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Perforce Puppet vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
323
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Perforce Puppet
Ranking in Configuration Management
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st), AWS Pro Service Providers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Configuration Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 6.9%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Puppet is 3.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 11.9%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform11.9%
Microsoft Intune6.9%
Perforce Puppet3.8%
Other77.4%
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr MacOS specialist engineer at Cyber24
Enables management of multiple operating systems with a single license
The best feature is that it's a Microsoft product, so if anything goes wrong, we get quick support for anything required. Remote system functionality allows us to sit anywhere and take control of any device via remote management. We can enhance security for clients' laptops with built-in Microsoft Defender, which is available with the Microsoft Intune license. We use it for reporting purposes through endpoint analytics. When pushing scripting, there are two types available: remediation script and reservation script. Through endpoint analytics, you can push defender policies to clients. It helps with reporting, inventory updates, and monitoring tenant status health.
reviewer2284542 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Automated configuration management ensures consistent server setups
The strength of Puppet is in automated configuration management. We can configure a server once and set rules with Puppet so that future server configurations are automatic and consistent with company requests. Puppet is declarative, meaning it finds the best state for itself and corrects any deviations in the configuration.
Manas Kashyap - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at Elevenxcapital
Automation has transformed server patching and has reduced months of work to minutes
The best features that Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers is that it does not require any additional resources inside the servers. Python is the only requirement, and since Python is already present inside the servers, we can run it from our location and it automatically deploys things and does the work for us. The minimal requirements and easy deployment have definitely impacted my daily work and my team's efficiency. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is one of the best features that we depend on. We have evaluated other options, but Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was the best choice because it has saved us a tremendous amount of time. We do not need to manually intervene in the servers or install third-party software to maintain these things. It is very easy to write playbooks for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Ansible Galaxy contains many playbooks that are readily available and ready to be used. It is highly configurable with Jinja templating, making it easy to maintain. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform has positively impacted my organization. Previously, we needed to go into the servers and maintain them manually, which used to take a lot of time. For 200 to 300 servers, the maintenance took about one to two months. New patches would arrive and we would have to repeat the process. Now, it is a one-night work or a 10 to 15 minutes task. We write a playbook, maintain an inventory, and roll out the updates and it starts working for us. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform uses conditional clauses and has rollback options, functioning like a standard coding language that is simple to use. There is definitely a reduction in errors with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform because we have playbooks written with all the necessary clauses and rollback options. Manual work automatically creates more errors, whereas in automation, we have written sets that we do not forget every time we run it. We have protected written sets that we execute consistently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It is a helpful tool to manage BYOD policies."
"First of all, the integration with the rest of Microsoft's products is a major win."
"For the price, the features included with Microsoft are appealing."
"Using Azure and Intune has helped us resolve most of these issues, as we no longer need a physical infrastructure to manage systems and can push policies remotely while maintaining control over the devices."
"The technical support of Microsoft Intune is good."
"We use a local Active Directory, but we weren't able to manage all our on-site systems without a solution like Intune, and we needed to deploy software like VPNs and other things. It's seamless now to to this through Intune."
"Intune's unified endpoint management platform is invaluable."
"I rate the stability of Puppet as ten out of ten."
"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."
"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."
"Puppet Enterprise has good functionalities."
"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."
"The versatility is great."
"The agent-based feature helps me by being stable."
"Anything that we manage through Puppet always runs perfectly."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is very helpful due to passwordless integration and the ability to interact with multiple servers at once, which is especially advantageous when dealing with thousands of servers."
"The capacity to install products on the operating system is very valuable."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is easy to integrate; the platform is simple to use."
"Since it is in YAML, if I have to explain it to somebody else, they can easily understand it."
"It is all modular-based. If there is not a module for it today, someone will write it."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its configuration management, drift management, workflow templates with the visual UI, and graphical workflow representation."
"It was easy to read and learn. It is a YAML-based syntax, which makes it easily understand and pick up."
"It has improved our organization through provisioning and security hardening. When we do get a new VM, we have been able to bring on a provisioned machine in less than a day. This morning alone, I provisioned two machines within an hour. I am talking about hardening, installing antivirus software on it, and creating user accounts because the Playbooks were predesigned. From the time we got the servers to the actual hand-off, it takes less than an hour. We are talking about having the servers actually authenticate Red Hat Satellites and run the yum updates. All of that can be done within an hour."
 

