AWS Systems Manager 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 #5 with an average rating of 8.1, while VMware is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.8. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 10.7% mindshare in CM, compared to VMware’s 5.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% 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 Systems Manager both compete in the IT automation space. AWS Systems Manager seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive features and integration capabilities.

Features: VMware Aria Automation offers policy-based management, automated delivery, and support for multiple cloud environments. AWS Systems Manager provides automation for compliance, robust monitoring, and seamless integration with other AWS services.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Automation needs better integration with third-party tools, a more intuitive setup process, and improved overall documentation. AWS Systems Manager users desire better documentation, simplified onboarding for new users, and more frequent updates to address emerging challenges.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Automation is praised for its smooth deployment but has mixed reviews on customer service. AWS Systems Manager is highly rated for deployment simplicity and superior customer support.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Automation has higher setup costs but offers solid ROI through streamlined processes. AWS Systems Manager has competitive pricing and provides excellent ROI through its comprehensive features and seamless AWS integration.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Systems Manager vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Systems Manager vs. VMware Aria Automation

April 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Systems Manager is 10.7%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.6%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Ambe Frankline

Cloud/DevOps Engineer at Innovative Technology Systems

Tracks every action on AWS accounts in a centralized way

Setting up AWS Systems Manager to monitor and control other services is easy. You need to link the services you want to observe and track. The time it takes to deploy depends on factors like connectivity, latency, and the complexity of the services. For example, setting up a simple application is faster than setting up a more complicated three-tier or multi-tier system. Using the solution for batch updates varies depending on the number of servers involved and the commands needed. Personally, when I do small projects at home, deploying a few servers doesn't take long. But at work, where we handle larger deployments with hundreds of servers, it's faster due to better connectivity and resources.

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Le Quang Long

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.

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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

"It's really easy to access."

"Intune has automated the deployment of patches and applications, which is more efficient and easier. It allows us to deploy applications, packages, Windows updates, and security updates like BitLocker encryption more efficiently and easily."

"Intune provides full endpoint visibility and IT control across device platforms. You can individualize it for your company with the Intune Company Portal app."

"Implementing Microsoft Intune has provided a more streamlined and consistent method for device management across our multiple domains, effectively consolidating our administrative efforts."

"Everything has worked better since we started using Intune."

"It provides control over all mobile devices that are being connected to the corporate network."

"Third party integrations are very convenient to use with Microsoft Intune."

"The solution is stable."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems manually."

"AWS provides Auto Scaling groups."

"When we do the automation in the cloud, we use the SSM agent. This helps us to test our automation and documents, and monitor the cloud."

"AWS Systems Manager's most valuable feature is its ability to dynamically export and import values in various AWS accounts."

"I use AWS Systems Manager primarily for infrastructure management and automation. One of its key benefits is managing patches and updates for our EC2 instances, including both Windows and Linux workloads. It can perform compliance checks on all managed workloads, identifying which systems aren't compliant or haven't been patched."

"The solution is user-friendly"

"The solution's ability to scale is good."

"Systems Manager has a feature where it analyzes the logs and gives us a performance overview in the form of a graph. We know when it's taking up more resources and when there are spikes, so we can predict the usability."

More AWS Systems Manager pros

"The extensibility of it and the customization of a lot of the Blueprints, that you can customize, and the community as a whole. There's a ton of community-generated Blueprints that might be (helpful) to set up a design for your automation needs, that you can use as a base and go on from there and make changes to it."

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

"Scalability is probably the best part about it. You can take things that you've already defined, that you've already built once, and build them again multiple times, without significant effort."

"The setup was straightforward. We upgraded to a newer version seamlessly. It worked really well."

"The most valuable feature is, instead of doing the VMotion manually, we have automated everything with a script, using vRealize. That means I don't need to think about things like compatibility. The system will do everything for me and just give me a report."

"It has saved us a lot of time and work. It helped us to reorganize some of our service lines, so we could be more efficient. For example, on our open system server team, we had 15 people building servers, now we have two."

"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 product’s most valuable feature is its ability to provide environmental security."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

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

"A major challenge is making all the products work within device management solutions like Intune. It would be beneficial if Microsoft removed support for older products much earlier in the process."

"It should be easier to define policies and comply with those policies."

"Intune has limited integration with non-Microsoft solutions."

"Intune has all the features enabled for Windows devices but needs to be improved on iOS and Apple devices."

"It would be interesting to integrate the server side of Intune. Some group policy updates we have on the Windows Server side and possibly some on the client side could also be included."

"What would make this product better is adding more security policies and features in the next upgrade."

