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: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Systems Manager vs. VMware Aria Automation

March 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

"The ability to push applications on devices is valuable. You do not have to manually install applications one by one. If you like to use ten different applications, you do not have to manually go and download them one by one. Intune can compile a package for you, and then you can just push them from the admin center."

"Intune makes our organization more secure and flexible. We can onboard new employees faster and more securely. We are a governmental organization with strict regulations, and Intune helps us comply with those requirements."

"Intune's unified endpoint management platform is invaluable."

"Application deployment and keeping the devices secure no matter where they are, by having this cloud solution — that has been great."

"Comparing this to having an endpoint management solution, the efficiency gain may be up to 80%."

"Autopilot is a great feature. Most users are looking for a zero-touch deployment."

"Intune's feature that I have found most valuable is its auto-pilot feature."

"The ability to work from all over the planet is valuable. You just need a functioning and working Internet connection."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"Has a variety of automation options."

"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."

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

"It is beginner-friendly with extensive features that can be learned gradually based on the user's needs and tasks."

"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."

"AWS provides Auto Scaling groups."

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

"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."

More AWS Systems Manager pros

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

"vRA has enabled us to derive value from the cloud faster. It is five to six times faster than traditional solutions."

"The setup is getting better with each version."

"The big benefit is it will spin up VMs quickly so it would take about 13 to 15 minutes to deploy a virtual machine. Whereas, if I were doing it based on an email from users who are requesting VMs, it might take time for me to hear back from them. This could be anywhere from an hour to a day."

"The ability to programmatically describe the desired state of a single, or an entire fleet of servers, on-premises, and in a cloud environment."

"The most valuable feature is vRA’s ability to integrate whether with additional VMware vRealize suites or other vendors' cloud products."

"Scalability is perfect. We haven't had any issues."

"Instead of deploying a VM from a template and going through the process of configuring that VM, with vRA we're able to click once and it does everything: grabs an IP, joins it to the domain, loads whatever configuration agents are needed. It does all of that without manual intervention."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"A more incisive reporting tool with automated progress updates and graphical representation would be beneficial, as the current manual method lacks efficiency and visual clarity."

"Reporting needs to be better. Sometimes, it is way too slow, and it is not even accurate."

"I have a lot of Apple products in my environment. It would be nice to have an improved integration of Apple products with Microsoft Intune without Jam."

"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."

"The initial setup is a little bit complex."

"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."

"Sometimes, updating a client policy is very difficult. This needs to be improved."

"I would like to see better integration with Microsoft."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"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 fact that AWS Systems Manager takes time to complete the patching process, makes it an area where improvements are required."

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

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

"The AWS UIs are not the most intuitive. Also, the usability needs room for improvement."

"It could be agentless if there's room for improvement in the AWS Systems Manager. Currently, you have to install agents, although, for most of the latest EC2 images, the agents come preinstalled. If it could be at the level of Ansible, which is agentless, that would be fantastic. When you compare the solution to Ansible, one of the most widely accepted tools, the agentless feature stands out. So, if the AWS Systems Manager could become agentless, that would be a significant improvement."

"Every AWS service comes with some associated costs."

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

More AWS Systems Manager cons

"7.5 is not user-friendly, in fact, it's a nightmare. They changed everything on the graphic user interface, the mode where the user interacts with the product."

"The setup is difficult. You need a technical person to help you set it up."

"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."

"It would be better if VMware would provide API documentation for developers and customers on the Internet."

"We upgraded twice. The last upgrade was a bit problematic."

"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."

"I would like to see more automation, more ways to automate automation tasks."

"It does go down from time to time. We have some issues with the appliances sometimes and we have to do reboots in the middle of the day. That affects the ability for them to deploy."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a cost benefit of using Microsoft Intune because of the packaging with other Microsoft products."

"Our enterprise agreement includes Microsoft Intune at no additional cost."

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

"Intune is linked with Microsoft. We can deploy the Microsoft E365 license to users by Intune. There are different types of licenses, such as device administrator licenses, E5 licenses for device enrollment manually, and P1 and p2 licenses for device enrollment automatically. These are the licenses required for the administration."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The cost of the license and the features are justified for myself as a technical person."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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."

"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."

"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."

"It is pricey for what you get."

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

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

"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."

"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."

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

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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 ...

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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

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 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 17% of the time

AWS Config vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs AWS Systems Manager

Compared 9% 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

VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 11% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 11% 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

March 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Configuration Management

March 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

March 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: March 2025.

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