Perforce Puppet vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Perforce and Broadcom are both solutions in the Configuration Management category. Perforce is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0, while Broadcom is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.9. Perforce holds a 3.8% mindshare in CM, compared to Broadcom’s 4.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Perforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

Perforce Puppet and VMware Aria Automation are products in IT automation and management. VMware Aria Automation is notably superior due to its advanced features.

Features: Perforce Puppet is valued for its reliable configuration management, seamless cross-platform integration, and strong automation capabilities with an agent-based feature that aids in system management. VMware Aria Automation is praised for its self-service IT delivery and robust automation features that support complex multi-cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Perforce Puppet could benefit from enhanced user interface design, more comprehensive cloud service integrations, and improvements in real-time reporting capabilities. VMware Aria Automation could improve its API functionalities, simplify the complexity of its configuration processes, and enhance its documentation for better user understandability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Automation provides sophisticated deployment catering to large enterprises, supported by extensive customer service. Perforce Puppet offers quick and flexible deployment suitable for diverse IT structures, backed by strong technical assistance focused on user-specific needs.

Pricing and ROI: Perforce Puppet is known for cost-effectiveness, providing significant ROI through efficient infrastructure management at a lower cost. VMware Aria Automation, despite its higher initial investment, offers ROI through its advanced features which reduce long-term operational expenses. It suits enterprises focusing on strategic long-term investments while Puppet is ideal for budget-conscious projects seeking swift ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet vs. VMware Aria Automation

March 2026

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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 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 VMware Aria Automation is 4.8%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Intune	6.9%
VMware Aria Automation	4.8%
Perforce Puppet	3.8%
Other	84.5%

Configuration Management

Featured Reviews

AkashKamble

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.

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reviewer2284542

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.

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reviewer2597814

IT Infrastructure Manager at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees

Compliance is maintained effectively and automation boosts productivity but further improvements in full-time reduction are desired

I am still using VMware tools. In fact, I have to migrate to a new alternative. I do not deal with vCenter or vSphere as or other VMware products yet. I do not deal with vSphere either. I do not use the Horizon Cloud yet or Horizon Desktop. We use VMware Workstation and vRealize. I use vRealize. VMware Aria Automation is compliant. It is not difficult for them. The regulations request us to perform or to have some security managed ways, and the regulations are clear about that, including authentication and everything related to security. Based on my experience, I rate VMware Aria Automation an eight out of ten.

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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

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

"The solution is scalable. We currently have tens of thousands of users within our organization using the solution."

"The solution has reduced the risk of security breaches by 30%."

"The one feature we find most useful is the Mobile Application Manager. There are two types, we have the complete MDM and the Mobile Application Manager(MAM). We don't give our users phones, it is their own personal phone, and we need to allow them to have access to the company detail on their phone. We need to create a balance between their own personal data and the company data. We deploy the Mobile Application Manager for them so that we won't be able to interfere with their own personal data."

"Microsoft Intune is best for Windows devices and security in Office 365 and Microsoft-related enterprise environments. It's a nice platform for endpoint management."

"I have seen a return on investment right from the start of the tool's usage."

"Intune can wipe devices. For example, if a disgruntled employee wants to leak the data on their company phone, Intune can terminate their access and wipe the entire device with a click."

"With these improvements, I estimate we've reduced our patching costs by over $100,000 a month, as the MSP previously had to troubleshoot various issues manually."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"Puppet Enterprise is a stable solution."

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

"The versatility is great."

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

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

"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."

"I rate the stability of Puppet as ten out of ten."

More Perforce Puppet pros

"The ability to programmatically describe the desired state of a single, or an entire fleet of servers, on-premises, and in a cloud environment."

"Instead of only deploying templates, we can deploy blueprints which are easier on day-to-day operations."

"The preset policies and templates are useful. I would say that vRA is one of the best solutions we have. The CI/CD features also look helpful even though we aren't using them at the moment. We plan to get more involved and train our customers as much as possible."

"It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method."

"The most valuable feature is the portal where you can assign permissions to specific people to request specific items in the catalog and allow them to provision things for themselves. Or it enables them to request different services that you can create through vRO and vRA."

"The feature of automated balancing which implemented between two data centers solely for the purpose of a recovery plan is valuable."

"The product saves a lot of time and cost for us. It has valuable features for creating a playbook."

"value; It has provided my development team a pure self-service portal. We deploy thousands of machines and reclaim. So, their time to business, and their time to market has been improved exponentially."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"Improvements are needed in Microsoft Intune's enterprise app management, including support for more applications in app patching, boot batching, and discovery. I also hope the cost of Remote Help will decrease because it's a much-needed Intune function. Our customers need that capability, or they will buy it from a third party at a premium."

"Microsoft Intune could improve in reporting data for endpoints and fleets. Enhanced capabilities to run queries and gather specific device data to identify trends or issues would be beneficial. The feature parity for MacOS and handling devices from an MDM perspective is not comprehensive. Consolidation of these functionalities within Intune would simplify processes and finances."

