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VMware Aria Automation vs vCenter Configuration Manager 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
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)
vCenter Configuration Manager
Ranking in Configuration Management
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Configuration Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (21st), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
 

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 vCenter Configuration Manager is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 4.1%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Intune4.6%
VMware Aria Automation4.1%
vCenter Configuration Manager2.0%
Other89.3%
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.
Nikhil Nikhil - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Operations Lead at TT Systems LLC
Compliance management has improved efficiency but licensing changes pose challenges
I am not using any advanced features or AI. I am employing a basic VMware vCenter setup for my infrastructure. Scalability has no major limitations, and the solution is efficient. Overall, it's satisfactory. I would rate the vCenter experience as seven out of ten due to concerns regarding license, pricing, and AI features.
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

"The best feature in Microsoft Intune is zero touch deployment, which allows me to automate many tasks compared to manually installing Windows and applications one by one, making it easier to enroll devices with Autopilot and pre-deploy applications."
"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."
"Intune is a very good cloud solution for managing devices."
"The initial setup is not overly complex or difficult."
"Microsoft's licensing is more flexible and adaptive than its competitors."
"The best part of Intune is device control. If we need to block a user from opening something in their organization's system, we can do it from Intune. If we want to restrict the movement of an organization's data to prevent users from copying the data into Outlook, WhatsApp, or their personal Gmail, we can limit that via Intune. It secures all corporate data."
"Internet-based access with security is what I have found to be most valuable. It is also a stable and scalable solution."
"Microsoft Intune brings all our endpoint and security management tools into one place, acting as a comprehensive solution where we can manage numerous devices and configuration profiles, and block specific URLs, among many other capabilities."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the ability to manage all of our environments allowing us to have better functionality and high availability."
"We can scale the solution as needed."
"Configuration Manager simplifies management. Cloning via live migration is a useful feature."
"We prefer to pay for these products that are integrated and straightforward."
"The technical support services are good."
"It has many valuable features that serve many purposes."
"All of these features serve different purposes and are very useful."
"By taking manual tasks and automating them, it provides a great value for the customer."
"It has helped our organization tremendously."
"It has made it easier for IT to support developers, and our tech support people are happy with it."
"The solution is intuitive and user-friendly. E.g., you have less number of logins."
"It has helped our company by speeding things up."
"The DevOps for infrastructure capabilities has saved time for our developers by automating processes and reducing provisioning time, and task time has been reduced by 40 percent."
"From experience working with other service provider cloud products, VMware vRealize Automation Center is the best out-of-the-box solution to quickly build out your cloud portal and fully integrate it into your orchestration layers, as well as your compute and storage infrastructures."
"The automation really is priceless."
"VMware Aria Automation has made a lot of things easier. It has really helped the operations team to spin up the virtual machines."
 

