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Microsoft Entra Permissions Management vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

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 Entra Permissions...
Ranking in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
7th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (31st)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra Permissions Management is 7.0%, down from 22.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 4.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Sameer Bhat - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides resource-based access and security, but time-bound access can be a problem
Entra ID is the core of the identity management that we have. This is the key product that we are using. I am currently also looking into Entra Private Access because we are planning to deploy about 50,000 desktops into Azure and use Azure Virtual Desktop. We would like to give access to the users from the desktop to on-premises applications. I learned that Entra Private Access is a good solution. That is not yet GA, but that is what we are looking for. Entra provides a single pane of glass for managing user access, but because our company also integrates with Nebula API, only administrators use Entra's pane. A normal person who wants to get onboarded can do self-service using Nebula. The features for whitelisting and other things are definitely there. That is what we use specifically. Application IDs, enterprise applications, and all those things are already there, so we have more efficiency. There is also security because we usually do not allow user identities to get direct access to Azure resources. Usually, we use the service principles from Entra ID, so this way, it increases security. Entra has helped to save time for our IT administrators. We tend to automate a lot of things. We can do automation using Graph APIs and save time. It is hard to quantify the time savings, but there has been a medium amount of time savings. Entra has helped to save our organization money. We care about security and risk more than money, but it also saves money. We are premium customers, and because we have a commit-to-consume contract with Microsoft of multi-million dollars, the money does not come into it because we have to consume those resources.
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows
It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution integrates well with our infrastructure and other systems without any issues."
"Multifactor authentication is valuable."
"Having an enterprise service catalog and being able to automate various parts of our infrastructure are among the most important components."
"Upgrades have been extremely simple with their Lifecycle Manager product."
"The most valuable features for us are capacity planning as well as environment life management; putting in specific templates and workflows that we know are secure. That solidifies the environments that we're in or that are being provisioned. We also know that every environment being provisioned has a lifespan. It affects capacity, so it's great for budgeting, from my perspective, and good for my team."
"It has integration with the rest of VMware solutions."
"The self-service capabilities are by far the best that we've seen in terms of features. If the user is being able to log in and make requests himself, from the onboarding process all the way to the end, that's very helpful."
"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."
"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."
"The product is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The solution's pricing and support services need improvement."
"We use a third-party API called Nebula API to integrate the account for authorization. The time-bound access area in Entra can be a problem. It can be improved in terms of the granularity of the permissions."
"SaltStack's features are minimal."
"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."
"VMware should go the way of vROps, with everything in one machine, the ability to scale out, and a more distributed environment instead of having the usual centralized SQL database."
"When you start to do a deployment where you need higher availability and more resiliency, then the complexity goes up drastically."
"I think they could probably do more if they created more actions and more use cases to automate things."
"It would be nice if, at the director level, the manager level, there was a pretty graphic. They don't like to see numbers and line items, they want to see graphs and scales and real world pictures. That would support better reporting."
"The stability is okay, but could be improved. We sometimes receive strange errors, which can only be solved with specialists."
"When it comes to the orchestration workflow, you're on your own. The documentation and resources are very limited, and you have to learn everything on your own."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product cost is in the mid to high range."
"We are a Fortune 500 company, so we always negotiate with Microsoft."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."
"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."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Entra Permissions Management?
The product cost is in the mid to high range. You need to have a good budget to implement it, so it is considered fairly expensive for our market. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Entra Permissions Management?
The solution's pricing and support services need improvement.
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

CloudKnox Permissions Management
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra Permissions Management vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.