AWS CloudFormation vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5, while VMware is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.9. Additionally, 96% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of VMware users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

VMware Aria Automation and AWS CloudFormation compete in the cloud automation tools category. AWS CloudFormation seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive integration capabilities and user satisfaction with its powerful feature set.

Features:VMware Aria Automation is known for its robust orchestration and integration capabilities, automation, and flexibility. AWS CloudFormation is valued for its seamless integration with other AWS services, efficient infrastructure management, and deeper ecosystem integration.

Room for Improvement:VMware Aria Automation needs a simplified setup process, better documentation, and improved onboarding. AWS CloudFormation requires more intuitive templating, enhanced error handling, and better template management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:VMware Aria Automation's deployment is complex with extensive customization but has responsive support. AWS CloudFormation is easier to deploy due to AWS’s streamlined services, though support experiences vary.

Pricing and ROI:VMware Aria Automation has higher setup costs with significant ROI for enterprises needing customization. AWS CloudFormation offers lower initial costs and higher ROI through seamless AWS integration and reduced operational complexity.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS CloudFormation vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: August 2024).

Buyer's Guide

AWS CloudFormation vs. VMware Aria Automation

August 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune

Featured Reviews

Summa Lai

IT Manager at a non-profit with 51-200 employees

Sep 10, 2024

It makes managing our endpoints easier, saves costs, and improves productivity

We use Intune for endpoint management to ensure they are updated with the latest patches. We also leverage Intune to oversee our applications and keep them current. Lastly, we employ Intune's remote tools for endpoint administration. We implemented Intune to ensure our endpoints were updated…

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Bireshwar Adhikary

Senior Consultant at ATOS

Jan 20, 2023

Pretty easy setup with great automations for provisioning that save time and money

There are three environments or microservices for support. The first is the sandbox which is like a playground where cloud engineers develop or deploy. The second is the UAT which is for clusters and other things. The third is the E2E environment for testing. These levels provide good support and a high level of availability. Support is very good for cloud hardening and resource tagging. In the non-pro environment, support is comparably less. It takes much more time to follow up or solve issues. On the weekends, you cannot get test study or dev team support because they are not working.

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Sukanya Satapanachai

Infrastructure Professional Service Team Lead at G-Able

Mar 18, 2024

Offers self-service functionality allows customers to provision VMs with a single click

My customers use it to build their private cloud infrastructure VMware Aria Automation improves the IT service delivery process. It can automate manual operations, but you need a development team with coding or programming skills to develop blueprints and automation workflows. While Aria…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Remote Wipe and Autopilot is one of the best features."

"The best feature is that we don't need to worry about downtime. We don't need to worry about the network connections of our office or the virtual private network. Everything is being done through the internet. Using Intune Autopilot, we can configure and deploy everything to the devices."

"The navigation, the keys, and the settings are easy to find. It is easy to understand."

"For Windows services, there are multiple options within Intune to modernize it to be more internet-facing and dynamic."

"Agile and easy to deploy MDM solution that covers the maximum number of policies. Stable, scalable, and with knowledgeable technical support."

"The solution has reduced the risk of security breaches by 30%."

"Intune's most valuable features are the device, compliance, and configuration policies."

"It's easy to deploy a configuration or policy to a system, especially when you don't have Azure AD. Now we are talking to all these small and medium-sized customers who don't necessarily have an on-premise Windows Active Directory. If they have invested in Office 365 Premium, this functionality becomes available to them."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources."

"AWS CloudFormation has automated the resource-building process, thereby removing the scope of human errors. We can tag the resources which help the billing process."

"Since AWS CloudFormation integrates well with the AWS platform, it facilitates faster deployment. Building templates for AWS services within the solution is also straightforward, making the process easier."

"It is easy to work from the console and deploy new database services."

"The most beneficial aspect lies in its capability to handle input acquisition and assessment."

"Versioning makes our work easy."

"The most valuable features of AWS CloudFormation are all the resources documentation is located in one location, simple resource reverting, and ease of use of the full package for new users."

"The CloudFormation template can be reused to create multiple stacks, reducing duplications and improving our infrastructure."

More AWS CloudFormation pros

"The operations manager does a fantastic job on the front end because it includes on-premises and cloud use cases."

"VMware Aria Automation has made a lot of things easier. It has really helped the operations team to spin up the virtual machines."