Cons

"The time we have to wait to deploy policies has room for improvement."
"The reporting needs to be a bit more interactive."
"Sometimes, updating a client policy is very difficult. This needs to be improved."
"They should improve its compatibility with other operating systems such as iOS and Linux. It supports Linux but they still need to work on the iOS part."
"Applying security recommendations can be difficult in Microsoft Intune. Sometimes, they give you recommendations, but you need a different server to manage the pieces, or you have to go to each device individually. However, it has been improving. Before, there were certain policies you could not implement directly in Intune, but now I see progress. I would like to see more improvement in policy management, similar to how we used group policies on-premises."
"There can be delays in the deployment of new policies."
"Although Intune is from the same provider, its integration with other Microsoft products, like Microsoft Defender or Microsoft Purview, could be improved."
"We only have major classifications for iOS and Android, but there are different brands that have different cycles of updates. If they can fine-tune it to make it more brand-specific, that would be even better."
"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."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"Clients with less technical expertise may find Puppet complex to configure. Our team may struggle if technical team members leave the organization, leaving others uncertain about using the tool."
"Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."
"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."
"At the beginning the initial setup was kind of complex."
"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."
"There could be more stuff in the workflows. I hope that if I have ten templates with different services on it, workflow could auto-populate all the template-based services."
"For a couple of the API integrations, there has been a lack of documentation."
"Ansible is great, but there are not many modules. You can do about 80% to 90% of things by using commands, but more modules should be added. We cannot do some of the things in Ansible. In Red Hat, we have the YUM package manager, and there are certain options that we can pass through YUM. To install the Docker Community Edition, I'll write the yum install docker-ce command, but because the Docker Community Edition is not compatible with RHEL 8, I will have to use the nobest option, such as yum install docker-ce --nobest. The nobest option installs the most stable version that can be installed on a particular system. In Ansible, the nobest option is not there. So, it needs some improvements in terms of options. There should be more options, keywords, and modules."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is not the best at server provisioning. Terraform is better."
"It would be helpful to have templates for common configurations. It would make it much easier and faster rather than creating a whole script. The templates would decrease the learning curve as well."
"The web GUI can be a little bit better. There should be a couple of more features."
"The technical support is not adequate. The Ansible sales and technical support services need significant improvement."
"What we need is model-driven, declarative software infrastructure management. However, things tend to break with new versions, requiring a lot of work to fix…The focus should be on improving the support for Ansible in the area of AI coding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is inherently reasonable, as Microsoft leverages market insights to maintain the total cost of ownership at around ninety to ninety-five percent of what would be incurred in an on-premise scenario."
"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."
"Intune is included in the Microsoft 365 licensing package that we have."
"Microsoft Intune is more expensive than other solutions, but it offers a wider range of features and control."
"Every customer used to purchase licenses based on their needs."
"The Intune license model is costly."
"Pricing can be improved."
"With one user base license, we can use Intune for up to five devices. However, with Soti MobiControl, each license is tied to a single device, meaning one license is dedicated to one device only."
"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."
"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."
"Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses."
"Red Hat's open source approach was a factor when choosing Ansible, since the solution is free as of right now."
"Ansible Tower is pretty expensive."
"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."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"Ansible is a lot more competitive than any of the others. Its setup was also straightforward. In fact, we just implemented Ansible on OpenShift, so that is how we are running the Ansible Automation Platform now."
"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."
"I am using the community edition of the solution which is free."
"Ansible Tower is free. Until they lower the cost, we are holding off on purchasing the product."
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Comparison Review

it_user185772 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Architect with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 27, 2015
Docker v. CFEngine v. Puppet Data Center Automation v. Chef v. Ansible
Originally posted at http://technologyconversations.com/2015/08/26/configuration-management-in-the-docker-world/ Anyone managing more than a few servers can confirm that doing such a task manually is a waste of time and risky. Configuration management (CM) exists for a long time and there is no…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business123
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise48
 

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 ...
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...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Puppet Enterprise?
Regarding the cost, I find it expensive, always. I don't know how much the license would cost per year or per user ap...
What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?
I don't know what could be improved in Perforce Puppet to make this tool better for the next release. I can't think o...
What is your primary use case for Puppet Enterprise?
My main use case for Perforce Puppet is for configuration management.
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...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform was very simple. There ...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Puppet
Ansible, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Subscription on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Los Alamos National Laboratory, GitHub, IP Commerce, Cedexis, Spiceworks, Server Density, Swisstopo, Chockstone, Constant Contact, NICS, Citrix
HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Perforce Puppet vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
883,896 professionals have used our research since 2012.