We performed a comparison between Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Satellite based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Ansible has a slight edge over Satellite in this comparison since it is a free solution and easier to deploy than Satellite.
"The central administration con dashboard is very easy to use and provides very good oversight on all that needs to be monitored."
"We have found the solution is capable of scaling."
"For Windows services, there are multiple options within Intune to modernize it to be more internet-facing and dynamic."
"The most valuable feature is the policy CSPs."
"Being able to manage the devices remotely is most valuable. We can push security requirements through Microsoft Intune."
"The policy and compliance monitoring of devices and the software deployment are most valuable."
"The device profiling which uses the official Outlook email enabled us to control the screenshot feature and prevent copying outside of the organization's application."
"The ability to switch between Affinity and non-Affinity enrollment is great."
"It is very extensible. There are many plugins and modules out there that everybody helps create to interact with different cloud providers as well."
"It has made our infrastructure more testable. We are able to build our infrastructure in CI, then are more confident in what we are deploying will work, not breaking everything."
"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."
"The most useful features are the playbooks. We can develop our playbooks and simplify them doing something like a cross platform."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don’t need an agent for it to work."
"It enabled me to take the old build manifest and automated everything. So when it came time to spin everything up, it was quick and simple. I could spin it up and test it out. And then, when it came time to roll production, it was a done deal. When we expanded to multiple data centers, it was same thing: Change a few IP addresses, change some names, and off we went."
"The solution can scale."
"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."
"The compliance auditing helped me a lot."
"It cuts down significantly on the administrative time it takes to patch systems in a large environment."
"I like the integration with other tools."
"Previously, we were using one server to update from a different repository over the HTTP. We had to manually manage the updates on the repository server. Satellite made the process easier."
"Satellite gives administrators the ability to target deployments and only send out the updates or provision updates to certain groups."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is vulnerability management."
"The product helps me to manage a large number of servers from one console."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to process patching and updates completely offline without an internet connection."
"There are a few security features that are not available in Microsoft Intune, when compared to other products."
"The scalability could be improved, and like most other MDM products, Intune is good but not 100% there yet."
"The reporting could be improved, as it's pretty poor compared to other products of this type."
"Once it's configured it is unobtrusive, but it does take some hands-on to configure and deploy it properly."
"Microsoft Intune needs to improve the initial login process."
"I think that there is room for improvement with the reporting. If this is done, it will be a better product."
"From a new user's perspective, it may be a little overwhelming because there are quite a few things to look at in the console, however, once you are sort of acclimated and are familiar with your core functions, it's fairly simple and straightforward."
"Due to the abundance of features, there's a lot to organize, which makes managing and setting up the solution challenging. The setup is immense, and it would be good to see improvement in this area."
"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."
"Ansible could use more public relations and marketing."
"For a couple of the API integrations, there has been a lack of documentation."
"The documentation for the installation step of deployment, OpenStack, etc., and these things have to be a bit more detailed."
"The tool should allow us to create infrastructure. It has everything when it comes to management, but it lacks the provisioning aspect."
"What I would like to see is a refined Dashboard to see, when I log in: Here are all my jobs, here are how many times they've executed; some kind graphical stitching-together of the workflows and jobs, and how they're connected. Also, those "failed hosts," what does that mean? We have a problem, a failed host can be anything. Is SSH the reason it failed? Is the job template why it failed? It doesn't really distinguish that."
"It needs better documentation."
"The user interface on the Ansible Tower product could be better, but it is functional."
"I would like to see the scalability, user interface, and reporting features improved and for the solution to be simplified. Instead of having complex engineering, it should be simple for the user."
"Satellite should be bundled with Ansible Tower and the Ansible Automation platform. We face challenges from a security perspective because we have micro-segmentation in our network. For each server we provision, we have to set permissions to different ports so that the servers can communicate with Satellite. If I have a single server with Satellite and the Ansible Automation Platform, it would be easier to manage security issues instead of having two or three products on various servers."
"Improving integration could lead to a more unified management experience for multiple operating systems within our data center."
"The dashboard of Satellite is not encouraging. It does not adequately showcase all the functionality it offers."
"Red Hat Satellite has a short life cycle and we constantly need to update."
"The product could have more diversity in what it is able to deploy and might do better if it was not dedicated to Red Hat products only."
"I would like the direct integration with insights to be re-established."
"Red Hat Satellite's pricing needs improvement."
More Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Pricing and Cost Advice →
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is ranked 1st in Configuration Management with 58 reviews while Red Hat Satellite is ranked 4th in Configuration Management with 22 reviews. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is rated 8.6, while Red Hat Satellite is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform writes "Its agentless, making the deployment fast and easy". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Red Hat Satellite writes "A good product for managing patches and updates that could be more robust and up-to-date". Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is most compared with Microsoft Configuration Manager, VMware Aria Automation, Microsoft Azure DevOps, BMC TrueSight Server Automation and BigFix, whereas Red Hat Satellite is most compared with SUSE Manager, Microsoft Configuration Manager, AWS Systems Manager, BigFix and Chef. See our Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. Red Hat Satellite report.
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