"It is probably 90 percent quicker to get something out the door than it was before. For developers, depending on who is building VMs for them, sometimes they request anywhere from 20 to 100. Now, we can deploy them in a matter of an hour, where previously it might have taken me three days to deploy out 100 VMs."

"We've just shifted to an Agile development so there has absolutely been an improvement in speed to market. We now have consistent release plans because we have these environments as ready as they are."

"Having an enterprise service catalog and being able to automate various parts of our infrastructure are among the most important components."

"We use it to deploy databases and testing environments. It spins up quickly and also break down fast."

"It is also intuitive and user-friendly... With vRealize, we can have a Help Desk individual, who might not be that techy, provision the different elements quite easily, with no almost training at all."

"The product is very user-friendly."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"It needs certificate provisioning for S/MIME purposes."

"We've faced significant pushback with Copilot as our clients aren't seeing a favorable cost-benefit analysis."

"There is still a gap between SCCM and Intune, especially in the reporting, inventory, and software deployment areas."

"There are items that require improvements. One is the controls from iOS."

"We need the capabilities of the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) to be enhanced through Intune instead of Azure."

"Some enrollment features could be improved."

"A new Intune feature allows application packaging, but it incurs additional licensing costs for a significant number of applications."

"When somebody has a customized application or their own company's application, we cannot deploy that application."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"They could improve the product's capability to handle circular dependencies more effectively."

"There could be better error handling. It would be a good way to improve the solution."

"There is less support for on-premise environments."

"The product should be made cloud-agnostic, allowing users to deploy the same environment with minimal tweaks across different cloud platforms, similar to Terraform. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have the ability to manage templates outside of the AWS environment."

"There are some limitations with JSON, as the code is written in JSON, which doesn't support commands, looping, or conditionals. This can make the code difficult to read and share across teams. Moreover, the tool only supports AWS."

"Provisioning a large environment or a large number of services takes a bit more time than with Terraform."

"What could be improved in AWS CloudFormation is its user interface, in terms of graphical design, I prefer WYSIWYG."

"One area where AWS CloudFormation could improve is by offering more flexibility in creating custom templates."

More AWS CloudFormation cons

"The basic support is not there for Google Cloud and Azure. They are unable to provision nor do cost controls. Google is still left out. It is great that they have done AWS, but we are a retailer which means nothing to us because it is a competitor. Azure is good, but Google is where a lot of our development environments are."

"The setup needs coding. It's not easy. It's not straightforward."

"The initial setup is very complex because we have a bunch of customization workflows. They were built-in features that we had to program as code with Orchestration."

"We would like them to improve the automation part. This is an upcoming area that we would like to focus on."

"It would be nice in the next release if they added in tool tips. Whether you're putting it together, adding a blueprint, or you're making a change in the system, highlighting or selecting something and having it tell you what it does or what it will do would be nice. Because it's such a complex system, it's hard to work with unless you've been using it for years to know what everything is doing."

"Our primary challenge is upgrading the product to the latest version. This process requires careful communication with the vendor to mitigate risks."

"They should concentrate on navigation and service improvements."

"The upgrade experience is horrible. It's not straightforward, there are a lot of failures, a lot of support interactions. It's not something that we are able to pull off ourselves. I've been with vRA since it was termed vCSA. We've gone through multiple rounds, and it has never been easy."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not that aware of the pricing, but as compared to other MDM solutions, Microsoft is providing a lot of things at the organizational level. So, it is quite reasonable as compared to other MDM solutions."

"The price is very reasonable."

"Microsoft Intune is not cost-effective as a standalone product."

"On a scale of one to ten with one being the cheapest, the cost of Microsoft Intune is a five."

"Our Office 365 Business Premium license, including Office 365 and Intune Management, offers excellent value."

"They have categorized the licenses according to the size of the business. So, if it's a smaller organization, we can choose the license accordingly. If it's a big organization, then we can choose accordingly. Everything is clearly mentioned, and we can decide. It's suitable for all kinds of infrastructure, and that's very goo"

"It is not a cheap solution. The price for a device when you start using it at a large scale can be improved. It is covered under our enterprise agreement. We pay once a year. I am not aware of any additional costs."

"I would rate the price a four out of ten with ten being the most expensive."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"In general, pricing within AWS is relatively affordable."

"If you compared serverless and container-based, serverless is less expensive. If you use certain instances the price can increase and become too expensive."

"The tool is free for the AWS environment."

