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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)
27th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
GRC (20th), Vulnerability Management (42nd), Container Security (32nd), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (22nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (21st), Compliance Management (12th)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (6th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Runecast is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 0.3%, up from 0.3% 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 Automation0.3%
Runecast0.1%
Other99.6%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
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
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."
"The most valuable feature is vRA’s ability to integrate whether with additional VMware vRealize suites or other vendors' cloud products."
"VMware Aria Automation has made a lot of things easier. It has really helped the operations team to spin up the virtual machines."
"Our speed of provisioning has improved. We used to build systems manually, which would take four hours or a day. Nowadays we're able to spin something up off a template... and it takes about 20 minutes."
"The initial setup is straightforward. It's not that difficult."
"We can connect between multiple VMs in a matter of seconds."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users."
"The most valuable feature is the consistency it delivers, at the end of the day. We know that we have consistent images based off consistent Blueprints, check-pointed or QA'ed in a consistent manner."
 

Cons

"The product lacks network assessment capabilities. We cannot view our network assets or scan switches, routers, or IPs for vulnerabilities and issues."
"We had a lot of issues at first. Especially with doing any kind of upgrades, it was a complete tear-down and a complete rebuild of all the Blueprints. The upgrade process was not easy or intuitive at all. But it seems to be getting better."
"When you start to do a deployment where you need higher availability and more resiliency, then the complexity goes up drastically."
"The initial setup was complex from beginning to delivery. The current version is a bit more complex than version 7 to deploy."
"It needs to be more dynamic with variable customization to make new workloads more reliable. It also needs to be faster. We are exploring vRA version 8 right now and maybe what I'm requesting is available in the new version, but we haven't yet explored it fully."
"It's not cheap."
"I know you can spin up virtual desktops in vRA, but they're not thin-provisioned. I don't know if that's because the other product, Horizon View, is there, but it would be nice to see more integration."
"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."
"The upgrade process 6.x to 7.3 was a significant effort. I'm hoping that 7.3 to the next version is much smoother."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Runecast's pricing is cheaper than that of its competitors."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"The solution is free of cost."
"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing 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: August 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.