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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
22nd
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) (19th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 1.9%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.6%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation5.6%
Cisco UCS Director1.9%
Other92.5%
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

"Cisco UCS Director is straightforward to use, which we greatly appreciate."
"This is a user-friendly solution that is very good and easy to use."
"This is a user-friendly solution that is very good and easy to use."
"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."
"The improvement for our organization has really been ease of use; we'd be a mess without the solution."
"I can manage multiple workloads whether it's on AWS, Azure, or on-premises. They can be managed by using the UCS Director."
"Feature-wise, the solution helps one to add multiple environments in one place...It is a scalable product."
"Cisco's knowledge base is extensive."
"The DevOps for infrastructure capabilities has saved time for our developers by automating processes and reducing provisioning time. Task time has been reduced by 40 percent."
"Fast provisioning and integration with public cloud."
"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."
"In one use case for a large marketplace, a typical release cycle took about 80 hours and was brought down to three hours by automating deployment for developers."
"The self service portal: People don't have to come to us to request something. They can just go fill out a form. Within 30 minutes, they have what they requested."
"It is possible to completely automatize the creation and removal of a virtual machine."
"It has helped our organization tremendously."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"There are a lot of bugs in the solution. This is an area in the solution that can be improved."
"Currently, Cisco UCS Director is unable to integrate with another product or with a server from another brand."
"Normally, UCS Director is used primarily for orchestration, but when we look at non-Cisco data infrastructure components, the UCS Director needs a bit more improvement in terms of integration with third-party systems and with existing older systems."
"The user interface could use improvement."
"We cannot depend on this solution to manage all of the data center's infrastructure."
"I would like to see more integration with other solutions."
"There could be an improvement with the integration with the newest solutions from other vendors' technologies."
"I want to see HTML 5. I want to get rid of JavaScript. First off, I know nothing about JavaScript. That doesn't mean I'm going to know anything better about HTML 5, but I do know that we have a lot of issues with Java crashing when we're using vCenter."
"Improvements in the API. Make it easier because that's where we tend to struggle when we were working with other groups."
"Windows support is advertised as a first-rate supported platform; however, it is ripe with issues that have added countless hours to our roadmap."
"I rate the solution at seven out of ten because I don't believe it's a perfect solution."
"It is bleeding edge technology, but at times, it is buggy."
"I would like to see better integration capabilities. Maybe if they could develop libraries within Aria Automation for simpler integration with other third-party solutions, instead of just basic integration."
"There are a number of bugs and regression errors that can make it frustrating at times, but given the flexibility so far I have found adequate workarounds."
"The back-end has a steep learning curve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"The cost of this solution is significant."
"The budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."
"I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"VMware Aria Automation is expensive."
"The pricing is very high."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."
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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.
891,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.