"AWS CloudFormation doesn't have any cost because it's only the resources that you deploy with the solution that'll incur costs."

"The price of the solution is good because it is scalable."

"The product is free."

"The solution's cost is normal, neither cheap nor expensive."

"AWS CloudFormation's pricing is cheaper than that of other cloud providers."

More AWS CloudFormation pricing and cost advice

"The solution is free of cost."

"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."

"As far as value is concerned, it has been essential to our environment. We have been able to deploy VMs quickly and the developers have their own sandbox, so they can spin up and destroy VMs at their own will."

"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."

"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."

"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being very expensive."

"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."

"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Retailer

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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 ...

See all answers

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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about AWS CloudFormation?

AWS Cloud automation reduces the time needed to create AWS resources.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudFormation?

The tool's pricing depends on the page model.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS CloudFormation?

I prefer Terraform over AWS CloudFormation because AWS CloudFormation is specific to just AWS. But if I want to use a...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 17% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 7% of the time

SOTI MobiControl vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

AWS Systems Manager vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 55% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 18% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 9% of the time

Spring Cloud vs AWS CloudFormation

Compared 9% of the time

More AWS CloudFormation Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 21% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 11% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 8% of the time

vCenter Orchestrator vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

August 2024

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS CloudFormation

September 2024

Download AWS CloudFormation product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

August 2024

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

CloudFormation

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

Learn More

Microsoft

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

VMware

Overview

Microsoft Intune is a comprehensive cloud-based service that allows you to remotely manage mobile devices and mobile applications without worrying about the security of your organization’s data. Device and app management can be used on company-owned devices as well as personal devices.

In an increasingly mobile workforce, Microsoft Intune keeps your sensitive data safe while on the move. Microsoft Intune makes it possible for your team members to work anywhere using their mobile devices. Microsoft Intune provides both the flexibility and the control needed for securing all your data on the cloud, no matter where the device with the data is located.

Microsoft Intune Device Management Key Features

With Microsoft Intune Device Management you can:

Ensure devices and apps are compliant with your security requirements.
Rapidly deploy and authenticate apps on all company devices.
Remotely access devices to troubleshoot issues or to remove data from them.
Generate reports for all devices in the system.
Monitor the way users access and share information to protect company information.
Set rules and configure settings on personal and organization-owned devices to access data and networks.
Create user groups and device groups, allowing you to rapidly access many users and devices simultaneously.

Mobile Application Management

Mobile application management in Intune is designed to protect your organization’s data at the application level.

With Microsoft Intune Application Management you can:

Configure apps to run with specific settings enabled.
Update existing apps that are already on the device.
See reports on which apps are used and monitor their usage.
Selectively wipe organization data from apps.
Add mobile apps to user groups and devices.

As part of Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) suite, Intune integrates with Microsoft Entra ID for access control and with Azure Information Protection for data protection. It also integrates with Microsoft 365 Applications.

Reviews from Real Users

Microsoft Intune stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its ability to secure all devices under its management and the flexibility that the solution offers its users.

A computing services manager notes, "Its security is most valuable. It gives us a way to secure devices, not only those that are steady. We do have a few tablets and other devices, and it is a way for us to secure these devices and manage them. We know they're out there and what's their status. We can manage their life cycle and verify that they're updated properly."

The head of IT engineering at a financial services company writes, "The one feature we find most useful is the Mobile Application Manager. There are two types: we have the complete MDM and the Mobile Application Manager (MAM). We don't give our users phones, it is their own personal phone, and we need to allow them to have access to the company details on their phone. We need to create a balance between their own personal data and the company data. We deploy the Mobile Application Manager for them so that we won't be able to interfere with their own personal data."

AWS CloudFormation provides a common language for you to model and provision AWS and third party application resources in your cloud environment. AWS CloudFormation allows you to use programming languages or a simple text file to model and provision, in an automated and secure manner, all the resources needed for your applications across all regions and accounts. This gives you a single source of truth for your AWS and third party resources.

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features.

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.
Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.
DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.
Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.
Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.
Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.
Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.
Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.
Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.
Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.
The solution offers high levels of security and control.
This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.
VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.
The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.
The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Nextdoor, Coinbase, Expedia

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Buyer's Guide

AWS CloudFormation vs. VMware Aria Automation

August 2024

Free Report: AWS CloudFormation vs. VMware Aria Automation

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudFormation vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: August 2024.

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