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Cisco UCS Director 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS Director
Ranking in Cloud Management
20th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Operations
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
375
Ranking in other categories
Virtualization Management Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 6.7%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Operations6.7%
Cisco UCS Director1.4%
Other91.9%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Good multi-cloud management capability, but third-party and legacy integration needs improvement
Normally, UCS Director is used primarily for orchestration, but when we look at a non-Cisco data infrastructure components, the UCS Director needs a bit more improvement in terms of integration with third-party systems and with existing older systems. I feel that more development or a more integrated road map should be set up so that it becomes a common platform for any infrastructure. In the next release of this solution, I would like to see changes in the navigation controls of UCS Director. That would be helpful. Modifying the icons that are available for use, as well as virtualization aspects.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A product that really aids in systems management without complexity."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the fabric sharing."
"This is a user-friendly solution that is very good and easy to use."
"Cisco's knowledge base is extensive."
"The reason we went with Cisco is that it comes at a very negligible cost as part of the BOQ. Compared to the competition's products, which are incredibly expensive, UCS Director is low-cost."
"The solution is helpful for centralized management."
"The main feature of this solution is the integration with all the Cisco solutions and other vendors."
"An easy and strong configuration, along with its low cost, are some of the features of the solution."
"If the network goes down between our office and one of our data centers then it is able to detect that. It will provide you ways to get a deeper understanding of the issues, and it will suggest resolutions."
"The scalability is great. We have never had any issues with it being unable to size properly in our environment."
"The solution has helped us improve quality of service to users, by giving alerts when different performance metrics get outside of their normal ranges. For example, I've had times when there have been memory leaks in applications and this solution has shown me as my memory usage gets outside of normal bounds. I'm able to find that and resolve it before my customers get back to me to tell me that there's a problem."
"The monitoring and verification functionalities were the most useful features."
"We appreciate that this solution gives accurate reporting."
"The most effective feature is the reporting tool, especially for PMS reporting at the end of the month, focusing on underutilized or overutilized resources."
"Based on those usage patterns, we can determine when our best maintenance times are and when we need to scale things up or down."
"It has improved our organization with respect to allowing us to size our environments correctly. We get metrics about what our stuff is actually using, how we can scope for future projects, where can we save some resources."
 

Cons

"The tool should be a lot more intuitive and make it easy for us to understand and migrate."
"I would like to see more integration with other solutions."
"Normally, UCS Director is used primarily for orchestration, but when we look at a non-Cisco data infrastructure components, the UCS Director needs a bit more improvement in terms of integration with third-party systems and with existing older systems."
"The areas where this product can be improved are the integrations and the UI. These features are not as friendly compared to VMware products."
"The product could allow more programmatic opportunities through better development of the API."
"There are a lot of bugs in the solution. This is an area in the solution that can be improved."
"It is not easy to add or expand the product."
"The product's pricing needs to improve."
"I would like to see a full RESTful API for everything and PowerCLI modules that interact with more of the different features. It doesn't have a complete API set and it's not a complete PowerCLI module yet. I'd love to see that developed more, to be able to interact with other applications and automation."
"It could be more proactive."
"I want vROps to have wider compatibility with older hardware. In this country, many companies have older hardware, so sometimes we can't support all the newest features."
"When it comes to policies, they need to fine tune things to make it easier. It is a bit difficult setting up policies."
"A reporting engine would be good, where the database could dump into something like Splunk integration, so we could write our own reports."
"There are some distribution issues, and there is not enough information on the portal."
"It can get a bit complex when getting into the endpoint monitoring during setup."
"Moving forward, I would like to see some tighter integration with the vSphere Web Client, just so that I don't have to open multiple windows and jump back and forth. We've currently running vSphere 6.7 and there is a lot tighter integration between vROps and vSphere, but it can always be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing around five to six out of ten."
"I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."
"The cost of this solution is significant."
"I rate Cisco UCS Director's price a three out of ten. Cisco UCS Director is not an affordable product. With Cisco UCS Director, there is a need to pay an overall price, which consists of the product, software, and support."
"I would like to see a free offering. Cost is always a factor in any sort of line. Obviously, the value added is there and it's worth it."
"The licensing is not clear at the moment if the on-premises pricing is the same as on the cloud. I am checking on the pricing. However, you can save a lot of money with the cloud solution because you need to spend time installing, upgrading, and connecting with the on-premises solution. Also, you don't need to spend time scheduling the maintenance and maintaining the solution when using the cloud version."
"Our budgets are always tight. We would like to have more features at lower licensing levels for easier access to them."
"The solution is costly."
"As we continue to implement it across multiple environments, it reduces costs as well."
"We have definitely seen ROI by removing unnecessary servers and VMs. By having vROps as an assistant when it comes to monitoring and managing resources, it has helped us a lot with cost savings and managing expenses."
"I would give the solution a three out of five, with one being cheap and five being expensive. There are some elements of the pricing that are good, and some areas where I feel like I'm being charged for something the product can't provide yet."
"It is an affordable solution that doesn't require any additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise278
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Director?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Director?
While the pricing might be seen as expensive, it provides value for money due to reliable service and excellent technical support.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Director?
It should be more of a cloud-based architecture for Cisco UCS Director, and it should be affordable to small customers as well because the pricing is a major challenge when we talk about Cisco UCS ...
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

No data available
VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Entel, Data#3, Cegal, NESIC, LightEdge
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 UCS Director vs. VMware Aria Operations and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.