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AWS CloudFormation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Intune reduces costs, enhances security, streamlines processes, and improves resource efficiency for significant operational savings.
Sentiment score
9.0
AWS CloudFormation significantly benefits organizations financially by reducing downtime and providing full ROI even after three years.
Sentiment score
7.3
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform accelerates provisioning, saves time, enhances scalability, and optimizes resources, improving maintainability and reducing burnout.
Everything we've gained from it makes my job easier day after day, and I see value in it as an engineer.
Importantly, when someone leaves the company, it helps protect document access on their devices.
Applications are deployed through Intune, and we see fewer tickets for common issues because we can resolve them through the solution.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Intune support varies, with mixed reviews favoring premium support, while others desire more consistent and efficient basic support.
Sentiment score
7.1
AWS CloudFormation support is responsive and expert, with high satisfaction, especially for paid plans, despite some non-production delays.
Sentiment score
7.3
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers strong documentation and support, with high user satisfaction in community and technical assistance.
When a support ticket is submitted, it directly reaches someone with Intune support expertise.
When I contacted Microsoft, they had the same expertise, if not more, which is phenomenal because I felt heard and my problem was solved.
Sometimes, the support provided is excellent, and the representative is knowledgeable, while other times, the service needs improvement.
While this might be acceptable for some, it can be lengthy depending on the urgency of the issue.
Free support for AWS CloudFormation is not provided, and while some support is understandable due to its complexity, assistance for service-related issues should be accessible without a cost.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Microsoft Intune offers seamless scalability for enterprises, supporting diverse devices, though improvements for macOS and dynamic groups are suggested.
Sentiment score
7.3
AWS CloudFormation is highly scalable for various organizations, valued for flexibility but sometimes hindered by limited cloud-agility.
Sentiment score
7.4
Red Hat Ansible scales well in small to mid-sized environments but faces challenges and performance issues in large deployments.
The scalability of Microsoft Intune is ten out of ten.
Ideally, we want to automatically segregate devices based on user properties like primary use, but currently, dynamic groups seem limited to device properties.
It supports organizations with 200 endpoints and those with more than 15,000 endpoints.
Splitting CloudFormation into multiple formations results in changes to resources like API gateway URLs and Cognito pools, which causes issues, especially when trying to maintain consistency across resources.
Adjusting capacity and functionality is a fundamental use.
Ansible can face scalability issues, such as limitations when trying to scale up infrastructure.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Intune is stable and reliable, rated high by users, with minor issues often caused by external factors.
Sentiment score
7.4
AWS CloudFormation is stable and reliable, with occasional small changes, similar to Active Directory, despite learning challenges.
Sentiment score
7.9
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is highly stable, with updates enhancing its reliability, users rating stability 8-10/10.
Microsoft Intune has been very stable.
A couple of years ago, the performance was not as good as it is now, but there are noticeable backend improvements.
We've encountered problems with other services like Exchange, Intune has remained unaffected.
It has been reliable and efficient in all my deployments.
Data loss can occur when splitting or scaling applications due to changes in resources.
 

Room For Improvement

Intune needs better macOS support, integration, UI, MAM capabilities, third-party patching, and faster security policy application.
AWS CloudFormation needs improved UI, multi-cloud support, better documentation, advanced error handling, and enhanced integration with AWS services.
Red Hat Ansible Automation needs improved scalability, usability, integration, module support, and enhanced Windows and non-expert user features.
Features like unlocking devices sometimes fail, and the support offered for other operating systems is insufficient.
There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now.
Many third-party companies offer single-pane-of-glass reporting that shows you what your update environment looks like, how your patch is doing, application status, etc., but Intune's reporting is not intuitive.
It presents challenges for users unfamiliar with coding, posing as a barrier to fully utilizing CloudFormation.
Creating microservices and connecting multiple APIs into a single API gateway can be challenging; documentation should address specific needs.
More library support for microservices architecture and Kubernetes would be helpful.
More detailed dashboards would be beneficial because there is a lack of dashboards on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Intune's integration with Microsoft 365 licenses offers attractive pricing and flexibility, benefiting large organizations but less accessible for small businesses.
AWS CloudFormation is cost-effective and scalable, with charges based on resource usage, ideal for efficient cloud deployments.
Red Hat Ansible offers free and paid options, with costs based on node management and additional features like Ansible Tower.
Introductory professional services, like a fast-track service, were included with our E5 membership, and there have been no additional costs.
The Intune suite and add-ons, such as batch management and remote help, are costly.
We get Intune bundled with our Microsoft agreement.
AWS CloudFormation is free.
The pricing is high, and since I'm not using all functionalities, it would be better if the price depended on the functionalities used.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Intune offers seamless integration, security management, and centralized device management across Windows, iOS, and Android platforms.
AWS CloudFormation enables efficient infrastructure management with automation, reusable templates, and integration, reducing setup time and errors.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is valued for its agentless architecture, ease of use, scalability, and robust community support.
Intune excels in configuration and compliance management for Windows 10, ensuring devices receive timely updates and adhere to organizational standards.
Dynamic groups allow us to set conditions for automatic membership, eliminating the need for user intervention or manual review and ensuring a seamless workflow.
Windows Autopatch is the most valuable because it removes the burden of patch management.
I can see the entire infrastructure and its connections through code.
Managing, maintaining, and deploying become easier as it allows the creation of the same resources on multiple accounts, making it efficient for infrastructure management.
The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors.
It makes it simple to develop Ansible playbooks and roles, which aids in simplifying my daily administrative tasks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
244
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
AWS CloudFormation
Ranking in Configuration Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.1%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS CloudFormation is 1.1%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 18.3%, up from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
Mbula Mboma - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates efficient infrastructure deployment with visibility into resource connections
I primarily use AWS CloudFormation for deploying infrastructure efficiently. For instance, if I want to create load balancers with target groups and EC2 instances, I find CloudFormation simplifies the process of deployment and configuration, reducing the possibility of errors AWS CloudFormation…
Surya Chapagain - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to manage and simple to learn
We use Red Hat a lot. I open tickets for the Red Hat cases, however, with Ansible, I haven't opened any cases. My manager worked with them a bit. If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
21%
Government
6%
University
5%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about AWS CloudFormation?
AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudFormation?
I am not concerned about the pricing or setup costs for AWS CloudFormation, as my account is funded and I haven’t nee...
What needs improvement with AWS CloudFormation?
The Infrastructure Composer is not fully complete, making it necessary to tweak the code manually after generating it...
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 do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
CloudFormation
Ansible
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Nextdoor, Coinbase, Expedia
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudFormation vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.