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OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

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
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
OpenText ZENworks Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.4%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 9.5%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.4%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform9.5%
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management1.8%
Other84.3%
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_user1272306 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at DoITWise
Helpful impact analysis and the discovery capability is quite good
This tool works hand-in-hand with RPA technology. RPA will allow you to control your servers by deploying the server automation agent. You don't have the discovery, but then you can deploy the policies that maintain the authorized versus current state. On top of that, you can use server automation to deploy patches or remediate configuration issues on the operating system. My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to ensure that the process is set up properly, first. Once the process is set up, the tool will do the rest for you. Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
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

"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."
"The automatic patch management feature in the Intune Suite is helpful."
"Stable product that's easy to set up compared to other MDM products."
"I have seen a return on investment with Microsoft Intune, as it has saved me resources; previously, I managed my infrastructure with a team of around six to seven members, but after transitioning to the Microsoft Intune hybrid model, I am able to manage it with just one resource, allowing me to cut costs significantly, around 50-60 lakhs."
"The security-related tools are excellent; these features allow us to secure devices, lock them down, and ensure compliance."
"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."
"I appreciate how clear Microsoft Intune is."
"I like how Intune deploys the policies and makes them customizable. You can deploy it through Intune and forget about it."
"We use it for managing our desktops; we have 350,000 desktops and it allows us to manage and control them relatively easily."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"Automatic Spiral Discovery: This feature enables deep and dynamic configuration and change management."
"Overall, this is a comprehensive tool that works well, and I wouldn't touch it other than to enhance the UI and make containerization work without the CDF."
"Having the Dashboard from an admin point of view, and seeing how all the projects and all the jobs lay out, is helpful."
"It has improved our organization through provisioning and security hardening. When we do get a new VM, we have been able to bring on a provisioned machine in less than a day. This morning alone, I provisioned two machines within an hour. I am talking about hardening, installing antivirus software on it, and creating user accounts because the Playbooks were predesigned. From the time we got the servers to the actual hand-off, it takes less than an hour. We are talking about having the servers actually authenticate Red Hat Satellites and run the yum updates. All of that can be done within an hour."
"Ansible has increased our speed of deployment, given us a source of truth, sped everything up, and saved a lot of people's time."
"We can manage all the configuration consistency between all our servers."
"The automation manager is very good."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don’t need an agent for it to work."
"You can literally automate everything."
"It saves time when it comes to service deployment, moves, or updates."
 

Cons

"While Intune works perfectly well, the only potential downside is that the deployment could be a bit complex for some users."
"Every time we call, we get bounced to a new team... there is no cohesive end-to-end support, which is very frustrating and time-consuming."
"What I'd like to see in their next upgrade is more in the context of today's security policies and what's needed, for them to keep adding features based on that, for example boosting security, so they can keep on adding security features, and that is the best they can do."
"Microsoft support was not very responsive, and it took approximately one and a half months to get on a call to clear what the problem was."
"They need to add more group policies. Intune currently does not have many group policies that you can deploy. Its reporting, which is very limited at the moment, also needs improvement. It will be great if they can add report customization. Its stability needs to be improved. Sometimes, when you register a device in Intune, it doesn't show up instantly on the engine portal on the admin side. They need to provide better support for complicated issues. They also have a long turnaround time."
"A feature I would want to see added in Microsoft Intune is the ability to manage other non-Microsoft devices."
"Microsoft Intune needs to support out of the box Apple Managed Device and Apple Business Managed Device with zero-touch deployment capabilities, which is something competitors provide."
"From a new user's perspective, it may be a little overwhelming because there are quite a few things to look at in the console, however, once you are sort of acclimated and are familiar with your core functions, it's fairly simple and straightforward."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
"The infrastructure itself is stable, but the agent has a lot of problems."
"It needs dashboards."
"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."
"The area which I feel can be improved is the custom modules. For example, there are something like 106 official modules available in the Ansible library. A year ago, that number was somewhere around 58. While Ansible is improving day by day, this can be improved more. For instance, when you need to configure in the cloud, you need to write up a module for that."
"A little slow."
"What I would like to see is a refined Dashboard to see, when I log in: Here are all my jobs, here are how many times they've executed; some kind graphical stitching-together of the workflows and jobs, and how they're connected. Also, those "failed hosts," what does that mean? We have a problem, a failed host can be anything. Is SSH the reason it failed? Is the job template why it failed? It doesn't really distinguish that."
"The scalability of the solution has some shortcomings."
"Because some documentation needs to be improved - while getting started with it is getting better - it's hard to give it a perfect ten."
"What we need is model-driven, declarative software infrastructure management. However, things tend to break with new versions, requiring a lot of work to fix…The focus should be on improving the support for Ansible in the area of AI coding."
"There are some options not available in the community edition of the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing of Microsoft Intune is good for companies that have big IT budgets, 3,000 or more users and devices."
"The product is offered as part of a Microsoft standard bundle. The pricing can be competitive to Airwatch, and Maas360."
"It's affordable for the protection it gives. There are no additional costs."
"It is not expensive."
"Microsoft Intune is available for individual purchase at a low per-device cost."
"Any bundle package, such as Security E3, covers multiple things, such as AAP, BitLocker, etc. If you go for them individually, they would be more expensive. Bundling makes the price more attractive and competitive."
"Previously the price was $4 per month per user. Now it's $2.25 per user per month."
"Microsoft Intune is reasonably priced for large organizations that already have Microsoft Enterprise licenses, but it is less affordable for smaller businesses."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"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."
"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."
"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
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
31%
Construction Company
9%
Government
9%
Transportation Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise187
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
 

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Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.