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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

"It allows control over thousands of servers, whether virtual or physical."
"There are no agents by default, so adding a new server is a matter of a couple lines of configuration (on a new server and the configuration master)."
"I like the agentless feature. This means we don't install any agent in worker nodes."
"Installing it is a PIP command. So, it's pretty easy. It is a one liner."
"On the network side, I already have a lot of our firewall related processes automated. If it's not automated all the way from the ticket system, our network team members, our tier-one guys in India, can just go into the Tower web interface and fill in a couple of survey questions."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"I like the inventory management. It's a very nice, simple, concise way to keep all that data together. And the API allows us to use it even for things that are not Ansible."
"The most useful features are the playbooks. We can develop our playbooks and simplify them doing something like a cross platform."
"The installation is easy."
"The solution offers so many great resources, it makes them a powerhouse in the market."
 

Cons

"I have seen indications that the documentation needs improvement. They are providing a "How to Improve Your Documentation" presentation at this conference."
"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."
"The solution is slightly expensive, and its pricing could be improved."
"The tool should allow us to create infrastructure. It has everything when it comes to management, but it lacks the provisioning aspect."
"In modern infrastructure, there are more than just servers. The initial server-centric approach in Ansible is a bit strange."
"The solution should add a nice self-service portal."
"In Community, there's a lot of effort towards testing, standardizing, and testing for module development to role development, which is why Molecule is now becoming real. Same thing with Zuul, which we are starting to implement. Zulu tests out modules from third-party sources, like ourselves, and verifies that the modules work before they are committed to the code. Currently, Ansible can't do this with all the modules out there."
"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."
"We did not like SolarWinds because it was not able to communicate between UPSA and our accounting system. They should have better integration."
"The price could be a bit lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a little pricey but it is affordable. It is not that bad."
"I don't see the pricing or licensing features, but from what I understand, it is fairly reasonable."
"If you only need to use Ansible, it's free for any end-user, but when you require Ansible Tower, you need to pay per Ansible Tower server."
"It’s an open-source tool."
"We went with product because we have a subscription for Red Hat."
"Users have to pay a per-node cost of around $ 100 per node."
"We're charged between $8 to $13 a month per license."
"The cost is determined by the number of endpoints."
"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
29%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
48%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
5%
 

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.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.