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Cisco UCS Director vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS Director
Ranking in Cloud Management
24th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (8th), Network Automation (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 1.8%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.8%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation5.8%
Cisco UCS Director1.8%
Other92.4%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

OR
Senior Telecommunications Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Managing extensive VoIP services becomes efficient and seamless
We use Cisco UCS Director primarily for managing our VoIP service to maintain seamless service delivery. We operate in an enterprise government environment Cisco UCS Director is straightforward to use, which we greatly appreciate. It helps save time by making it quicker to roll out new call…
VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Without UCS Director it wouldn't be possible for us to go from receiving shipments at a data center to having systems live in production in a matter of days, or sometimes hours, instead of waiting weeks."
"Better visibility and better control are the main benefits people receive from Cisco UCS Director; the automation and the orchestration part, these three to four points are the key factors to decide on Cisco UCS Director."
"UCS director enables us to be more productive and more agile, and also more self-sufficient because we don't have to depend on anybody else."
"As usual, the technical support from Cisco is amazing."
"A product that really aids in systems management without complexity."
"Cisco's knowledge base is extensive."
"The solution is helpful for centralized management."
"The improvement for our organization has really been ease of use; we'd be a mess without the solution."
"VMware Aria Automation is a very scalable solution because it integrates well with a couple of leading products in the industry. For products that are not already integrated, there are plugins or adapters that can be used with customization."
"There are a lot of different benefits with this product, because there are a lot of things that we're trying to automate."
"Interoperability between operating systems with the ability to perform mass automation with triggering Integration with many vendors These features are valuable because I need them to complete the work assigned to me."
"Probably the extensibility as well as the out-of-the-box features it provides, which allow you to be very creative with things you can add on and customise."
"Now the customer can manage their own server requirements directly. This is very important because, before that, the process included signing off on forms and sending them to the IT Director. It took at least 10 days to create a VM and send it to the person who needed it. Now, it's no more than a half hour to activate a new VM at the customer's site."
"He liked the way SaltStack (on the entire cluster) was up and running in a few minutes, and also gave him flexibility to generate traffic, make config changes, etc. on the fly."
"Now, it's no more than a half hour to activate a new VM at the customer's site."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution could be improved is including a feature where I could do things programmatically versus having to create workarounds to get what I want to get done."
"The scalability of this solution needs to be improved because as it is now, you cannot scale the storage alone. Rather, you have to scale the storage and the compute together."
"It is not easy to add or expand the product."
"We cannot depend on this solution to manage all of the data center's infrastructure."
"There could be an improvement with the integration with the newest solutions from other vendors' technologies."
"There aren’t any areas of improvement that immediately come to mind."
"There could be an improvement with the integration with the newest solutions from other vendors' technologies."
"The areas where this product can be improved are the integrations and the UI. These features are not as friendly compared to VMware products."
"Sometimes, salt-minions do start consuming very high memory, but I've generally seen this to last just a few moments or at most a minute."
"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."
"I would not recommend this product. I think that there are better products to meet your needs that are competitors on the market."
"I know you can spin up virtual desktops in vRA, but they're not thin-provisioned. I don't know if that's because the other product, Horizon View, is there, but it would be nice to see more integration."
"It's not cheap. It would be more expensive to get an alternative though because we would have to buy the extras for it."
"VMware should go the way of vROps, with everything in one machine, the ability to scale out, and a more distributed environment instead of having the usual centralized SQL database."
"There is certainly room for improvement with some of the little things I was talking about, like either better managing of the upgrade process, or just making the infrastructure deployment a little bit easier. It feels like all of the pieces have been automated on one level or another, like with the PowerShell scripts, doing all the IS, Windows boxes preparation. They just need to get it to be more end-to-end."
"When you start to do a deployment where you need higher availability and more resiliency, then the complexity goes up drastically."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this solution is significant."
"I rate Cisco UCS Director's price a three out of ten. Cisco UCS Director is not an affordable product. With Cisco UCS Director, there is a need to pay an overall price, which consists of the product, software, and support."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing around five to six out of ten."
"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"The budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."
"I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."
"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."
"We do plan to see ROI with any new implementation of new technologies being implemented within our environment."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"The pricing is very high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Director?
While the pricing might be seen as expensive, it provides value for money due to reliable service and excellent technical support.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Director?
It should be more of a cloud-based architecture for Cisco UCS Director, and it should be affordable to small customers as well because the pricing is a major challenge when we talk about Cisco UCS ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS Director?
Mainly in my region and country, large data center customers are using Cisco UCS Director, not the SMB or mid-market customers. More of the on-premise customers are utilizing Cisco UCS Director. Th...
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 you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
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 free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
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 companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Entel, Data#3, Cegal, NESIC, LightEdge
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Director vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.