Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

Microsoft and Red Hat are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. Microsoft holds a 12.5% mindshare in CM, compared to Red Hat’s 17.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Microsoft Configuration Manager and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform compete in the IT infrastructure management category. Based on the analysis, Ansible seems to have the upper hand due to its ease of use and agentless architecture, which suits diverse environments.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager excels in patch management, remote control, and centralized application deployment, offering a comprehensive console for IT operations. It delivers robust reporting and inventory management, aiding compliance and update integrity. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is known for its agentless architecture, ease of use, and straightforward YAML syntax. It supports automation across platforms with numerous modules, perfect for flexibility and scalability without needing installed agents.

Room for Improvement: SCCM users desire a simplified interface and better integration with non-Microsoft systems and multiple cloud platforms. High resource consumption and complex troubleshooting are noted concerns. Ansible users seek better GUI integration, improved documentation, and ease of use for those with limited scripting knowledge. Scalability and broader orchestration capabilities are seen as areas for improvement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SCCM is often deployed in on-premises settings but is exploring hybrid and cloud capabilities. It offers reliable technical support, though responsiveness varies. Ansible offers flexibility across hybrid, public, and private clouds. Its open-source nature ensures broad community support and documentation, with occasional challenges in commercial support due to rapid module updates.

Pricing and ROI: SCCM licensing can be expensive for large enterprises with extensive configurations but is justified by its comprehensive feature set that enhances automation efficiency and productivity. Ansible provides a cost-effective open-source model, with optional enterprise features through Red Hat. Organizations find the ROI attractive due to reduced manual efforts and increased operational consistency, although expanding capabilities might incur extra costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

April 2025

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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

Microsoft Intune

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.3%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 12.5%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 17.4%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Everything has worked better since we started using it

Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.

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MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements

While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

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Surya Chapagain

Senior System Administrator at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Easy to manage and simple to learn

We use Red Hat a lot. I open tickets for the Red Hat cases, however, with Ansible, I haven't opened any cases. My manager worked with them a bit. If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"We have not experienced any bugs or glitches with this solution."

"The most valuable feature of Intune is the central dashboard for compliance and policy management."

"I can see that the patch management process is much improved with the bundled patch management option available in Microsoft Intune compared to the KPI deployment required by the other deployment solutions."

"It helps implement conditional access policies to restrict mobile users from accessing potentially dangerous emails."

"It helps us manage user certificates."

"There are no complaints about the stability. It works one hundred percent of the time."

"The security posture is very good. It's very customizable."

"Previously, we used on-prem SCCM to deploy applications we built manually. After migrating to Intune, we automated and streamlined the process of deploying applications with autopilot. I can do more with my day. I can manage more applications and ensure that they're updated without monitoring and manually starting that process all over again."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"Valuable features include configurations enforcement, compliance data gathering, and deployment of a standardized OS."

"The main, clear valuable feature is updating the latest, patches and updates from Windows. This is the main feature we really utilize a lot."

"Software deployment and WSUS are most valuable."

"It is easy to install, and quick to deploy."

"It does the job and meets our needs. With everybody working remotely these days, we are using this solution to deploy everything. The deployment of PCs is easy."

"I have found the solution to be scalable. We have around 50,000 users using the solution."

"The product is very stable compared to older versions."

"It saves a lot of money when you can install things automatically and they are installed the exact same way on every computer."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

"We can manage all the configuration consistency between all our servers."

"The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors."

"It is quick to production. It has an API in the back which allows for integrations."

"The automation is the most valuable feature."

"It enabled me to take the old build manifest and automated everything. So when it came time to spin everything up, it was quick and simple. I could spin it up and test it out. And then, when it came time to roll production, it was a done deal. When we expanded to multiple data centers, it was same thing: Change a few IP addresses, change some names, and off we went."

"It's nice to have the Dashboard where people can see it, have it report to our ELK stack. It's far more convenient, and we can trigger it with API and schedules, which is better than doing it with a whole bunch of scripts."

"There are new modules available, which help to simplify the workflow. That is what we like about it."

"It allows control over thousands of servers, whether virtual or physical."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pros

Cons

"It would really be helpful to have the option to manage server operating systems as well, like Windows Server, at least. That way, we could scrap the use of SCCM, which requires a lot of on-premises infrastructure."

"Reporting could be improved. It needs to be more expensive and robust."

"Intune could add more features that are relevant to the core application control functions. For example, it would be helpful if it had more control over the on-prem environment from the cloud platform. Greater Teams availability in the Saudi market would also be helpful."

"It needs certificate provisioning for S/MIME purposes."

"Intune could be enhanced by automating application upgrades, similar to how it automates operating system upgrades."

"There is no catalog for mobile access management (MAM) security."

"I would like to see better integration with Microsoft. There are a few things I can still do with Jamf that I am unable to do with Intune yet."

"There are a lot of updates happening on Microsoft."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."

"There is no asset management package included."

"Management of Linux devices could be improved."

"It would be better if reporting were more user-friendly. I would like to see an upgrade in the reporting structure in the next release. At the moment, you have to use an SQL query or configure it to pull reports through the graphical user interface. Their updates could be more regular. I think Mircosoft updates it every six months. They are also moving many things to Intune, and Microsoft decided to move the deployment solution there. I think SCCM is getting old, and Intune is new."

"The solution is on-premises. The cloud version of the product, if a person needs to be on the cloud, would be InTune, which already exists as an option. SCCM doesn't need to offer cloud features for this reason."

