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AWS CloudFormation vs. Azure Cloud Services vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    AWS CloudFormation

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/AAWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators a way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in a predictable fashion. Use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run an application. Users don’t need to figure out the order for provisioning AWS services or the subtleties of making those dependencies work.…

    $0

    Azure Cloud Services

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AAzure Cloud Services is a cloud platform that enables users to create infinitely-scalable cloud applications and APIs. It enables users to build the web and cloud applications needed while also simplifying the management of applications with cloud services, and while ensuring high availability. Users can: scale an environment automatically based on demand and reduce costs, automate operating system and application updates to increase security, and take advantage of integrated health monitoring…

    $0.02

    per hour

    Ansible

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/AThe Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (acquired by Red Hat in 2015) is a foundation for building and operating automation across an organization. The platform includes tools needed to implement enterprise-wide automation, and can automate resource provisioning, and IT environments and configuration of systems and devices. It can be used in a CI/CD process to provision the target environment and to then deploy the application on it.

    $5,000

    per year

    Pricing
    AWS CloudFormationAzure Cloud ServicesAnsible
    Editions & Modules
    Free Tier - 1,000 Handler Operations per Month per Account
    $0.00
    Handler Operation
    $0.0009
    per handler operation
    No answers on this topic
    Basic Tower
    5,000
    per year
    Enterprise Tower
    10,000
    per year
    Premium Tower
    14,000
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AWS CloudFormationAzure Cloud ServicesAnsible
    Free Trial
    YesNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsThere is no additional charge for using AWS CloudFormation with resource providers in the following namespaces: AWS::*, Alexa::*, and Custom::*. In this case you pay for AWS resources (such as Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancing load balancers, etc.) created using AWS CloudFormation as if you created them manually. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no required upfront commitments. When you use resource providers with AWS CloudFormation outside the namespaces mentioned above, you incur charges per handler operation. Handler operations are create, update, delete, read, or list actions on a resource.——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    AWS CloudFormationAzure Cloud ServicesAnsible
    Considered Multiple Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose AWS CloudFormation
    The only real comparison would be to Terraform, which is another IaC technology at the infra level. Terraform is cloud-agnostic, which means most popular cloud providers are supported. While AWS CloudFormation is AWS-only. Although, if you consider CDK, CDK for Terraform …
    Incentivized
    Chose AWS CloudFormation
    As we have our whole infrastructure on AWS, that is why we selected AWS CloudFormation. AWS CloudFormation is better integrated with AWS services than other available products and also provides visibility and tracking on AWS. AWS CloudFormation is free while Terraform …
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Red Hat
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    99%
    Would buy again
    265 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    210 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    263 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    166 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    201 Answers
    Features
    AWS CloudFormationAzure Cloud ServicesAnsible
    Platform-as-a-Service
    Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of AWS CloudFormation and Azure Cloud Services and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    Feature
    AWS CloudFormation
    -
    Ratings
    Azure Cloud Services
    8.3
    4 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    -
    Ratings
    Ease of building user interfaces00 Ratings9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scalability00 Ratings10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform management overhead00 Ratings8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow engine capability00 Ratings8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform access control00 Ratings9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Services-enabled integration00 Ratings7.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Development environment creation00 Ratings9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Development environment replication00 Ratings7.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Issue monitoring and notification00 Ratings8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Issue recovery00 Ratings8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Upgrades and platform fixes00 Ratings8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    AWS CloudFormationAzure Cloud ServicesAnsible
    Small Businesses
    HashiCorp Vagrant
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Foundry
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Salt
    Score6.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Terraform
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Private
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Perforce Puppet
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM Terraform
    Score8.7 out of 10
    AWS Elastic Beanstalk
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Salt
    Score6.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AWS CloudFormationAzure Cloud ServicesAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    8.8
    (292 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.3
    (184 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AWS CloudFormationAzure Cloud ServicesAnsible
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    I still give it an 8 because it's one of those tools that just quietly does the heavy lifting for you but it can really test your patience when it breaks esp with deep nested stacks. It's perfect for projects where we need clean consistent environments every time. It's less ideal for quick experimental setups like new EC2 configs or Lambda permission tweaks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Azure Cloud services is a good choice for hosting web applications, based on requirements it can be simple websites or complex web services as well as it provides automating application development and deployment pipeline. It's less appropriate in case of cost-effective option for organizations with tight budget constraints. For very basic static websites, Microsoft Azure's offerings might be seen as overkill.
