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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware NSX 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform accelerates provisioning, saves time, enhances scalability, and optimizes resources, improving maintainability and reducing burnout.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware NSX enhances infrastructure, reduces costs, boosts security, and increases satisfaction, offering ROI within a year.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers strong documentation and support, with high user satisfaction in community and technical assistance.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware NSX customer service is praised for knowledgeable support but faces challenges with accessibility and response times in specific regions.
Our technicians have a good support experience from the company.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Red Hat Ansible scales well in small to mid-sized environments but faces challenges and performance issues in large deployments.
Sentiment score
7.7
VMware NSX is highly scalable, effectively handling large networks with ease, despite potential complexity and cost concerns.
Ansible can face scalability issues, such as limitations when trying to scale up infrastructure.
There is a high level of satisfaction with its ability to scale.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is highly stable, with updates enhancing its reliability, users rating stability 8-10/10.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware NSX is praised for stability and reliability, despite minor upgrade issues, due to consistent performance and enhancement updates.
 

Room For Improvement

Red Hat Ansible Automation needs improved scalability, usability, integration, module support, and enhanced Windows and non-expert user features.
VMware NSX needs enhancements in integration, performance, automation, security, compatibility, user-friendliness, and deployment for improved functionality.
More library support for microservices architecture and Kubernetes would be helpful.
More detailed dashboards would be beneficial because there is a lack of dashboards on Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
The initial configuration and integration within our existing environment were not easy.
 

Setup Cost

Red Hat Ansible offers free and paid options, with costs based on node management and additional features like Ansible Tower.
Enterprise buyers find VMware NSX pricing high due to bundling, complexity, and significant setup costs, seeking flexible options.
The pricing is high, and since I'm not using all functionalities, it would be better if the price depended on the functionalities used.
The cost of VMware NSX is considered high.
VMware NSX is a little higher in price compared to the competition.
 

Valuable Features

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is valued for its agentless architecture, ease of use, scalability, and robust community support.
NSX enhances security and scalability, offering seamless integration, automation, and efficient performance with flexible, easy-to-use management features.
The automation capabilities streamline deployment processes, providing reliability and reducing manual intervention and errors.
It makes it simple to develop Ansible playbooks and roles, which aids in simplifying my daily administrative tasks.
The micro-segmentation feature is beneficial for adhering to strict security regulations from our security department.
The most powerful feature of VMware NSX is the micro-segmentation that allows us to separate the different protocols our application works with.
 

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)
VMware NSX
Ranking in Network Automation
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (3rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (9th), Microsegmentation Software (1st)
 

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 VMware NSX is 3.6%, down from 6.5% 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.
DanielBass - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves network security with micro-segmentation but setup is complex
I value the ability to dynamically configure our network on the fly using VMware NSX. This flexibility is a huge advantage because it allows us to avoid static configurations that come with traditional hardware setups. Additionally, the micro-segmentation feature is beneficial for adhering to strict security regulations from our security department.
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845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...
What do you like most about VMware NSX?
The product has valuable features for security and network extension.
 

Also Known As

Ansible
VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HootSuite Media, Inc., Cloud Physics, Narrative, BinckBank
City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. VMware NSX and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.