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OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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 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)
OpenText ZENworks Configura...
Ranking in Configuration Management
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Configuration Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Network Automation (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (29th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

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 OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 3.9%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.2%
VMware Aria Automation3.9%
OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management1.7%
Other90.2%
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.
VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Intune makes our organization more secure and flexible."
"The biggest benefits of Intune are the ability to push changes and the added security. When we moved forward with Defender, we onboarded all those machines automatically. That helps dramatically. For a while, we were left with machines that weren't protected. We could see where people had done things they shouldn't have done, and Defender saved our skins a few times. It didn't happen a lot, but it happened enough that it made us glad we made that decision."
"The core management feature in Intune is invaluable to us, especially considering the challenges we often face with System Center when pushing external updates."
"Microsoft Intune impacts my organization positively by saving significant time via faster onboarding; there is no requirement for manual imaging or setup."
"If I assess Intune's user experience, I would say it is perfect and simple."
"If the product works, remote access will be a benefit. To this point we have not had reason to have confidence in achieving that access."
"The biggest thing for us is enforcing logins only from devices that are managed by Intune."
"I would rate Microsoft Intune a nine out of ten."
"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."
"Helps me perform changes in connected infrastructure thanks to the discovery features."
"We use it for managing our desktops; we have 350,000 desktops and it allows us to manage and control them relatively easily."
"The most valuable feature is the impact analysis."
"Automatic Spiral Discovery: This feature enables deep and dynamic configuration and change management."
"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."
"We needed vRA to easily integrate with our hypervisor, orchestration, security (tenant segmentation, PCI), workflows, custom code, and internal monitoring/management tools. Since we didn’t have time to develop our own web front-end during the development sprints, vRA saved considerable time and resource cycles. Its ability to easily integrate with all of the VMware cloud products as well as public cloud providers, like AWS and Azure, out-of-the-box, makes it an even more powerful tool."
"Overall, it has performed phenomenally and the support behind it has made it absolutely useful."
"The product is stable."
"We have seen significant ROI, as we used to have physical servers that took 90 days to get a server ordered, bought, and installed, and now with virtualization we have it down to a couple of minutes for customers to have a server."
"It benefits the speed of our development, and the speed of anything we test and send through to production."
"vRA helps automate deployment for developers. We do a lot of orchestration or customization within our environment so it will suit each of our customers. So, we have different business units who have their own templates."
"usability; It's very user-friendly. It is not hard to go and find things. There is a one-click Help that you can use to find all the documentation you need to manage it."
 

Cons

"Intune should be much more granular in terms of supporting more Android cellular devices."
"The configuration and pricing can be improved."
"It would be great to see on-premises mailboxes and for the solution to have geofencing capabilities."
"It could offer more attributes for authentication."
"Onboarding of endpoint devices is not straightforward. The onboarding process was a little heavier than I thought it would be. That's the key improvement area. Obviously, the more control you have over the devices, the better it is."
"The interoperability or communication with a different platform can be better. It is a two-way street. It is not only about Microsoft. The other platforms also have to be willing to share some information, but that absolutely can be improved."
"If you wish to block any App Store application, there is no way to do so."
"The main issue with Microsoft Intune is that for Windows, we can support only Windows 10 and 11 operating systems."
"It needs dashboards."
"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's not cheap. It would be more expensive to get an alternative though because we would have to buy the extras for it."
"As with all recent VMware products, more focus needs to be done on QA. I encountered far too many bugs for an enterprise product."
"At this point in time, it's support for multiple platforms."
"We found some intermittent issues with the Windows minion connection."
"On a scale of one to 10 stability is a seven. There are a lot of moving parts and we often have difficulty with like an individual service on one of the components failing and bringing down the entire stack, and that's pretty regular."
"It does go down from time to time. We have some issues with the appliances sometimes and we have to do reboots in the middle of the day. That affects the ability for them to deploy."
"I would like to see more integration to do things like DR, from a court perspective. Today, for us, SRM doesn't scale because each of our customers has a local vCenter environment as well as the vCenter in our environment. So we can't get SRM to scale to the point to which we need. From an integration perspective, DR inside of that would be good."
"I would say maybe a better interface. It looks very plain."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price for Intune is fair."
"The price of Intune is included with the license for Office 365, so we don't have to pay anything extra for it."
"Intune is included with our F3 and E5 licenses."
"Generally, we get favorable discounts, so it's not too bad. Obviously, we're looking at decreasing those wherever we can to bring value back to the public purse because it's all charity based. It's all publicly funded."
"Pricing can be improved."
"It's affordable. It's cheaper if you have an Office 365, E5, or E3 subscription because everything is there."
"Microsoft Intune is available for individual purchase at a low per-device cost."
"It comes with the E5 plan. We bought the E5 plan from Microsoft."
"This is a really good tool for the money."
"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
31%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Transportation Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

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 Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
 

Questions from the Community

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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 y...
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 fre...
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 compa...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management, HPE CMS, HPE Configuration Management, Micro Focus Configuration Management
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Tech Mahindra, NNIT, ASIC
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText ZENworks Configuration Management vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.