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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs SolarWinds Network Automation Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 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

Red Hat Ansible Automation ...
Ranking in Network Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (3rd), Configuration Management (1st)
SolarWinds Network Automati...
Ranking in Network Automation
13th
Average Rating
5.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (110th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Automation category, the mindshare of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is 20.0%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is 3.4%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Automation
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Giulio Valeri - PeerSpot reviewer
Threat detection failures, poor technical support, and expensive
We use the solution to manage all of our customer's systems. We monitor and decide if everything is okay and if not, we do changes when needed. For example, if there is a need to change the antivirus software we can automate the process and install the new one. There are scripts within the software…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Ansible Tower provides a GUI, which is an enhancement, and a well-liked feature by operation teams."
"We can manage all the configuration consistency between all our servers."
"Automation tracking is the most valuable feature."
"It is very easy to use, and there is less room for error."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching."
"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."
"The solution offers so many great resources, it makes them a powerhouse in the market."
"The installation is easy."
 

Cons

"It is a little slow on the network side because every time you call a module, it's initiating an SSH or an API call to a network device, and it just slows things down."
"There have been some differences between the operating systems that we have noticed. It could be down to cryptographic policies, but we have noticed some speed issues. They should work on the speed of deployment on different operating systems."
"There should be consistency. I know that it is always changing, but when we are trying to get some users to do something in basic Ansible that they are not really interested in doing but their job requires them to do it, they start finding inconsistencies."
"Ansible can face scalability issues, such as limitations when trying to scale up infrastructure. It might struggle with connection dropping or spawning additional VMs under certain conditions."
"For Ansible Tower, there are three tiers with ten nodes. I would like them to expand those ten nodes to 20, because ten nodes is not enough to test on."
"We would like support for the post-integration of this product before cloud frameworks because right now their approach is to avoid using on-premises activities and move everything to the cloud."
"It can use some more credential types. I've found that when I go looking for a certain credential type, such as private keys, they're not really there."
"It could be easier to integrate Ansible with other solutions. No single tool can do everything. For example, we use Terraform for infrastructure and other solutions for configuration management and VMs."
"The price could be a bit lower."
"We did not like SolarWinds because it was not able to communicate between UPSA and our accounting system. They should have better integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."
"You don't need to buy agents on servers or deploy expense management when using the solution, which affected our decision to go with it."
"The pricing is pretty standard."
"We use the open-source version of the solution."
"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."
"Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an affordable solution."
"The cost is high, but it still works well."
"The pricing is okay."
"The price of SolarWinds Network Automation Manager is fair. However, it is more expensive than ConnectWise."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
56%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 have been outstanding. If you have a large environment, patching systems is much ...
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 the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform?
The most valuable features of the solution are automation and patching.
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Also Known As

Ansible
SolarWinds NAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
Maalem Financing Company, School City of Hammond
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.