it easier for my team to help customers write their own playbooks would be something very beneficial. Everything is going as a service. Creating playbooks can become much more consumer-oriented so that customers do not need to contact us to write their own playbooks."
"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."
"More library support for microservices architecture and Kubernetes would be helpful."
"On the Dashboard, when you view a template run, it shows all the output. There is a search filter, but it would be nice to able to select one server in that run and then see all that output from just that one server, instead of having to do the search on that one server and find the results."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a part of Microsoft 365 and E5 licenses. Microsoft's strategy of making every feature in Microsoft Intune paid needs optimization. Remote control is one of the basic features, not a luxury feature, yet we must pay for it. I"
"It's bundled with Business Premium and an E3 license, which is beneficial. If you have to pay extra, it's pricey, but with the bundled package, it's acceptable. They recently increased the Business Premium pricing, which we don't appreciate. The price increase and yearly commitment are causing some problems for us."
"Previously the price was $4 per month per user. Now it's $2.25 per user per month."
"In terms of the product price and licensing costs, my company finds the product to be reasonably priced."
"Intune is inexpensive. It also comes bundled in some Office 365 licenses, so you can choose to purchase it separately or as a package."
"It is not expensive."
"Consider the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite rather than choosing specific sub-components, e.g. only Microsoft Intune."
"Microsoft Intune is reasonably priced for large organizations that already have Microsoft Enterprise licenses, but it is less affordable for smaller businesses."
Information not available
"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."
"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."
"We have to be mindful of how we use Ansible because of the licensing model. I am not saying that it is unfair or we do not find value in it. Because we are trying to automate so many different things, we have to be mindful of what we are doing and how we are doing it because we are trying to stay in compliance with it."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business195
Midsize Enterprise64
Large Enterprise190
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
 

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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 h...
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Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that ...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
No data available
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
EMC, Costco Wholesale Australia, Canyon Bicycles, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, WashingtonFirst Bank, SunEdison, Stafford Development Company, City of Redondo Beach, Columbia Medical Associates, Pratt Institute, Novati Technologies, Toyota Boshoku America, Flight Centre UK, RapidAdvance
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, IBM, Microsoft and others in Configuration Management. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.