"There is a reboot issue with the patching. Sometimes, if patching runs into any issue whatsoever, it doesn't reboot but it doesn't tell you it errored out. It just sits there and we don't find out until the next day whether it patched or not. That was a big issue for us. We're working through that. They added some stuff in there now where you can actually tell reboot is pending. But we still need some kind of notification that if something fails or is pending, we know. We shouldn't have to go in and look. They don't have anything for that right now."

"There were misconfigurations by our team rather than issues with the product itself. However, it does seem a bit buggy from time to time, based on what I have heard."

"Devices like smartphones and tablets are managed very well on VMware, however, they are absent in SCCM. I could configure iPad from the VMware site and it was done very easily. It should be just as possible on SCCM."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"Some of the modules in Ansible could be a bit more mature. There is still a little room for further development. Some performance aspects could be improved, perhaps in the form of parallelism within Ansible."

"The solution is slightly expensive, and its pricing could be improved."

"The job workflow needs to be worked on. It's not really clear to how you actually link things together. What they probably could do is provide an example workflow on how to stitch things together. I think that would be very helpful."

"The solution requires some Linux knowledge."

"Ansible could use more public relations and marketing."

"It needs better documentation."

"The scalability of the solution has some shortcomings."

"The communication on it is not probably where it could be. We could use some real life examples where we could point customers to them and say, "This is what you are trying to do. If you follow these steps, it would at least get you started a bit quicker.""

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"No one can compete with Microsoft when it comes to price, and the features it is offering."

"Microsoft Intune is reasonably priced for large organizations that already have Microsoft Enterprise licenses, but it is less affordable for smaller businesses."

"The price is very reasonable."

"There is a license needed for this solution and it is either included in one of the enterprise license agreements. Microsoft licensing is a mathematical institute, it could be quite complex. We tend to ask specialized organizations to research what the most profitable way it would be for us to use licenses in the organizations."

"The pricing is not cheap, especially with inflation. They've had to increase their prices. It's not excessive, but alright."

"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."

"The overall pricing of Microsoft Intune is good for companies that have big IT budgets, 3,000 or more users and devices."

"The clients pay for a license and each can have a different type of license, such as an E3 or E5."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."

"There is not a license needed to use the solution."

"I rate the price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten."

"The price model is different for every client."

"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."

"Presently, I am using a free trial version."

"Its price is okay because it is part of our licensing."

"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."

"You don't need to buy agents on servers or deploy expense management when using the solution, which affected our decision to go with it."

"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."

"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."

"If you only need to use Ansible, it's free for any end-user, but when you require Ansible Tower, you need to pay per Ansible Tower server."

"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."

"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."

"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

27%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?

Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...

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What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?

Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...

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How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?

Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...

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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 ...

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How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?

ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. Wh...

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What do you like most about SCCM?

One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...

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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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What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

I know Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform costs money since I am using a trial license. The pricing is high, and sin...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 13% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 12% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

Quest KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

PDQ Deploy vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

VMware Aria Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 4% of the time

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

May 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

May 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

May 2025

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform report

Download Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )

Ansible

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a powerful network automation solution that allows organizations to handle every aspect of their application launch process within a single product. It enables users to share their automations so that teams within an organization can collaborate on various projects with ease. Ansible Automation Platform is designed to be used by all employees involved in the network automation process.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform include:

Maximum benefit for reduced overhead. Ansible Automation Platform is an all-in-one solution that can enable users to do the jobs of multiple products with one. Users do not need to purchase multiple products to handle their network automation and application development needs. It is equipped with prefabricated content from more than one hundred companies that are partnered with it.

Scalable. Ansible Automation Platform is a highly scalable solution. It can easily be scaled up so that automations can be extended across the various devices that make up an organization’s network.

Flexibility. Ansible Automation Platform is highly flexible. It enables users to tackle any and all automation-related tasks.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Features

Automation analytics. Ansible Automation Platform comes equipped with an automation analytics feature. This feature enables organizations to measure the effects of their automations and plan how they are going to implement automations moving forward. It makes it easy for administrators to spot anomalies in their automations and resolve them before they can escalate and become major issues.

Integration suite. Ansible Automation Platform gives organizations access to a wide variety of integrations that enable them to connect to Ansible’s partners. Now users can augment their capabilities without needing to purchase additional solutions that will enable them to run features that are not normally a part of Ansible’s array of tools. The Ansible environment is built to handle the wide variety of integrations that their partners offer. In order to accomplish this it includes the APIs that users need in order to fully benefit from the integrations.

Centralized interface. Ansible Automation Platform comes with a centralized GUI interface that enables users to manage all of their network automation and application creation activities from a single location. Businesses can guarantee that their operations are going to be handled efficiently and according to a single standard. The management process is greatly simplified. All of the tools that users need are located in one place.

Reviews from Real Users

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its automation manager and its comprehensive centralized GUI-based management interface.

MD J., a solution architect at STBL, says, “The automation manager is very good and makes things easier for customers with multi-cloud platforms.”

Aankit G., a Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS, writes, “We like the GUI-based interface for the tower. Before, we only had a command-line interface to run all the Ansible tasks. Now, the Ansible tower provides the complete GUI functionality to run, manage, and create the templates and the Ansible jobs. This includes the code and YAML file we can create. The GUI interface is the added advantage of this solution, including some integration with the different plugins.”

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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