Cons

"Customer service used to be better, but as we are nearing the end of the contract, the focus on investing in us as a customer has diminished. It is what one would expect in such a situation."
"You can have a bad day where 80% of the enrollments failed. The next day it's running with the same devices without any changes, and you don't know why."
"There are differences in protecting the data on a mobile device and on iOS. When you protect the data on iOS, you protect the entire device."
"However, in Microsoft Intune that is not possible because Microsoft releases it across the world as one data piece."
"The reports that are generated aren't so great. They don't give a lot of meaning so far, but that could be down to user knowledge than the actual reporting side of things. I'm not a big user of it, but I was a bigger user of MaaS360, and we used to be able to run weekly and monthly reports. In the case of any deviations. we'd get a warning immediately. That's not so easy to do or to get in place for Intune. This could be just a user issue, but when I compare both, that's the only thing that's lacking for me."
"In Microsoft Intune, error messages are an area that has room for improvement. Regarding error messages, I would like to see more detailed logs added."
"I would like more clarity on how Intune is migrating control from Active Directory group policies, especially as we move over to Windows 11. It seems inefficient to manage some settings in Active Directory and others in Intune."
"What frustrates me the most is just waiting and tapping my fingers, uncertain about whether my changes will take effect."
"I think the logging side should be improved because it's pretty difficult to keep up to date VMware and with vCenter."
"It can take a long time for the first information to become available. On the other hand, that's normal. It has to collect a lot of information before it can predict future needs. But it would be nice if there was some kind of base level to get started."
"The price of the solution is too expensive for us and we are looking to move to another solution."
"The solution could be more integrated with the Microsoft environment."
"There are some complexities within the system center. For example, we use two different applications for updates and the deployment of the machine. We also have another third party solution."
"There are a lot of steps to do the configuration. We have to do it step by step and it is time-consuming. If it was easier it could be done quicker. There should be a preloaded configuration."
"There are some complexities within the system center."
"The reporting could be improved."
"More detailed documentation on implementing feature sets and more examples of real world processes would help."
"It is not super-intuitive. It does require some skills to understand how to use it. I had no problem, but I had spent a lot of time already learning this product ahead of moving it to an operational status. But as we did so, we had a hard time bringing some people from other groups into the fold, to script and work against this environment. So, the ability to build workflows within that automation needs to be streamlined."
"Our primary challenge is upgrading the product to the latest version. This process requires careful communication with the vendor to mitigate risks."
"The stability on the 6.2 version is very bad. It crashes. VMware tech support knows the IIS component is a bit buggy."
"Salt does not support performing remote actions that require a sudo password with Salt SSH (agentless Salt execution)."
"I don't find the solution to be intuitive and user- friendly. The GUI is really complicated. Tracking down logs and errors is very hard. Then, it takes a specialized JavaScript person to build. Also, I'm not sure how the upgrades are going now, but they definitely need to evolve the upgrade process. Finally, the logs are very generalized. Giving more of an indicator of what's actually going wrong, rather than just a generic error code, would help."
"I have encountered stability issues; they are always resolved by new releases of the software."
"Something as simple as formatting the catalog in a different way would be helpful because there is no option for doing so. A lot of the contents for the virtual machine, blueprints that you can request, are hidden from view and there's no way to change the view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs we leave up to the customer and these vary from one to another."
"Even if they charge a premium, they aim to provide equal value."
"It's a bit expensive from a licensing perspective, especially as we look to have organizations with tenants across the globe."
"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."
"It comes as a bundle, so you do not really know what the prices are. Microsoft does not break it down to the user cost for us. It is just bundled with our E5 license."
"It is expensive. The cost depends on the license that we choose."
"Microsoft Intune is available for individual purchase at a low per-device cost."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"vCenter's pricing is reasonable, but nowadays, they are drastically increasing their prices, which is pathetic."
"It is an expensive product."
"The product price and licensing fees are reasonable, especially when compared to other products in the market."
"It is on a yearly basis."
"Price-wise, the product is an affordable one. The additional expenses, apart from the licensing costs of the solution, are attached to the support a user wants to receive from vCenter Configuration Manager's end."
"The solution comes with three-year support. We have to renew the support annually after the three years are up."
"While the pricing is reasonable for large corporations, it presents a substantial financial challenge for medium-sized businesses."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, it is reasonably priced compared to competitors."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being very expensive."
"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."
"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"The solution is free of cost."
"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."
"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"It is an open-source product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise186
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Configuration Manager?
Nowadays, it is a bit expensive. It's costly, primarily due to the licensing aspect.
What needs improvement with vCenter Configuration Manager?
My impression on the impact of the real-time monitoring features of vCenter Configuration Manager is that it's somewh...
What is your primary use case for vCenter Configuration Manager?
My usual use cases for vCenter Configuration Manager mainly involve migration, shift and lift mainly, and some type o...
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
vCM
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bank Al Bilad, Thomas-Krenn.AG, Pronto!, Unimed Juiz de Fora
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware Aria Automation vs. vCenter Configuration Manager and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.