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Runecast vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Runecast
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
GRC (19th), Vulnerability Management (38th), Container Security (33rd), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (20th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (19th), Compliance Management (11th)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (6th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Runecast is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Automation0.3%
Runecast0.1%
Other99.6%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps with risk assessments for containers, assessing security, and ensuring container compliance
I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. Customers can conveniently view all companies in a single dashboard if they have different companies. This feature eliminates the need for different solutions and separate installations. Moreover, the solution extends beyond servers, encompassing various platforms such as VMware and Kubernetes. Additionally, end-users can install the solution from their client's perspective.
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows
It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Runecast is a good partner for VMware. Once we have installed it, we can see all the problems and issues. It also has VMware knowledge-based articles."
"Another valuable feature is the flexible user interface. They can manage all of the servers, the full lifecycle of VMs, on one screen."
"We've just shifted to an Agile development so there has absolutely been an improvement in speed to market. We now have consistent release plans because we have these environments as ready as they are."
"We monitor the configurations against CIS standards. We run CIS benchmarks and maintain configurations with higher CIS values for each server."
"The best feature I saw with the VMware Aria Automation product was that it was easy to handle."
"The most valuable features are the Catalog View and the access control business group. Access provisioning is probably the main use case for us, so we can separate access to different Catalog items among the different business groups and have that tied back to our AD LDAP systems."
"If you do a deployment for a proof of concept, it is simple."
"vRealize Automation has improved the speed of provisioning just by automating things, making people think about whether a human really needs to do something or can we make the machines do it for us. It is a lot faster to deploy things now."
"The repetitive tasks which took provisioning storage, network, and compute two to three weeks, now takes five minutes."
 

Cons

"The product lacks network assessment capabilities. We cannot view our network assets or scan switches, routers, or IPs for vulnerabilities and issues."
"We are migrating from vRA version 7 to 8, but the migration is really hectic and time-consuming. There are no straightforward paths to migrate. We are doing an entirely new deployment to go to vRA version 8.0, then somehow get all of the VMs to vRA 8.0. Therefore, it would have been great if VMware had some solutions to upgrade from vRA 7 to 8 seamlessly. This includes the management of all the objects or VMs from the older version. Unfortunately, it is not there."
"Automation or scripting should be simplified so that administrators who are not experts can have a better grasp of automation."
"There is certainly room for improvement with some of the little things I was talking about, like either better managing of the upgrade process, or just making the infrastructure deployment a little bit easier. It feels like all of the pieces have been automated on one level or another, like with the PowerShell scripts, doing all the IS, Windows boxes preparation. They just need to get it to be more end-to-end."
"The high price of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I would like to see better integration capabilities. Maybe if they could develop libraries within Aria Automation for simpler integration with other third-party solutions, instead of just basic integration."
"It would be nice if, at the director level, the manager level, there was a pretty graphic. They don't like to see numbers and line items, they want to see graphs and scales and real world pictures. That would support better reporting."
"I think they could probably do more if they created more actions and more use cases to automate things."
"In terms of additional features, I would like it to be able to poll my vCenter infrastructure more rapidly and adapt to changes quickly. It should alert me and let me know when there are broken components, as a result of underlying infrastructure changes. It needs to be more stringent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Runecast's pricing is cheaper than that of its competitors."
"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."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"I would rate it high because, compared to other solutions, VMware’s pricing is quite expensive. VMware products have become significantly more costly in recent years, leading to higher costs."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."
"We do plan to see ROI with any new implementation of new technologies being implemented within our environment."
"The solution is free of cost."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Runecast?
Runecast is a good partner for VMware. Once we have installed it, we can see all the problems and issues. It also has VMware knowledge-based articles.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Runecast?
Runecast's pricing is cheaper than that of its competitors.
What needs improvement with Runecast?
The product lacks network assessment capabilities. We cannot view our network assets or scan switches, routers, or IPs for vulnerabilities and issues.
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 you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
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 free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
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 companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

Runecast Analyzer
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Our customers tell us regularly how Runecast benefits CIOs, CISOs, and both Security and Operations teams across verticals with a proactive approach that results in major time and cost savings, increased uptime and security standards complianceSuccess Highlight 75-85% troubleshooting time savings – Kiel Municipal Hospital90% time savings on reactive troubleshooting – Near East Bank90% time savings in upgrade planning– FLEXdata80% reduction in monthly incidents and issues – University of St Andrews78,000 EUR/year minimum annual cost savings – Notino100s of hours saved on security compliance with remediation scripts alone – Kiel Municipal Hospital75% time saved on troubleshooting and root cause analysis – de Volksbank
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne and others in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM). Updated: August 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.