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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 August 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 4.6%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management is 1.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 9.8%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.6%
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform9.8%
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management1.8%
Other83.8%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

OluwashileAdeniyi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Security Engineer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Centralized endpoint security has improved and supports hybrid work and BYOD policies
Regarding what I dislike about Microsoft Intune and its downsides, I would say that more Mac controls are needed because we have limited Mac and Linux control. When comparing controls and policies between Windows, Mac, and Linux, Windows has almost everything you can think of, while Mac and Linux have limited types of control. You cannot implement certain things on Mac and Linux that you can on Windows. The limited controls are a major issue. Additionally, if Microsoft could find a way to embed servers into Microsoft Intune, that would be beneficial. Microsoft Intune is not really designed for servers or Windows servers. It is more tailored towards Windows 11 and Windows 10 operating systems. Windows servers are not fully supported. Enterprise organizations usually have both servers and endpoints, which are users' workstations. For servers, most people look for other solutions such as SCCM, which is Configuration Manager. However, SCCM is what Microsoft Intune is trying to replace. Both SCCM and Microsoft Intune belong to Microsoft. Microsoft is trying to transition organizations into Microsoft Intune, the native cloud solution. However, because this update is still in process, servers are not fully compatible with Microsoft Intune and cannot be managed by it. The current policy that has emerged from issues with clients is what they call co-management, which is relatively new, and I do not know if adoption is significant. Many legacy or older customers who have been using these products for decades still have SCCM. When it is time for them to manage their Windows devices, they use what is called cloud attach. Cloud attach is a term whereby your SCCM is connected to your Microsoft Intune. Most people do not know about it, but I have deployed it for several organizations. Cloud attach and co-management work together so that your device is in SCCM, but some policies are pushed from Microsoft Intune. It is like two different solutions working hand in hand. That is what they call co-management. Microsoft Intune does not bring all of your endpoint and security management tools into one place, which is the goal and how it should be. However, as I mentioned, servers are not included. If we talk about end users, Microsoft Intune does bring all your devices together. In a typical enterprise environment, you have end users with workstations, laptops, company-issued phones, and bring your own devices. You can create policies for all of these. However, for the backend, your servers do not have much coverage. Servers are not really covered by Microsoft Intune in that way.
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

"ROI is very high at the end."
"It is very easy for me to configure all the things. Once I create policies and applications in Intune, it is very easy for us to enroll users."
"If they have Office 365 or Azure, Intune is by far the best choice."
"One of the standout features of Intune is its seamless accessibility to work data, eliminating the need to be tied to an office or a desktop."
"Intune is effective because of the configuration management and endpoint security it provides. The graphical interface makes it easier to configure and deploy devices."
"Cloud-based device management is the best feature for me as it impacts my company the most; it is much easier than the previous Configuration Manager or SCCM."
"Microsoft Intune has been a time saver and reduces the time and effort IT admins have to invest."
"Microsoft Intune saves eight hours per day, and during my work hours, I use my time to study and run tests on configurations I'm curious about and try them out in my environment."
"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."
"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."
"Automatic Spiral Discovery: This feature enables deep and dynamic configuration and change management."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"The development tools are decent and being able to consistently manage those servers is really the key, which is why we went with Ansible in the first place."
"One of the most valuable features is automation. We are doing automation infrastructure, which allows us to automate regular tasks. This solution provides us with a service catalog, like building new services and automating daily tasks."
"This solution allows us to stitch a lot of different parts of the workflow together."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is easy to integrate; the platform is simple to use."
"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 easy-to-read syntax for YAML files and the interoperability between modules are valuable."
"On the network side, I already have a lot of our firewall related processes automated. If it's not automated all the way from the ticket system, our network team members, our tier-one guys in India, can just go into the Tower web interface and fill in a couple of survey questions."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is quite stable. If you set it up correctly with the right configurations and there are no hiccups during installation and deployment, it will be stable. I'd give stability a rating of eight out of ten."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Intune has a latency response time issue. The latency has room for improvement."
"The only issues I have had with Microsoft Intune were with applications where if they are not an MSI file, I cannot really upload it as an application."
"There are a few security features that are not available in Microsoft Intune, when compared to other products."
"I wish Microsoft would keep up with their documentation. They make changes so quickly to these platforms that they do not update the documentation properly in a timely manner."
"It's only good for a Microsoft environment. While it works very well for Microsoft users but if you have other kinds of operating systems, it's very painful to use."
"It could offer more attributes for authentication."
"I would like to see the ability to deploy custom packages as a Windows 64-bit package, as opposed to the Windows 32-bit, which is the only one available now."
"I would like the ability to install the agent on devices from suppliers, which would enable us to implement a zero-trust strategy for guest devices."
"The infrastructure itself is stable, but the agent has a lot of problems."
"The native UI should be simplified because it is outdated and a little bit over-complicated."
"It needs dashboards."
"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."
"The governance features could be improved."
"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."
"The solution costs a lot. It's not cheap."
"It can use some more credential types."
"The solution must be made easier to configure."
"It would be good to make the solution more user-friendly,"
"When you set up Playbooks, I may have one version of the Playbook, but another member of the team may have a different vision, and we will not know which version is correct. We want to have one central repository for managing the different versions of Playbooks, so we can have better collaboration among team members. This is our use case for using Git version control."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Existing E5 license holders for M365, Intune, and Azure, receive a free license."
"The pricing is competitive, but it is not cheap."
"The price of Intune is included with the license for Office 365, so we don't have to pay anything extra for it."
"Our enterprise agreement includes Microsoft Intune at no additional cost."
"Its pricing seems reasonable."
"Microsoft Intune has been incorporated into our Microsoft E5 licenses."
"The solution is cost-efficient."
"In terms of the product price and licensing costs, my company finds the product to be reasonably priced."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."
"We use the open-source version of the solution."
"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."
"The cost is high, but it still works well."
"Everything is generally fair. No one ever likes to pay a lot of money, but we are getting the value. We also get support with it. It has been fair and worthwhile."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
University
30%
Construction Company
9%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise186
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
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 ...
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
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: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.