"Intune does not provide real-time visibility."

"I'm still playing around with it and haven't had any issues with the product yet, but support can definitely be improved."

"It would be interesting to integrate the server side of Intune. Some group policy updates we have on the Windows Server side and possibly some on the client side could also be included."

"We are currently unable to control aspects of group policy from Teams like we can for GPO. They are still not part of Intune. Microsoft is adding this, but it's currently in preview, and few GPO features have been added to the product."

"The installation could be improved to be simplified."

"One drawback of Intune is that we cannot find devices based on a user's region or location."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"There is an area of improvement. For example, you are migrating from a customer's existing data center to a new target data center. To facilitate this transition, you'll initially need to evaluate the customer's aging hardware hosting VMware, which is nearing the end of its operational life. The customer expresses the intention to upgrade to a newer version, necessitating an overhaul of everything in the new data center. As a Systems Integrator (SI), consultant, or architect, your recommendation would be to acquire the latest hardware with a specified configuration and then install VMware on top of it. However, there's a crucial aspect related to the infrastructure requirements for VMware to run seamlessly on that hardware. If there's an opportunity to potentially reduce these infrastructure prerequisites, it would be highly beneficial."

"I don't think it's intuitive or user-friendly. I think it's a good tool. Any automation tool, these days, the learning curve is kind of high. You're teaching sysadmins who never developed stuff. Maybe they modified a little bit of code and now you tell them, "Hey, here's the tool, use it." But you have to know a little bit of DevOps. So you have to train them how to do the scripting."

"SaltStack's features are minimal."

"My impression of its stability is "middle of the road." We've had some issues where it seems to be a little bit sensitive, where deployments fail and we don't really know a specific reason why. We'll dig through logs and try and figure out what's going on, but it's not always apparent as to why it failed. And you can kick it off again and it'll succeed. So stability could be better."

"in general, it took us a long time to get it off the ground. We had a lot of issues upfront and we determined that we just needed to scrap it. I think we scrapped it two or three times before we actually got it built the way we wanted, and we're still not where we need to be. We have had downtime. There have been some issues, but we're also two iterations behind on version."

"I would like to see support for Google Cloud and Azure. Because they don't support Google and Azure today, we need something that's cohesive with our entire landscape. There is a gap right now with VMware. If you want support for these environments, you have to go elsewhere right now."

"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."

"It is too broad scale and complicated. It takes too many clicks to do things."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is reasonable. When you have Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license, it is already licensed in that license. So, you could say it is free."

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

"The pricing is not cheap, especially with inflation. They've had to increase their prices. It's not excessive, but alright."

"No one can compete with Microsoft when it comes to price, and the features it is offering."

"I am satisfied with the pricing."

"The purchase of the product was handled by someone else."

"It is expensive. The cost depends on the license that we choose."

"Its pricing seems reasonable."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"Puppet Enterprise’s pricing is competitive."

"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."

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

"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."

"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."

"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being very expensive."

"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."

"The pricing is very high."

"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

Marketing Services Firm

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	122
Midsize Enterprise	48
Large Enterprise	160

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	130

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 ...

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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 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...

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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...

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What is your primary use case for Puppet Enterprise?

My main use case for Perforce Puppet is for configuration management.

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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...

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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 10% of the time

IBM MaaS360 vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 8% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Intune

Compared 4% of the time

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AWS Systems Manager vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Satellite vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 7% of the time

Chef vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 7% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Perforce Puppet

Compared 7% of the time

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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 12% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 7% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 4% of the time

CloudBolt vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 2% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Perforce Puppet

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

February 2026

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 is a cloud-based service designed for device management, security, and compliance. It supports automation and facilitates endpoint management for Windows, iOS, and Android devices, ensuring data protection and efficient policy enforcement.

Microsoft Intune offers seamless integration with tools like Windows Autopilot to automate device setup and deployment. Integrated with Azure Active Directory, it enhances policy management while providing robust reporting and analytics tools for compliance tracking. Despite its intuitive interface aimed at simplifying navigation and device security management, there are challenges such as compatibility issues with Linux and Mac, limited policy support for Android, and demands for better third-party integration. It's widely used for both corporate-owned devices and BYOD scenarios in dynamic IT environments.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Windows Autopilot: Automates device setup for rapid deployment.
Azure Active Directory Integration: Enhances user policy management.
Reporting and Analytics: Improves compliance visibility.
Mobile Application Management: Ensures app security without compromising personal data.
Cloud-Based Management: Allows management from any location.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Time Efficiency: Automation reduces time in policy enforcement and configuration updates.
Enhanced Security: Ensures data protection across corporate-owned and BYOD devices.
Improved Compliance: Advanced reporting tools enhance compliance visibility.
Flexible Management: Cloud-based nature supports management from any location.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure data protection and compliance with regulatory standards. Manufacturing sectors utilize Intune for managing a distributed workforce across global locations, while educational institutions employ it to secure and manage devices in learning environments supporting both students and faculty.

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.

Broadcom

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

March 2026

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: March 2026.

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