Perforce Puppet vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Perforce and VMware are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Perforce is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.5, while VMware is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.8. Perforce holds a 0.6% mindshare in CM, compared to VMware’s 5.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Perforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of VMware users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

Perforce Puppet and VMware Aria Automation are products within IT automation and system management, with VMware Aria Automation generally having an advantage due to its comprehensive features, which justify its costs despite Perforce Puppet's competitive support and pricing.

Features: Perforce Puppet provides robust configuration management with features such as automation capabilities, strong integration options, and a centralized control system. VMware Aria Automation offers advanced orchestration, lifecycle management, and hybrid cloud support, providing distinct advantages with superior orchestration features and supporting complex workflows.

Room for Improvement: Perforce Puppet could enhance its advanced orchestration capabilities, improve hybrid cloud support, and further simplify complex workflows to stay competitive. VMware Aria Automation may benefit from simplifying its deployment process, reducing initial costs, and enhancing its support offerings for more user-friendly experiences.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Perforce Puppet is known for its straightforward deployment and effective customer support, ensuring smooth ongoing use. On the other hand, VMware Aria Automation, while more complex in deployment, provides extensive documentation and support that helps to overcome these challenges.

Pricing and ROI: Perforce Puppet offers a cost-effective solution, providing a good ROI for configurations and management. VMware Aria Automation, though more expensive at the start, delivers significant ROI due to its extensive capabilities, which many customers find worth the investment for advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation

February 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 April 2025, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 10.2%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 0.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.6%, up from 5.3% 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.

Read full review

Erik Ableson

Owner at Infrageeks

A stable solution that is more suited for larger companies with mature CI/CD structures and image management processes

Puppet Enterprise is more suitable for clients working up much more structured deployment images they manage internally. Before choosing Puppet Enterprise, users should think seriously about what they're trying to accomplish and ensure they put the right pieces in place. Overall, I rate Puppet Enterprise an eight out of ten.

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Le Quang Long

Cloud Engineer at BIDV - Ngân hàng TMCP Đầu tư & Phát triển Việt Nam

Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows

It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

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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

"As the solution is a software as a service, the scalability is unlimited."

"It is very easy for me to configure all the things. Once I create policies and applications in Intune, it is very easy for us to enroll users."

"The ability to manage devices with different sets of policies is most valuable."

"Being able to manage the devices remotely is most valuable. We can push security requirements through Microsoft Intune."

"As an IT administrator, I appreciate Intune's ability to implement granular device-level policies for our organization's employees."

"The solution’s most valuable feature is its ease of use."

"Dynamic groups allow us to set conditions for automatic membership, eliminating the need for user intervention or manual review and ensuring a seamless workflow."

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

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."

"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."

"The versatility is great."

"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."

"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."

"Anything that we manage through Puppet always runs perfectly."

"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."

"Puppet Enterprise has good functionalities."

"It is possible to completely automatize the creation and removal of a virtual machine."

"The most valuable feature is, instead of doing the VMotion manually, we have automated everything with a script, using vRealize. That means I don't need to think about things like compatibility. The system will do everything for me and just give me a report."

"quality-of-latest-release; Compared to the earlier versions, from my experience, the upgrade process is easier; for example, the compatibility checks. I also don't need to go and find out the resources that are required. It tells me in one report what the current environment is like and, if I want to go to the next level, what things I need to take care of. Based on that I can make things happen."

"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."

"If you do a deployment for a proof of concept, it is simple."

"Being able to give provisioning of environments over to our developers and the different teams has enabled them to put up environments faster and also freed up time for the IT team. This is really one of our bread and butter solutions for our developers."

"Our customers don't have to manage HVAC and space and cooling and all of those things that they used to have to do. Today, all they have to do is provision a server and manage their users."

"Having an enterprise service catalog and being able to automate various parts of our infrastructure are among the most important components."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"What would make this product better is adding more security policies and features in the next upgrade."

"The pricing can be expensive if you are not combining it with other products."

"There is room for improvement in integration and security as well."

"We need the capabilities of the Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) to be enhanced through Intune instead of Azure."

"The reporting is subpar. That's the only issue we have with Intune. We use another solution for that purpose."

"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."

"I would like to see better integration with Microsoft."

"There needs to be more support for Mac operating systems."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."

"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."

"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."

"It's a bit of a pain point to make sure that everything works once we've upgraded it because Puppet has been evolving pretty fast."

"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."

"There's a lot of scope for enhancement on the DevSecOps side. They should definitely include features for compliance, for both the Linux and Windows side of the devices, as well as for network devices. Compliance is something they need to work on."

"The solution has really complex code, you have to understand the Ruby language. However, once you know the code then you can move ahead without any problems."