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    I think it's the best defacto orchestrator for automation because it's so easy to integrate in other tools to it (dynatrace, cyberark, terraform, etc). It is a lot for a new or smaller team to use so I wouldn't recommend it to a new team using Ansible, in that case using Ansible navigator is a better start to understanding playbooks/inventories before diving into the complexity of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. EDA also takes a lot of connectivity between Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and target systems to get working which can be difficult in very locked down envs unless you have approval from many other teams like networking and security.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • All resources can segregated based on stacks which provides greater visibility
    • A complete audit trail of what went wrong while deploying a particular resource
    • Automatically rollbacks if any service as part of CloudFormation results in an error
    • The UI tool is useful
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Effective service management and performance monitoring capability.
    • Reliable security management with excellent access controls.
    • Best orchestration and easy configuration management.
    • Easy on compatibility testing and change management.
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • Standardize controls and visibility for automation.
    • Provide RBAC and Vault for improved automation security and support.
    • Job Scheduling is much more effective than Cron or other home-grown solutions.
    • The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform API is one of the best features as it makes automation accessible from any other platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • Error Description upon Failure Needs to be Improved.
    • Slow to create, delete or update.
    • Need to delete resources manually. It can ask before starting deletion whether to skip those resources or delete them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Latency and bandwidth as we often see gap here
    • There were many challenges as a developer while migrating our DB from on prem to cloud
    • System downtime is also one issue that can be improved
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • Ansible is still not truly declarative like Terraform.
    • Simple automation is fine, but creating complex, scalable automation scripts is very difficult to learn.
    • For a higher number of nodes, Ansible consumes a lot of resources. It needs the paid version of AAP, which requires a cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    We are extremely happy with the use of AAP. It's better than expected, There is almost no limit when thinking of automation. The only problem is that the day to day is consuming a big part of our time. Patching and checking vulnerabilities are virtually killing us. But we can only improve with AAP.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    It's easy enough to get a shared template & apply it. You don't even have to download-then-upload or copy-and-paste, a publicly-accessible url works.
    Diving deeper, it has enough powerful capabilities to make the life of a platform / DevOps engineer bearable.
    However, you need equally deep knowledge to troubleshoot issues, when they inevitably pop up. This is the same for all IaC technologies, as they are additional abstraction layers on top of the native API provided by the cloud providers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As a certificate developer and consultant, I love using Azure, it's interface is developer friendly with well guidance and support. Also there are a lot of service for any work, Azure ecosystem is sufficient to complete your all developments needs. So based on that I feel Azure is good and gives better developer experience.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    Everything has room for improvement, but Ansible is the best tool out there for what it does and what it can do. There are plenty of features and capabilities that can be added, but it's just a matter of time before it happens.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    I spoke on this topic today!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information. Management guide.For information copy of the original. The new virtual Cloning virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    I feel AWS offers a robust and versatile platform for cloud infrastructure and services. It's scalability, reliability array of tools make it a top choice for businesses of all sizes. AWS has better open source communities such as Linux, Jenkins and GitHub in comparison to Azure service cloud
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    AAP compares favorably with Terraform and Power Automate. I don't have much experience with Terraform, but I find AAP and Ansible easier to use as well as having more capabilities. Power Platform is also an excellent automation tool that is user friendly but I feel that Ansible has more compatibility with a variety of technologies.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • + We can standup a VPC in minutes
    • - It took a lot of inital time to set up
    • + With logging/rollback, made testing much easier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Azure's services and automation capabilities contribute to operational efficiency.
    • Azure's scalability ensures optimal performance during peak demand periods and cost savings during off-peak times
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • First, it keeps our entire server infrastructure aligned with our standards and reduces the time and effort needed to maintain our systems.
    • Automate routine IT tasks to save time, reduce errors, and ensure every server is configured and updated consistently.
    • Tasks that used to take our teams weeks to complete manually now run automatically and reliably, with full visibility, making our infrastructure management more effective and our compliance tracking much easier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    AWS CloudFormation Screenshots

    Screenshot of CloudFormation - How it works overviewScreenshot of CloudFormation - High level how it worksScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template exampleScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template inputs overview