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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs. SmartDeploy

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    SmartDeploy

    Score9.7 out of 10
    N/ASmartDeploy, now from PDQ.com (acquired January 2022), provides a software deployment solution supporting computer imaging, app deployment, driver management, and Windows migration.

    $960

    per year

    Pricing
    AnsibleSmartDeploy
    Editions & Modules
    Basic Tower
    5,000
    per year
    Enterprise Tower
    10,000
    per year
    Premium Tower
    14,000
    per year
    Starter
    $960
    per year
    Plus
    Contact sales team
    Pro
    Contact sales team
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AnsibleSmartDeploy
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$96,050
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    AnsibleSmartDeploy
    Considered Both Products
    Red Hat
    No answer on this topic
    PDQ
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    265 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    210 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    263 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    166 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    201 Answers
    No answers on this topic
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    AnsibleSmartDeploy
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    Perforce Puppet
    Score8.5 out of 10
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AnsibleSmartDeploy
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.8
    (292 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.2
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.3
    (184 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.7
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AnsibleSmartDeploy
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
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    PDQ
    Well suited scenarios : One of the situations SmartDeploy helped immensly was in application deployment and management for our projects , making it and instant favorite for the deployment process. Also in one situation where we had a high flying app development which did'nt had much time to develop, deployment thorugh smart deploy made it quick and less involvement. Easier to understand major functionalities and onboard new projects. Less appropriate scenarios: We faced issues while utilising by DevOps team for monitoring every system for issue resolving in linux update on every employees system. This created alot of delay in every employees work front as systems were not working as expected
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    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
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    PDQ
    • It allows us to maintain only one image. Much less effort required than storing and maintaining multiple images.
    • LAN deployment works very well with few issues.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    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
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    PDQ
    • Remote monitoring is useful but has some lagging and functionalities are not upfront to use , making it complicated for new users to be aware just by using the application
    • Windows migration was quite difficult in terms of updates of softwares to be migrated to new system
    • Integration with client systems can be tough as major usage of other softwares is done in most of client systems causing us difficulties to integrate with smart deploy on the same platform
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    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
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    PDQ
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    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
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    PDQ
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    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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    PDQ
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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
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    PDQ
    SmartDeploy customer support has been very good. Although we do not always get a super-fast response (though always within the time stated). The tech support folks at SmartDeploy always go the extra mile to see that our immediate issues are taken care of in as timely a manner as possible. They have always been attentive to our needs and frustrations.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Red Hat
    I spoke on this topic today!
    Incentivized
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    PDQ
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    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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    PDQ
    SmartDeploy has a fantastic deployment process management with detailed and configurable aspects. Even though it has detailed configuration it still somehow makes it easy to understand and implement compared to other services which need special learning and courses to understand them completelya and use them efficiently. This is one quality highly appreciated and stacks up against any other services I have used for deployment
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    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.
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    PDQ
    • Very fast as an image deployment solution for new PCs. We do not have to create a completely new image when new hardware comes out. This is an amazing time-saver on its own.
    • With offline deployment and some workarounds, this is allowing us to migrate many Windows 7 units, rather than having to upgrade each one or load from scratch or replace it with new hardware.
    Incentivized
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