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Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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 Azure DevOps
Ranking in Release Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
130
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (2nd), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (1st)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Release Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (1st), Network Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 38.9%, up from 36.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 4.9%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Release Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Akshat Prakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to deploy code to production without releasing certain features immediately and agile project management capabilities offer resource-leveling
My company has experienced benefits from using it or from recent updates in Azure Pipelines. For instance, we can manage different code versions from the same repository across different environments. We also use feature flags; the code is deployed, but the feature can be made visible to the end user at a later time. Additionally, as part of the deployment, we integrate automated and regression testing, which stops the deployment if testing fails, thus preventing regression bugs. This saves time and increases productivity by reducing the need for manual testing. Lastly, it integrates with the project management aspects, allowing us to link code deployments with project milestones. Azure DevOps supported our shift towards DevOps culture or practices. We shifted to the cloud environment and started migrating from our data centers about eight or nine years back. It has been a long journey. However, we have used Azure DevOps for almost five to six years in every project. We also use automation testing in Azure, so we have an integrated test suite that allows us to perform functional and regression testing effectively via the Azure DevOps system.
Surya Chapagain - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to manage and simple to learn
We use Red Hat a lot. I open tickets for the Red Hat cases, however, with Ansible, I haven't opened any cases. My manager worked with them a bit. If we have a problem with some file and we need to get Red Hat to analyze the issue and the file is 100GBs, we'll have an issue since we need to provide a log file for them to analyze. If it is around 12GB or 13GB, we can easily upload it to the Red Hat portal. With more than 100GBs, it will fail. I heard it should cover up to 250GB for an upload, however, I find it fails. Therefore, Red Hat needs to provide a way to handle this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is very easy."
"It's got something that you won't find in other products."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the CI/CD pipeline, and the testing automation."
"It is easy to use. The shared repository is useful. Everything is in one environment."
"I found the Kanban board to be the most useful for my needs."
"Valuable features for project management and tracking in Azure DevOps include a portal displaying test results, check-in/check-out activity, and developer/tester productivity."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure DevOps are high-level protection. The protection is very important to the customers to prevent eavesdropping. eavesdropping is when a hacker tries to get into the solution. With this solution is it difficult for them to do it."
"The solution is good for everything, including end-to-end planning and its deployment and testing."
"Some colleagues and other companies use it and comment that it is easy to use, easy to understand, and offers good features."
"The initial setup is easy and takes a few hours to complete."
"It does not require staff for deployment and maintenance. It just works."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don’t need an agent for it to work."
"The user interface is well-built and very easy to navigate around."
"It is agentless. I don't have to think about which client system my unit has understanding in or not, because I can execute from my system. It will go and configure it, and any module that it is looking for will be shipped out."
"The most valuable feature is that Ansible is agentless."
"It is very easy to use, and there is less room for error."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a bit more project tracking."
"The solution should have fewer updates."
"The tool has a logical link between epic feature, user story, and task, but when you try to generate a report to show the delivery progress against a feature, it is not easy. To see the percentage completion for a feature or progress of any delivery, it is not easy to draw a report."
"The dashboards need bigger with better extensions and layouts. There isn't a workflow related to the statuses on the dashboard. It only lists the statuses. You can have one started, and once done, but everything in between is only in progress and could be in any order you want, it lacks flow."
"We did have some brief performance issues, however, that was due to putting everything on one epic instead of breaking a project up."
"Non-functional testing such as security testing, log testing, and performance testing can be improved with a better visualization."
"Better integration with the Linux operating system would be an improvement for this solution."
"It should be easier to manage Licenses especially because it's in the cloud."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better."
"We are not using the Dashboard a lot because we have higher expectations from it. The default Dashboard from Tower doesn't give that much information. We really want to get down into more than if the job succeeded or what was the percentage of success. We want to get down to task-level success. If, in a job, there are ten tasks, we want to see this task was a success, and this was not, and how many were not. That's the kind of granularity we are looking for, that Tower does not give right now."
"The user interface on the Ansible Tower product could be better, but it is functional."
"Some of the modules in Ansible could be a bit more mature. There is still a little room for further development. Some performance aspects could be improved, perhaps in the form of parallelism within Ansible."
"What I would like to see is a refined Dashboard to see, when I log in: Here are all my jobs, here are how many times they've executed; some kind graphical stitching-together of the workflows and jobs, and how they're connected. Also, those "failed hosts," what does that mean? We have a problem, a failed host can be anything. Is SSH the reason it failed? Is the job template why it failed? It doesn't really distinguish that."
"It should support more integration with different products."
"The SSM connection access needs improvement"
"The solution must be made easier to configure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When compared to other vendors, it is cheaper."
"We have an MPN subscription for Microsoft Azure DevOps, and it's all included."
"There is a licensing fee of $6/user per month."
"Compared to other tools, Microsoft Azure DevOps is a cheap solution."
"Microsoft Azure DevOps is free for up to five users and allows you to track a maximum of three projects."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"It is a subscription model and I only pay for what I use."
"The reason that customers are going to the cloud is that it provides the ability to reduce the license cost. For example, when purchasing Office 365 it is bundled with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and many other applications. In the past, purchasing a license was approximately $600. Today it's only $35 or $45 per customer, per client, or per user, plus the storage. It's less expensive for companies today, to use something, such as Microsoft Azure DevOps, and provide the software to all the employees needing a license. It's better to go with the cloud than just to buy the licenses by themselves."
"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."
"Everything is generally fair. No one ever likes to pay a lot of money, but we are getting the value. We also get support with it. It has been fair and worthwhile."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"I don't see the pricing or licensing features, but from what I understand, it is fairly reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Valuable features for project management and tracking in Azure DevOps include a portal displaying test results, check-in/check-out activity, and developer/tester productivity.
What is the difference between Red Hat Satellite and Ansible?
Red Hat Satellite has proven to be a worthwhile investment for me. Both its patch management and license management have been outstanding. If you have a large environment, patching systems is much ...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

Also Known As

Azure DevOps, VSTS, Visual Studio Team Services, MS Azure DevOps
Ansible
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alaska Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Columbia, Skype
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure DevOps vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.