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Perforce Puppet vs Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 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 Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Configuration Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
247
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Perforce Puppet
Ranking in Configuration Management
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
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
69
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Network Automation (1st)
 

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 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 17.8%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Erik  Ableson - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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 management control feature is the most valuable."
"We already use a lot of Microsoft products in our company, and therefore, it made sense to also use this product."
"Its direct integration with all the other products that we have from Microsoft is valuable. We're using the E5 license, and we have a whole wealth of different products available. It just makes it easier to have everything from one provider."
"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."
"What I like most about the tool is that it's now very easy to set up a device for someone to use. It also helps us tremendously in managing security. Before, we used on-premise management with a domain controller. It was difficult to manage security comprehensively. For example, it was hard to know which computers were updated. We weren't able to do that easily with our previous solution."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The performance of Microsoft Intune is good."
"I appreciate Intune's autopilot feature, which allows us to enroll devices and install applications to meet corporate requirements seamlessly."
"The main purpose for this automation tool would be: deploying, controlling, ordering change for the system and IT Infrastructure."
"Puppet Enterprise has good functionalities."
"The versatility is great."
"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features are the agent, high load balancing, and overall robustness and features."
"Puppet3 and 4 series provides optimum deployment solutions for infrastructure and applications."
"Puppet Enterprise has reduced the time of production changes or environment changes."
"Anything that we manage through Puppet always runs perfectly."
"Having the Dashboard from an admin point of view, and seeing how all the projects and all the jobs lay out, is helpful."
"Since it is in YAML, if I have to explain it to somebody else, they can easily understand it."
"The most valuable features of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are the agentless platform and writing the code is simple using the Yaml computer language."
"It is quick to production. It has an API in the back which allows for integrations."
"The most valuable feature of Ansible is repeatability because when you're working at the DoD, you want things to be cookie-cutter and replicable."
"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."
"It does not require staff for deployment and maintenance. It just works."
"The user interface is well-built and very easy to navigate around."
 

Cons

"Intune should improve the management of non-Microsoft devices. It would be better to manage Mac, Android, and other non-Microsoft operating system devices within the same Intune interface."
"Intune should improve its software inventory to provide better metering of which software is used throughout the company. This is especially needed for reporting third-party software solutions."
"Sometimes, the process is unsuccessful when we attempt to reset a device and wipe the data using Intune."
"More integration with monitoring tools is needed."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in terms of compatibility, extending beyond the well-known major brands."
"At this time, I do not have any areas for improvement. I have heard about some downtime, but I am not in the local IT team."
"Intune's areas for improvement revolve around security and certificate management."
"I wanted to check if there is any provision at the Intune level to restrict certain things, such as a website, but unfortunately, that feature is available only in Microsoft Defender. Intune has web filtering capabilities, but they are only useful for protection from malicious websites, whereas we would like to be able to restrict a website. For example, YouTube is a clean website. No one would identify it as a malicious website, but if we want to stop the end-users from going to that website, we have to go for another product, such as Microsoft Defender or another third-party proxy solution. It would be great if this capability is included in Intune."
"Puppet Enterprise is more complex and difficult to configure."
"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."
"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 should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it."
"We would like Puppet to add more integration for applications."
"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 user interface on the Ansible Tower product could be better, but it is functional."
"They should think of this product as an end-to-end solution and begin to develop it that way."
"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."
"There are challenges in using the graphical interface, particularly in open-source versions."
"In modern infrastructure, there are more than just servers. The initial server-centric approach in Ansible is a bit strange."
"The scalability of the solution has some shortcomings."
"There is always room for improvement in features or customer support."
"Documentation could be improved. Many times, if I'm looking for something, I have to Google it in a lot of places, then figure out what the best approach will be. There are some best practices documents, but they don't give you the information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Existing E5 license holders for M365, Intune, and Azure, receive a free license."
"It is cheap, but as compared to Google, it is costly. Google is cheaper, but quality-wise, Microsoft Intune is better."
"This cost is approximately $30 USD per user per month."
"The cost is somewhat on the higher side, particularly when considering certain price points, especially in markets like India."
"Our Office 365 Business Premium license, including Office 365 and Intune Management, offers excellent value."
"We spend a lot of money on Intune licensing, and some of our users have to be double licensed just because of how our dev and corporate environments are segmented."
"We work with the subscription rather than a server license. I think it's economical this way because we don't have to have a server license for that, and I think that works in our favor."
"We have a limited budget for security investments, so Microsoft should consider reducing pricing in our region. This would make investment more viable, especially since larger businesses in other countries can afford it easily."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Customers need to pay yearly for the license."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"It’s an open-source tool."
"I don't see the pricing or licensing features, but from what I understand, it is fairly reasonable."
"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."
"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."
"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."
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Comparison Review

it_user185772 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
52%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
 

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 ...
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?
Puppet Enterprise can be an expensive solution for smaller businesses.
What needs improvement with Puppet Enterprise?
Puppet Enterprise should improve the general extensibility for places where they can't install it.
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 do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Puppet
Ansible
 

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 2025.
845,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.