"It would be better if I could integrate it with my core group policy. I would like to have a group policy in my current environment, which has strict control, but those things are still missing. Although it has maximum compliance and security, it's not available on-premise."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"AWS does not have EKS cluster backup."

"We formerly used third-party products to analyze the log, give us information, and find bottlenecks. Systems Manager could provide more tools that conduct this analysis, so we don't have to do it ourselves."

"The current challenge is that we can't pull any incidents from other accounts."

"One area that could be enhanced is dynamic configuration management. Additionally, improving integration with other AWS services like Lambda and CloudFormation would be beneficial."

"Lacks sufficient integrations."

"I'd like to see more automation for monitoring and managing things like AWS CloudWatch and AWS Config. It would be a significant improvement if it could automatically handle these tasks and address issues as they arise."

"Additional features can be added as per customer requirements."

"Ensuring broader OS coverage in patch management could be beneficial for the product."

More AWS Systems Manager cons

"SaltStack's features are minimal."

"The solution could be lighter. As an administrator, I would like to simplify the number of services I need to deploy. They took a significant step in that direction by removing all the Windows dependencies that we had in the past, but there are still a lot of services consuming resources."

"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."

"I would like to see more integration to do things like DR, from a court perspective. Today, for us, SRM doesn't scale because each of our customers has a local vCenter environment as well as the vCenter in our environment. So we can't get SRM to scale to the point to which we need. From an integration perspective, DR inside of that would be good."

"I think they could probably do more if they created more actions and more use cases to automate things."

"The stability needs a lot of work. The troubleshooting component of vRealize is a pain. The administration and the upgrades are not up to the mark. If they were able to improve on that, that would be the best thing and would make it much easier to run it in the enterprise."

"The connectivity between VMs is easy, but they can be made more effective if we have a single proof point where we can configure all the biggest data at a single point."

"They can improve on the dashboard representations and the options for non-technical people. I would like to see the ability to customize that and maybe provide them with helpful guides to what subscriptions they have. Sometimes, I find that I have to do more explanation to people who do approvals. I would really like to customize the display to the terms they use in their particular business unit. So a little bit more of a nod to the customization of the UI for non-technical users would be helpful."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license needed to use the solution and we are on an annual license."

"Intune is included in the Microsoft 365 licensing package that we have."

"The pricing is not cheap, especially with inflation. They've had to increase their prices. It's not excessive, but alright."

"Intune is cost-effective as it is included in some of the Office 365 packages."

"Intune's pricing is reasonable considering its benefits and the high costs it helps avoid."

"No one can compete with Microsoft when it comes to price, and the features it is offering."

"The product is expensive."

"I rate Intune an eight out of ten for affordability. It's bundled with the 365 licensing, which is competitive overall."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"Most of the features are free. I'm not entirely certain, but I believe the pricing is generally very low. Some services that are part of Ops Manager might have associated costs."

"As we were doing a government project so the government got the project at a very nominal cost."

"The platform provides excellent value for the capabilities it offers when compared to third-party tools for similar tasks."

"An AWS cloud engineer can bring down the costs."

"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."

"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."

"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."

"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."

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

"The pricing is very high."

"It is an open-source product."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

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 Systems Manager?

With AWS Systems Manager, our company can patch our systems directly from it, so we don't need to patch our systems m...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Systems Manager?

Every AWS service comes with some associated costs. While using AWS Systems Manager, we continually monitor to optimi...

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What needs improvement with AWS Systems Manager?

There isn't anything specific I remember at the moment.

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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 14% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

IBM MaaS360 vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 16% of the time

AWS Config vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 9% of the time

AWS CloudFormation vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 5% of the time

More AWS Systems Manager Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 17% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 15% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 11% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

April 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Configuration Management

April 2025

Download AWS Systems Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

March 2025

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Amazon Elastic Container Registry

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

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

AWS Systems Manager is a management service that helps you automatically collect software inventory, apply OS patches, create system images, and configure Windows and Linux operating systems. These capabilities help you define and track system configurations, prevent drift, and maintain software compliance of your EC2 and on-premises configurations. By providing a management approach that is designed for the scale and agility of the cloud but extends into your on-premises data center, Systems Manager makes it easier for you to seamlessly bridge your existing infrastructure with AWS.

Systems Manager is easy to use. Simply access Systems Manager from the EC2 Management Console, select the instances you want to manage, and define the management tasks you want to perform. Systems Manager is available now at no cost to manage both your EC2 and on-premises resources.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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.

VMware

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS Systems Manager vs. VMware Aria Automation

April 2025

Free Report: AWS Systems Manager vs. VMware Aria Automation

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Systems Manager vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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