AWS OpsWorks vs. SolarWinds Kiwi CatTools

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS OpsWorks
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
AWS OpsWorks is a configuration management service that provides managed instances of Chef and Puppet.N/A
SolarWinds Kiwi CatTools
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds® Kiwi CatTools® is network automation tool designed to manage configurations on network devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls. It helps users work more efficiently by scheduling automatic backup activities and rolling out configuration changes to multiple devices at the same time. With native support for devices from dozens of manufacturers, Kiwi CatTools is designed to simplify network administration, configuration change alerting, and backup management.
$852
Per Instance
Pricing
AWS OpsWorksSolarWinds Kiwi CatTools
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
One Time Price
$852
Per Instance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS OpsWorksSolarWinds Kiwi CatTools
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AWS OpsWorksSolarWinds Kiwi CatTools
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
AWS OpsWorksSolarWinds Kiwi CatTools
Small Businesses
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation
Score 8.6 out of 10
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Ansible
Ansible
Score 8.8 out of 10
Ansible
Ansible
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
SUSE Manager
SUSE Manager
Score 8.8 out of 10
SUSE Manager
SUSE Manager
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS OpsWorksSolarWinds Kiwi CatTools
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS OpsWorksSolarWinds Kiwi CatTools
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Where you already have some Chef recipes to build your application boxes and are happy to run directly on VMs, OpsWorks really shines. It won't do anything too complex for you, so it only really works well for simple stacks (load balancers, application layers, database layers). If you want to do more complex infrastructure, Cloudformation or Terraform are probably worth looking at.
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SolarWinds
Setting up device backup schedules for individual locations is quick and easy. The application is very straightforward and basic. The application covers 90% of our needs. Some devices that require configuration and file backups utilizing ftp or other methods are configured using a different set of tools. Backups can be stored in configured destination folders for easy review.
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Pros
Amazon AWS
  • OpsWorks provides a relatively simple interface for connecting with the ELB and bringing up/taking down EC2 instances.
  • OpsWorks stacks and layers allow you to logically organize your infrastructure to match your system architecture.
  • OpsWorks can assist in monitoring instance health and has a decent auto-scaling feature to recover from potential load-based outages.
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SolarWinds
  • Network device backups.
  • Identify configuration changes from prior backup.
  • Automated email notifications.
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Cons
Amazon AWS
  • There are no true deployment options, so you cannot specify rolling-deploys for example. It is possible to emulate some of these things, but it really is an exercise for the reader.
  • Generally pushes you down the road of mutable infrastructure (as opposed to immutable infrastructure). It would be nice if there were better options around this.
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SolarWinds
  • Limited scripting capability.
  • Limited reporting/management summarization.
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Usability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
CatTools is simple to set up and administer. Anyone who can install a Windows application can quickly set up an automated backup of one or more devices. It does what it was designed to do.
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
Unless you pay for a pricey support package getting support on OpsWorks will be pretty slow. Documentation is also relatively limited and sometimes hard to follow when compared to competitors. Generally, we've been able to get the answers we need from OpsWorks support when we run into problems but don't expect rapid responses.
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SolarWinds
The software is easy enough to set up and configure that even after using the product for years, we never had to contact support. We used some open source products before utilizing CatTools and could have used a speed dial to try and figure out the intricacies of the products.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
OpsWorks isn't really a direct competitor to Terraform/Cloudformation, but it does allow you to do some of the more simple things on offer quite quickly and effectively. Opsworks was used for this reason, along with existing internal knowledge of Chef. Along with some of the other services on offer from AWS, it is good to use as a stepping stone along the way when building your systems - or perhaps it would be entirely suitable for a fairly simple project.
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SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • OpsWorks allowed us to access the AWS infrastructure with a considerably lower time investment than we would have otherwise needed when we first implemented it.
  • Since we've been running with OpsWorks we've experienced very little downtime and it's required relatively little maintenance.
  • The main downside of using OpsWorks for us is that it has locked us into a very specific infrastructure that doesn't have the flexibility of many of the newer infrastructure management tools, this may lead to a painful migration down the road. We also run a risk of long outage if it ever does introduce breaking changes as the skillset needed to work with the OpsWorks tooling is very specific not widely available in our company.
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SolarWinds
  • Allows InfoSec to review all changes without granting access to actual devices.
  • Allows review of "what changed?" if required for particular sites.
  • Alerts confirm what devices have been modified every day.
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ScreenShots

SolarWinds Kiwi CatTools Screenshots

Screenshot of Schedule automated backups of network device configuration from routers, switches, firewalls, etc.Screenshot of Simultaneously perform or schedule configuration changes across multiple network devices with great ease.Screenshot of Receive real-time alerts when unauthorized configuration changes occur on network devices.Screenshot of Maintain a complete configuration history, and facilitate rollbacks to the last good configuration.Screenshot of Generate configuration and device information reports related to port, MAC, ARP, version details, and more.Screenshot of Get out-of-the-box support for both IPv4 and IPv6 devices from vendors, such as Cisco, HP, Huawei, 3Com and more.