Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

Microsoft and Red Hat are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Microsoft holds a 13.2% mindshare in CM, compared to Red Hat’s 18.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

Microsoft Configuration Manager and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cater to enterprise-level IT management and automation. Microsoft Configuration Manager seems to perform better in inventory management and software deployment due to its integration with Microsoft tools, while Red Hat Ansible excels in automation tasks with its agentless architecture and ease of use.

Features: Microsoft Configuration Manager integrates seamlessly with Microsoft tools, enhances detailed patch management, and provides comprehensive inventory management. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers an agentless architecture, ease-of-use with YAML, and efficient cross-platform automation through playbooks.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Configuration Manager needs improvement in reducing CPU/memory consumption and simplifying configuration deployment. Enhancements are needed in WSUS integration and appliance-based delivery. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform could benefit from more module development, expanded credential types, and better scalability and speed, with improvements in documentation and user interface needed for less experienced users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Configuration Manager is best deployed on-premises with varying technical support experiences. Many users resort to community support for faster responses. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers flexibility with hybrid cloud deployment and generally satisfactory technical support, complemented by extensive online resources.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Configuration Manager has a complex and high-cost licensing model, often requiring additional SQL Server licenses, but delivers strong ROI through centralized management. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is more cost-effective due to its open-source model but necessitates licensing for enterprise features, yielding good ROI by lowering operational costs via automation.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

January 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 February 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.1%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 13.2%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 18.3%, up from 18.2% 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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MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements

While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

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Surya Chapagain

Senior System Administrator at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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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

"Compliance and the policies that can be set are the most valuable features."

"The many policies available in Microsoft Intune for managing our devices are valuable."

"We have found the solution is capable of scaling."

"The most important thing for me is the autopilot feature."

"The ability to wipe data from and reset devices is one of the most important and valuable features. If a device is reported stolen, we can freeze it or wipe the data from it, preventing data leakage."

"The product has eased the deployment of Microsoft apps to the devices. We can manage it properly. We can control it and push the updates. Another company helped us with the deployment. However, we can do it internally."

"I particularly appreciate the administration and security features, which can be deployed easily."

"The main benefit for us with Microsoft Intune is centralized management of all devices, allowing us to apply one policy across the company from one location."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The scalability to deploy the package."

"This solution has made life easy with respect to patching, compliance, and OSD."

"I manage software updates and operating systems for devices, and within seconds, we can remotely deploy a system for, say, 2,000 devices. Not only that, but we can also deploy scripts and create comprehensive compliance rules."

"We have found the scalability to be quite good."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is it's incredibly simple to configure and execute changes in bulk, allowing for seamless deployment. With this solution, you can easily track the status of all modifications and send them with ease, making it a comprehensive and efficient solution for any necessary adjustments."

"The solution is stable."

"It saves a lot of money when you can install things automatically and they are installed the exact same way on every computer."

"It does the job and meets our needs. With everybody working remotely these days, we are using this solution to deploy everything. The deployment of PCs is easy."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

"The most valuable features of the solution are its configuration management, drift management, workflow templates with the visual UI, and graphical workflow representation."

"We can automate a few host configurations using the product."

"The Organizations feature, where I can give clear silos and hand them over to different teams, that's amazing; everybody says that it's their own Tower. It's like they have their own Tower out there."

"Being a game-changer in configuration management software is what has made Ansible so popular and widespread. Much of IT is based on SSH direct connectivity with a need for running infrastructure in an agentless way, and that has been a big plus. SSH has become a great security standard for managing servers. The whole thing has really become an out-of-the-box solution for managing a Unix estate."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"Ansible provides great reliability when coupled with a versioning system (git). It helps providing predictability to the network by knowing exactly what's being pushed after validating it in production."

"Having the Dashboard from an admin point of view, and seeing how all the projects and all the jobs lay out, is helpful."

"There are no agents by default, so adding a new server is a matter of a couple lines of configuration (on a new server and the configuration master)."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pros

Cons

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

"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."

"The solution's app deployment needs to be improved."

"The interface is not as modern as some competitors in terms of single pane of glass visibility across the entire landscape. It has a very Azure vibe and may not be as graphically appealing as other products."

"The mobile management is good for iPhone and iPad, but the Apple Mac management needs improvement. That is probably because Microsoft does not have low-level access to Apple Mac hardware. If you are doing basic things, it is okay, but if you want to image Apple Macs and do things like that, then Jamf is much better."

"Its integration with Mac and Linux devices can be better. They should provide more features similar to Windows. We should be able to manage policies within Linux and Mac machines. If we can have more granular controls for these two operating systems, it will be really helpful."

"I, as such, do not have any specific inputs or needs. However, there is always room for improvement when it comes to scalability."

"The solution requires Mac support."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"The operations could be faster and you need some patience with this tool."

"There should probably be better remote support. They should also continue to improve on patch management, patching, and creating or turning products in software into deployable apps."

"The ability to integrate MDM would be great."

"Based on my experience with SCCM 2016, the main, big issue is not having a good user-friendly environment. It needs much better GUI."

"Not everything is readily available, and there are a lot of commands that are only executable via PowerShell."

"The solution should incorporate AI. It should also incorporate real-time capabilities. If we could get real-time information about challenges or issues, it would allow us to take immediate action. For example, with the recent outage caused by the Windows issue, having a real-time warning system could have helped us avoid or reduce the downtime we experienced."

"SCCM can improve on third-party application support."

"The main room for improvement is the on-screen display. I think it would be good if some improvements were made."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

"It needs better documentation."