"The initial setup is very complex because we have a bunch of customization workflows. They were built-in features that we had to program as code with Orchestration."

"It is not super-intuitive. It does require some skills to understand how to use it. I had no problem, but I had spent a lot of time already learning this product ahead of moving it to an operational status. But as we did so, we had a hard time bringing some people from other groups into the fold, to script and work against this environment. So, the ability to build workflows within that automation needs to be streamlined."

"When you start to do a deployment where you need higher availability and more resiliency, then the complexity goes up drastically."

"We still struggle a little bit with the configuration as far as making sure that we have all the endpoints where they need to be, because that's not as agile as we'd like in the back-end. We're working towards that with our DevOps teams to make sure that we're touching the right endpoints and getting the right data."

"The stability on the 6.2 version is very bad. It crashes. VMware tech support knows the IIS component is a bit buggy."

"It's not a smooth upgrade process. For a DTA environment, which is very simple, it is a smooth process, but for our production environment, which is quite enhanced and has a lot of dependencies, it's not easy at all, and it results in a lot of errors... It takes a lot of retries to upgrade which ends up being costly."

"Deploying and configuring the solution takes a lot of time."

"This solution could be integrated with more hardware for an improved offering."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We work in the charity sector, so a lot of our clients get Microsoft Premium licenses or Business Premium for free. They get ten licenses free, and a lot of our clients do not have more than ten staff members. They are getting the tool for free, so its cost is not an issue."

"The cost is somewhat on the higher side, particularly when considering certain price points, especially in markets like India."

"The price is very reasonable."

"Licensing depends on how you are providing support to your enterprise, whether it's device-based or user-based."

"The pricing needs improvement."

"Its price is fair. It's a normal price. It isn't too expensive or too cheap."

"Microsoft Intune is a cost effective choice. It is less expensive than other products on the market."

"The solution is cost-efficient."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"Depending on the size of the organization there is a point when the price of Puppet Enterprise should be lower. However, they provide really good functionality, features, and capabilities."

"The main thing that we noticed when we switched from the enterprise version to the community version was the difference in cost — the infrastructure is pretty expensive."

"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."

"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."

"It is an open-source product."

"We do plan to see ROI with any new implementation of new technologies being implemented within our environment."

"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."

"It is pricey for what you get."

"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."

"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."

"Customers say this solution is costlier compared to its competitors."

"The solution is pretty expensive but provides good workload management."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

23%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

52%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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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What do you like most about Puppet Enterprise?

Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Puppet Enterprise?

Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?

Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it.

See all answers

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 y...

See all answers

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 fre...

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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 compa...

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Comparisons

Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 14% 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

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Intune Competitors

AWS Systems Manager vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 58% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 42% of the time

More Perforce Puppet Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 17% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 11% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 11% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

March 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet

March 2025

Download Perforce Puppet product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

March 2025

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Puppet

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack

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

Perforce Puppet provides robust features for configuration management, compatible with Linux, Windows, and UNIX. It simplifies infrastructure management with automation and role-based access control, though it requires mastering command-line operations due to limited GUI.

Perforce Puppet utilizes a hub-spoke architecture to enhance automation across production environments, excelling in provisioning and configuration management for on-prem servers. Its infrastructure as code approach eases deployment and maintenance, supported by community resources for stabilization. Support for diverse devices makes it adaptable for complex configurations, but pricing and integration gaps, especially with Infosec tools, pose challenges for some.

What are the key features of Perforce Puppet?

Remote Package Installation: Centralized server management for remote installations
File Management: Streamlined file operations from a single point
Infrastructure as Code: Simplifies infrastructure maintenance
Scalability: Grows with organizational demands
Role-Based Access Control: Ensures secure user management
Device State Control: Efficient device integration and configuration

What benefits should users expect?

Automation Efficiency: Reduces manual tasks with hub-spoke architecture
Versatility: Supports multiple operating systems
Community Support: Backed by a stable and organized community
Configuration Simplicity: Simplifies and streamlines setup processes

Puppet is implemented across industries for managing production servers, especially in regulated environments. Its security compliance checks ensure adherence to required standards, while public configurations assist in device network integration. Industries benefit from its ability to streamline Linux server automation and explore expansion into Windows systems to meet cross-platform requirements.

Perforce

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features.

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.
Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.
DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.
Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.
Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.
Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.
Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.
Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.
Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.
Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.
The solution offers high levels of security and control.
This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.
VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.
The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.
The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

VMware

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Los Alamos National Laboratory, GitHub, IP Commerce, Cedexis, Spiceworks, Server Density, Swisstopo, Chockstone, Constant Contact, NICS, Citrix

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation

February 2025

Free Report: Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation

Find out what your peers are saying about Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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