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Cisco Intersight vs VMware Aria Operations comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Intersight reduces costs and time via hyper-converged tech, simplifying management and improving user satisfaction over time.
Sentiment score
7.3
VMware Aria Operations boosts VM density per host, streamlines resource management, reduces costs, and enhances efficiency with predictive analysis.
It simplifies the onboarding of new hardware, reducing time spent on manual installations and configurations.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco Intersight's support is available 24/7, praised for competence but can be slow for complex issues. Ratings vary.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware Aria Operations support is praised for expertise but criticized for initial inconsistency and slow responses post-Broadcom acquisition.
For complex issues, it's challenging to get the right engineer quickly unless you have a specific contract like CX.
Cisco technical support is helpful.
Cisco provides better support than anyone else.
They remain in the top 25% of vendors.
I rate the customer service and support for VMware very highly, at nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Intersight is highly scalable, effortlessly managing multi-environments and automating tasks, with high user satisfaction across various settings.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware Aria Operations effectively scales across environments, supporting diverse infrastructures with recent updates enhancing performance and flexibility.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten due to its capability to manage multiple domains and automate service requests.
Cisco Intersight is scalable enough for our needs, allowing management in a multi-environment setup and working remotely while deploying servers.
I consider VMware Aria Operations to be very scalable, earning a high rating of nine out of ten.
I find VMware Aria Operations to be quite scalable for my needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Intersight is generally stable and secure, but upgrades and documentation gaps may pose challenges, affecting stability ratings.
Sentiment score
7.8
VMware Aria Operations is stable and reliable, but issues like slowdowns and space problems can occur without proper setup.
It is always accessible online, secure, and allows access from any location, following strict authentication standards.
Some steps are not included in the official documentation, which can create challenges.
The solution is not very stable.
It is a stable solution, which is one of the reasons people prefer it since everyone knows how to use it.
I find the stability of VMware Aria Operations to be impressive, rated as a stable nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Intersight needs improved hybrid cloud integration, enhanced automation, AI assistance, easier migration, setup, and broader device management.
VMware Aria Operations needs user-friendly enhancements, improved integration, and better documentation amid stability and pricing concerns.
There is a significant issue regarding migration from UCS Manager into Intersight without formatting the Fabric Interconnects (FI), which is problematic in a production environment.
It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like ChatGPT.
When registering our devices and servers using tokens, auto-detection could make it easier by automatically identifying resources and adding them to the platform.
Customers have commented on the pricing issues, noting that doubling the price is not normal.
Stability is a significant area that needs improvement as I experience frequent disconnections and interruptions in data collection.
One area that needs improvement is the solution's connectivity and integration with other products, such as IBM and Huawei servers and storage.
 

Setup Cost

Opinions on Cisco Intersight pricing vary, though most agree it offers fair value and justifiable investment for enterprises.
VMware Aria Operations' perceived high costs and complex licensing challenge justifications, yet integration with VMware suites adds value.
Cisco Intersight's license cost is very high compared to AWS and Azure solutions, which have lower initiation costs.
The pricing is fair and reasonable, particularly for enterprises.
The pricing mechanism sounds fair.
This makes the cost complex to determine individually.
VMware Aria Operations is considered overpriced.
The pricing and cost of VMware Aria Operations increased significantly after Broadcom acquired VMware.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Intersight provides integration, orchestration, analytics, and automation for enhanced manageability, scalability, and security in data centers.
VMware Aria Operations enables efficient infrastructure management with predictive analytics, resource optimization, and comprehensive virtual infrastructure monitoring.
It also provides predictive analysis, predicting data leaks and making it easy to scale up servers remotely without requiring physical interference.
It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure.
This solution has provided time savings and required fewer people to operate this tool, rather than direct cost savings.
It allows me to perform deep monitoring and logging of the entire environment, providing a quick alarm and warning system through email.
The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations are its stability, ease of use, and extensive range of features.
The valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include the single pane of glass for all my environments, which allows a deep dive into the metrics.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Intersight
Ranking in Cloud Management
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th)
VMware Aria Operations
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
374
Ranking in other categories
Virtualization Management Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 2.5%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 7.7%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

ItzikLiberman - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides data center management and full infrastructure visibility
Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management. It provides visibility into other products and storage, and is beneficial for environments where Cisco and other vendors coexist, allowing full visibility of the entire infrastructure. We have visibility to other products and storages, some networking. It is also valuable for its integration capabilities with other products.
Amar Sorro - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage and monitor crucial banking operations with deep logging and efficient alerting
The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include its excellent monitoring capabilities. It allows me to perform deep monitoring and logging of the entire environment, providing a quick alarm and warning system through email. These features help me in efficiently managing virtual machines. The solution also offers easy access to VMware KB articles for problem resolution, ensuring quick access to troubleshooting information.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
33%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Intersight?
Intersight can validate our environment.
What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?
I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight. It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?
We use Cisco Intersight ( /products/cisco-intersight-reviews ) for operational tasks. We run patches and import firmware updates from the Cisco site. In the event of a component failure, such as a ...
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 VMware Aria Operations a user friendly solution?
In terms of user-friendliness, VMware Aria Operations is one of the best solutions out there. It is not overly complex to set up and you can rely on the technical support to provide you with assis...
What is the most useful new feature of VMware Aria Operations?
For me, the alerts features are the most unique part of this product, no matter the current name it uses. When they introduced the new version of VMware Aria Operations, they also introduced more a...
 

Also Known As

Intersight
VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EXMAR, RapidScale
Science Applications International Corporation, Tribune Media, Heartland Payment Systems, Telkom Indonesia, Columbia Sportswear, iGATE, CSS Corp, Angel Broking, Adira Finance, Hipskind, Beiersdorf Shared Services, Innovate Mas Indonesia, Adobe, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi , Join Experience S.A, Borusan Holdings, Department of Transport - Abu Dhabi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Intersight vs. VMware Aria Operations and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.