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NetBrain vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

NetBrain
Ranking in Network Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (14th)
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Network Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of NetBrain is 13.7%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 14.2%, up from 14.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 14, 2022
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.
VivekSaini - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 31, 2024
A highly stable solution that provides good automation and patching
We use the solution for Linux patching automation. Currently, we are using the solution for patching normal configuration-related work. However, we also plan to use it for the provisioning of the servers The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching. The solution is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"The capacity to install products on the operating system is very valuable."
"I like Ansible's ease of use. If you have Linux skills, you can create a reusable template for the dependencies and other configurations. I can store the templates in a repository and share them with my customers or other developers. It's a popular solution, so there is a large user base that can share templates."
"It allows control over thousands of servers, whether virtual or physical."
"The biggest thing I liked about Ansible is the check mode so that we can verify, after we've pushed, that the config there is actually what we intended."
"On the network side, I already have a lot of our firewall related processes automated. If it's not automated all the way from the ticket system, our network team members, our tier-one guys in India, can just go into the Tower web interface and fill in a couple of survey questions."
"There are new modules available, which help to simplify the workflow. That is what we like about it."
"This solution allows us to stitch a lot of different parts of the workflow together."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its configuration management, drift management, workflow templates with the visual UI, and graphical workflow representation."
 

Cons

"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
"The tool should allow us to create infrastructure. It has everything when it comes to management, but it lacks the provisioning aspect."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better."
"We would like support for the post-integration of this product before cloud frameworks because right now their approach is to avoid using on-premises activities and move everything to the cloud."
"It can use some more credential types. I've found that when I go looking for a certain credential type, such as private keys, they're not really there."
"From Red Hat Insights point of view, the product is not on top as it is not responding as per the demand...Like on cloud platforms, you can see the main parts of Red Hat Insights, along with the inventory of all your apps. So, that is missing in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform."
"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."
"For a couple of the API integrations, there has been a lack of documentation."
"The scalability of the solution has some shortcomings."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"Like many Red Hat products, they have a no-cost version of the web application (AWX, formerly Ansible Tower), but you are on your own to install and it is a little more complicated than just installing Ansible."
"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an expensive solution. There may be additional fees to use advanced features."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"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 free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
30%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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 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

No data available
Ansible
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBrain vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.