"There should be better Windows support. We have had to develop a lot of our own roles because of the Windows platform. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux ones existed but not the Windows versions, so I have had to develop a bunch of Windows ones."

"The solution should add a nice self-service portal."

"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."

"The solution must be made easier to configure."

"There is always room for improvement in features or customer support."

"When you set up Playbooks, I may have one version of the Playbook, but another member of the team may have a different vision, and we will not know which version is correct. We want to have one central repository for managing the different versions of Playbooks, so we can have better collaboration among team members. This is our use case for using Git version control."

"Ansible has just been upgraded, and the only issue that we are seeing at the moment is that the user interface can be slow. We're currently investigating the refresh period with Red Hat when you click a job and run a job. It seems that the buffer no longer runs in real-time. We haven't discovered whether that's partially an issue with our environment, but Red Hat has come back and said that they're working on a couple of bugs in the background. We've upgraded to that version in the last six months, and that's the only issue that we've seen."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most of our clients come to us with licensing already in place. On average, it costs $6 per device per month to add Intune to an Office 365 subscription, but I am not sure."

"Pricing depends on the features. Microsoft offers special packages if there are more than 10,000 users, and you may be able to get a reduced rate."

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

"If you're ever going to buy an Office 365 environment, then pricing is reasonable given all that it does, but if you're not, then you might find the pricing expensive."

"There are licenses required for this solution. We enable licenses on the devices we need to manage."

"While Microsoft Intune boasts a wide range of features, its user-friendliness and bundled licensing cost are key considerations for me."

"The price could be better."

"We don't pay for Intune because it is bundled with the premium subscription to Office 365. It includes Intune and Defender. I don't have to buy two extra products to manage my enterprise."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive."

"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."

"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."

"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."

"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."

"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."

"Its licensing is quite complicated because we are getting the license not only for SCCM but for the full Microsoft package. We don't need to pay for a separate license. We need to have one license that includes everything we need, such as Windows, Microsoft 365, SCCM, encryption, and so on. So, we don't have a specific price for it. Perhaps, it is good that it includes the full suite of licensing of Microsoft. It is expensive, but we are getting a lot of features."

"The solution is expensive. Microsoft Configuration Manager would likely be considered high-priced for small businesses because they may not fully utilize all of its features and capabilities."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

"The pricing for us is huge because we use twenty thousand nodes, so that is a huge infrastructure, but if someone is using a small infrastructure, then the pricing is not so much."

"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."

"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."

"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."

"The solution is inexpensive compared to other products."

"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."

"It’s an open-source tool."

"We have to be mindful of how we use Ansible because of the licensing model. I am not saying that it is unfair or we do not find value in it. Because we are trying to automate so many different things, we have to be mindful of what we are doing and how we are doing it because we are trying to stay in compliance with it."

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

32%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

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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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 ...

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How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?

ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. Wh...

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What do you like most about SCCM?

One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages effi...

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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 h...

See all answers

What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?

There is a pricing associated with Ansible, however, I find it reasonable.

See all answers

Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 16% 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

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 6% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

BMC Client Management vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

VMware Aria Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

BigFix vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Compared 5% of the time

More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

February 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

February 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

February 2025

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform report

Download Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )

Ansible

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

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a powerful network automation solution that allows organizations to handle every aspect of their application launch process within a single product. It enables users to share their automations so that teams within an organization can collaborate on various projects with ease. Ansible Automation Platform is designed to be used by all employees involved in the network automation process.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform include:

Maximum benefit for reduced overhead. Ansible Automation Platform is an all-in-one solution that can enable users to do the jobs of multiple products with one. Users do not need to purchase multiple products to handle their network automation and application development needs. It is equipped with prefabricated content from more than one hundred companies that are partnered with it.

Scalable. Ansible Automation Platform is a highly scalable solution. It can easily be scaled up so that automations can be extended across the various devices that make up an organization’s network.

Flexibility. Ansible Automation Platform is highly flexible. It enables users to tackle any and all automation-related tasks.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Features

Automation analytics. Ansible Automation Platform comes equipped with an automation analytics feature. This feature enables organizations to measure the effects of their automations and plan how they are going to implement automations moving forward. It makes it easy for administrators to spot anomalies in their automations and resolve them before they can escalate and become major issues.

Integration suite. Ansible Automation Platform gives organizations access to a wide variety of integrations that enable them to connect to Ansible’s partners. Now users can augment their capabilities without needing to purchase additional solutions that will enable them to run features that are not normally a part of Ansible’s array of tools. The Ansible environment is built to handle the wide variety of integrations that their partners offer. In order to accomplish this it includes the APIs that users need in order to fully benefit from the integrations.

Centralized interface. Ansible Automation Platform comes with a centralized GUI interface that enables users to manage all of their network automation and application creation activities from a single location. Businesses can guarantee that their operations are going to be handled efficiently and according to a single standard. The management process is greatly simplified. All of the tools that users need are located in one place.

Reviews from Real Users

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its automation manager and its comprehensive centralized GUI-based management interface.

MD J., a solution architect at STBL, says, “The automation manager is very good and makes things easier for customers with multi-cloud platforms.”

Aankit G., a Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS, writes, “We like the GUI-based interface for the tower. Before, we only had a command-line interface to run all the Ansible tasks. Now, the Ansible tower provides the complete GUI functionality to run, manage, and create the templates and the Ansible jobs. This includes the code and YAML file we can create. The GUI interface is the added advantage of this solution, including some integration with the different plugins.”

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

January 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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