Cisco UCS Manager vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Cisco is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.8, while Broadcom is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.8. Cisco holds a 1.3% mindshare in IM, compared to Broadcom’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Manager

Read 27 Cisco UCS Manager reviews

2,065 Views
1,859 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

3,211 Views
1,638 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Manager

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Cisco UCS Manager and VMware Aria Operations for Applications compete in IT infrastructure management. Cisco has an advantage in networking and compute integration, whereas VMware stands out for its monitoring capabilities.

Features: Cisco UCS Manager includes comprehensive network, storage, and compute unification, ease of server deployment and management, and robust support for enterprise environments. VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides strong application monitoring, extensive metrics for cloud environments, and container platform support.

Room for Improvement: Cisco UCS Manager needs improvements in firmware upgrade processes, user interface complexity reduction, and streamlined update procedures. VMware Aria Operations for Applications could offer enhanced integration with Kubernetes, improve predictive abilities, and simplify licensing complexities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco UCS Manager typically involves on-premises deployment with highly rated technical support. VMware Aria Operations for Applications supports both on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments and is praised for its proactive support model.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco UCS Manager is regarded as expensive but offers good ROI with fewer hardware failures. VMware Aria Operations for Applications involves high licensing costs yet is valued for its comprehensive capabilities, offering efficient management that can save development time. Both products ensure good ROI when suited to the organizational needs, though Cisco may have higher initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

January 2026

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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

Cisco UCS Manager

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

18th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (19th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	1.6%
Cisco UCS Manager	1.3%
Other	97.1%

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Rob-Croxford

Consultant at rcnss

A market leader with an enhanced user interface for seamless experience

There is room for improvement in terms of cost and complexity to set up. It doesn't work straight out of the UCS, so someone who knows what they're doing is needed immediately, and it can be quite confusing. Some settings are still fairly well hidden, even the basic ones. Companies don't really understand how long it takes to set up. Also, when changes are pushed, it can take their phone line off the system for twenty minutes to half an hour. Out-of-the-box functionality is an issue, too. I know that my company is different, however, the basics are always the same. You do your tap lines, zip lines, and stuff like that, then you get your internal phone line system. That can all be automated and scripted, and it's probably part of the automation process. However, I haven't really seen it.

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Ajay Shukla

Consultant at HCLTech

Automation and insightful diagnostics elevate operations while improvements are welcome

The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including private, public, and hybrid, are already well-implemented. The ability to manage multiple vCenters across different geographical locations is very effective. The new Skyline health feature and certificate and licensing management are particularly useful improvements. The dashboard's overview tab provides comprehensive information about current vCenter status, resizable amounts, reclamation opportunities, anomalies, diagnostics, licensing, and certificates. However, there is room for improvement in application analysis. The current functionality lacks detailed monitoring at the kernel level, focusing mainly on CPU, memory, and storage matrices. Enhanced application monitoring capabilities, including tracking downtime for specific types of applications such as transactional or e-commerce applications, would be beneficial.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the valuable features is the user interface base."

"The hardware is very powerful and it is a stable solution."

"The solution is highly scalable, mainly because of the templates that make it easy for you to actually edit on the system."

"What I like most about Cisco UCS Manager is the ease of administration. It also allows the central management of maintenance, installation, and configuration activities."

"I can quickly manage the provisioned servers."

"Cisco UCS has different layers of security, and you can do multiple installations of your LIAMs on top of the server and Blade. You can install VMware, Windows Server, Hyper-V, etc."

"From a usability and functionality perspective, Cisco UCS Manager is very good."

"When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time."

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."

"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."

"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."

"VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers significant features such as real-time statistics, the ability to identify possible issues within the VM environment, and helpful heat maps."

"Tanzu itself, integrated with multiple solutions, bestows support and security upon a container platform, especially when it comes to managing open-source container platforms such as Kubernetes."

"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."

"For us, the ease of deployment in combination with TMZ was the most important part because we don't have to manually deploy a complex monitoring solution. We can more or less do that with the click of a button, and we are not dependent on the developers to provide us with all the necessary features and functions to make that work. We can just deploy it on a workload cluster and monitor at least a good part of the workload. If we want to go into detail, we clearly need to make changes, but for a good part of application monitoring, it gives us good insights."

"Scalability for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is easy to implement and manage."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"Cisco UCS is expensive compared to others. The Cisco UCS Chassis is more expensive than a standalone server, but some companies require standalone servers because of their production load and affordability. You need to pay more if you require more features on the Blade or if you need more ports on the switch."

"Improving functionalities similar to InterSite within UCS Manager would be beneficial."

"The pricing can be better."

"The primary challenge we face is identifying the correct version to deploy during firmware upgrades or compute updates."

"I want to be able to schedule multiple sequential updates in one go."

"The solution's pricing is high and could be reduced."

"The automation within the solution needs to be simplified."

"I would like to see improved visibility into the operating system, enabling us to identify issues directly from the operating system itself."

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."

"VMware technical support has declined since the Broadcom acquisition. Previously, they were more focused on issue resolution, but now they prioritize licensing verification before providing support."

"In the new version, I would love to see more prediction capabilities. It would be great if one could see the alerts get a little more enriched with information and become more human-friendly instead of the technical stuff that they put in there. I think those would be really awesome outcomes to get."

"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."

"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."

"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."

"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."

"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."

"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."

"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."

"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."

"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."

"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."

"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."

"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."

"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Manager?

When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Manager?

My experience with the pricing of Cisco UCS Manager ( /products/cisco-ucs-manager-reviews ) is that it is reasonable. Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offe...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?

For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks. While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

The solution includes cost drivers that can be configured according to your environment. You can input server-wise, CPU-wise, storage, and memory costs per hour or day. Once cost drivers are provid...

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

I have been involved in several projects where I had to implement automation and monitoring alerting. I performed automation using VMware Aria Operations for Applications. There is an automation ta...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 63% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

HPE OneView vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 4% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 3% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 2% of the time

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Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 6% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 6% of the time

Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager

January 2026

Download Cisco UCS Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

December 2025

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability

Overview

Cisco UCS Manager helps significantly reduce management and administration expenses by automating routine tasks to increase operational agility. Customers can extend the benefits of Cisco UCS Manager globally across an enterprise to thousands of servers in multiple domains with Cisco UCS Central Software.

Cisco

VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing the performance and availability of applications and infrastructure in real-time.

With its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, visualizing and analyzing data becomes effortless. The real-time alerting system ensures timely issue resolution, while scalability and a user-friendly interface provide a seamless experience for smooth operations.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals

1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

January 2026

Free Report: Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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