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Runecast vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Runecast
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
29th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
GRC (25th), Vulnerability Management (47th), Container Security (34th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (21st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (21st), Compliance Management (13th)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Runecast is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Automation0.6%
Runecast0.3%
Other99.1%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at Axoft Ukraine
Helps with risk assessments for containers, assessing security, and ensuring container compliance
I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. Customers can conveniently view all companies in a single dashboard if they have different companies. This feature eliminates the need for different solutions and separate installations. Moreover, the solution extends beyond servers, encompassing various platforms such as VMware and Kubernetes. Additionally, end-users can install the solution from their client's perspective.
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at BIDV - Ngân hàng TMCP Đầu tư & Phát triển Việt Nam
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

"Runecast is a good partner for VMware. Once we have installed it, we can see all the problems and issues. It also has VMware knowledge-based articles."
"We monitor the configurations against CIS standards. We run CIS benchmarks and maintain configurations with higher CIS values for each server."
"We can connect between multiple VMs in a matter of seconds."
"It benefits the speed of our development, and the speed of anything we test and send through to production."
"I recommend the product due to its effectiveness in automation and integration."
"I like its capacity, the self-service portal, and operational automation. The most beneficial feature is that it saves time when creating new virtual machines, deploying security measures, and writing infrastructure code, making things easier and faster. We have a standard we follow, reducing the time spent repeatedly rewriting everything."
"If you do a deployment for a proof of concept, it is simple."
"The most valuable feature is the way that it plugs into our monitoring systems, and Infoblox and Puppet."
"The whole VMR ecosystem allows us to serve multiple customers, multiple organizations and also multiple units per customer. We can cover every level without using the whole VRA and the rest of the ecosystem. We don't need to use a separate product to provide separate functionalities for the customer. We can cover all the use cases using only one product on our side which is really helpful. T"
 

Cons

"The product lacks network assessment capabilities. We cannot view our network assets or scan switches, routers, or IPs for vulnerabilities and issues."
"The initial setup was not straightforward. It was not simple, and we had a PoC. We had VMware help us deploy it, and it took them an exorbitant amount of time."
"It was a complex setup. We had to use the consultant from VMware to make the solution work well."
"Web UI."
"The initial setup was complex because we have a high availability cluster. Especially when it comes to upgrades, we have a lot of downtimes and problems. The upgrade experience has been painful."
"It is too broad scale and complicated. It takes too many clicks to do things."
"This solution could be integrated with more hardware for an improved offering."
"vCenter and vRA, I believe they share two different databases so sometimes you have to somehow sync them up. I wish there was only one database between the two or, somehow, one database would rule over the other one, so if you have both products, the vCenter might use the vRA database. Otherwise, when you do stuff in vCenter, you have to write a command on vRA to update the databases."
"It would be better if VMware would provide API documentation for developers and customers on the Internet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Runecast's pricing is cheaper than that of its competitors."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"The solution is free of cost."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."
"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Runecast?
Runecast is a good partner for VMware. Once we have installed it, we can see all the problems and issues. It also has VMware knowledge-based articles.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Runecast?
Runecast's pricing is cheaper than that of its competitors.
What needs improvement with Runecast?
The product lacks network assessment capabilities. We cannot view our network assets or scan switches, routers, or IPs for vulnerabilities and issues.
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

Runecast Analyzer
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Our customers tell us regularly how Runecast benefits CIOs, CISOs, and both Security and Operations teams across verticals with a proactive approach that results in major time and cost savings, increased uptime and security standards complianceSuccess Highlight 75-85% troubleshooting time savings – Kiel Municipal Hospital90% time savings on reactive troubleshooting – Near East Bank90% time savings in upgrade planning– FLEXdata80% reduction in monthly incidents and issues – University of St Andrews78,000 EUR/year minimum annual cost savings – Notino100s of hours saved on security compliance with remediation scripts alone – Kiel Municipal Hospital75% time saved on troubleshooting and root cause analysis – de Volksbank
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne and others in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM). Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.