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Cribl vs VMware Aria Operations for Logs comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
5.6
Cribl enhances cost-effectiveness by reducing licensing costs and optimizing data management, offering up to 50% ROI.
Sentiment score
5.0
VMware Aria Operations for Logs boosts ROI with cost savings and efficiency, especially in virtualization-focused environments, within two years.
What we've seen is really an overall reduction of just shy of 40% in our ingest into our SIM platform versus prior to having Cribl.
Senior Security Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
The second thing is that data aggregation, sampling, and reduction that we're able to do of the data, lowering our overall data volume, both traversing the network as well as what's being stored inside of our final solutions.
Director, Performance Engineering at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
In terms of reduction, we were able to save almost ~40% of our total cost.
Sr. Lead Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
Cribl's customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, despite needing improved customer understanding and internal logging.
Sentiment score
4.1
VMware Aria Operations for Logs users experience mixed support quality, with slow but effective escalation to skilled experts.
They had extensive expertise with the product and were able to facilitate everything we needed.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
Usually, within an hour, we get a response, and we are able to work with them back and forth until we resolve the issues.
Engineering Fellow at Pegasystems
Sometimes by hearing the problem itself, they will know what the solution is, and they will let us know how to resolve it, and we do it immediately.
Senior Specialist at LTIMindtree
While support staff is knowledgeable, getting access to specialists can be challenging when dealing with the limits of a product.
Advisory Solution Consultant at ServiceNow
Customer service and support have declined.
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I did not need technical support because I am a professional with VMware.
Server, Virtualization and Data Storage Solutions Specialist at DE Bilişim Tek. A.Ş.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Cribl efficiently scales to handle large data volumes, supports diverse workloads, and adapts to growing data processing needs.
Sentiment score
8.5
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is highly scalable and integrates well, though licensing and space management affect scalability.
The infrastructure behind Cribl Search is also scalable as it uses a CPU and just spawns horizontally more instances as it demands and requires.
Engineering Fellow at Pegasystems
Compared to other SIEM tools I use, any slight change on the operating system end impacts a lot on our SIEM tools and other things, but Cribl performs well in that regard.
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's an enterprise version, and we have a good amount of users using this solution.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
Since payment is based on hardware, scalability impacts are managed more effectively than with other tools paid by data volume.
Advisory Solution Consultant at ServiceNow
It's relatively easy to find individuals with the skills to work with VMware because it is a widely spread tool.
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Cribl is stable and reliable, with effective support, despite minor bugs and issues at high volumes or advanced usage.
Sentiment score
7.1
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is stable, integrates with Microsoft, and is reliable, with minor issues resolved swiftly.
Migrating from those SC4S servers to Cribl worker nodes has truly been a game-changer.
Sr. Lead Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Regarding scalability, we started with zero servers and have around 285 servers now.
Senior Specialist at LTIMindtree
I would rate the stability as ten out of ten.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
Managing a lot of data involves reliance on hardware and network performance, which are external factors that can affect stability.
Advisory Solution Consultant at ServiceNow
It has been very stable, and every time I needed it, it was available and working.
Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
VMware as a whole provides very stable tools.
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cribl users seek improvements in integration, documentation, AI, analytics, and cost-efficiency, alongside better support for legacy systems and downtime prevention.
VMware Aria Operations for Logs needs better usability, integration, documentation, cost efficiency, stability, and enhanced filtering and dashboard features.
A more stringent role-based access control feature would enhance security and allow granular control over what users can see and access.
Manager for Monitoring and Logging at Velera
If we can have more internal logs and more debug logs to validate the error, that would be beneficial because instead of reaching out to Cribl support, we can troubleshoot and find the root cause ourselves.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
In terms of large datasets—whether they originated from network inputs, virtual machines, or cloud instances—ingesting the data into the destination was relatively easy.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
It would be beneficial to have a roadmap for these dashboards to ensure consistent functionality.
Advisory Solution Consultant at ServiceNow
There is also dissatisfaction with Broadcom's broader attitude, which is prompting me to search for alternatives.
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is not a cost-effective tool.
Server, Virtualization and Data Storage Solutions Specialist at DE Bilişim Tek. A.Ş.
 

Setup Cost

Cribl offers cost-effective enterprise pricing, simplifying usage with universal licensing and supporting scalability for large data volumes.
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is cost-effective within bundles but pricey without, leading to mixed enterprise buyer opinions.
Over time, the licensing cost has increased.
SIEM Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB)
Cribl is very inexpensive, with enterprise pricing around 30 cents per GB, which is really decent.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
They have a universal license that allows us to consume the portions of Cribl that we want to use or flex into other portions of Cribl.
Senior Security Engineer at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Splunk, often paid by the terabytes, becomes expensive quickly if not managed carefully.
Advisory Solution Consultant at ServiceNow
The price has risen significantly, and for smaller customers, the cost can be up to ten times more than before.
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
VMware comes with a lot of packages, however, it remains too expensive.
Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Cribl offers efficient data transformation, cost reduction, and seamless integration with intuitive UI and scalable, vendor-agnostic solutions.
VMware Aria Operations for Logs optimizes infrastructure with dashboards, real-time notifications, and scalability, enhancing troubleshooting and cost efficiency.
The data reduction and preprocessing capabilities make Cribl really unique.
Security Consultant at Riversafe Ltd
Cribl has a feature called JSON Unroll or Unroll function that allows you to differentiate the events; each event will come ingested as a single log instead of piling it up with multiple events.
Security Engineer at Tecplix
The Cribl UI is very simple and easy to use, particularly when working with data from various sources; it makes it very easy to create pipelines, add complex logic to those pipelines, and then gives you a preview of what your data looks like before applying that pipeline and what you get after.
Senior Security Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
This tool also provides greater insight when integrated with VMware infrastructure, making it more precise than other tools.
Advisory Solution Consultant at ServiceNow
The most valuable features are log centralization and long-term retention for logs.
Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
A valuable feature of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is its ability to allow personalization of dashboards and requests.
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Cribl
Ranking in Log Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (8th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Log Management
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Cribl is 2.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cribl2.6%
VMware Aria Operations for Logs1.5%
Other95.9%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Aman Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has helped reduce daily log volume significantly and streamline data routing across multiple destinations
Regarding complexity, as I mentioned before, Cribl is very simple to use. When I started 2.5 years ago, it was very easy to learn. I learned Cribl within a week, and even though I was a fresher at the time, it was easy to understand and not complex enough that someone would need to spend money on labs. It's not that complex to learn. Regarding cost efficiency, it's very good because nowadays the SIEM tools we use are too expensive on license, and SIEM tools base their license on how many logs get ingested. The unwanted logs, particularly firewall logs, represent a significant portion of unnecessary ingestion. Cribl saves our license by filtering out half of the firewall logs that are unwanted. Our main purpose for using Cribl is to save our license and save money. Currently, everyone is moving toward AI agents. We currently use regex, and AI agents could help us create those regex patterns to drop events or add raw data to events. Currently, we sit down, review the logs, and create regex patterns manually, which can be time-consuming. An AI agent could reduce this time. I read some articles indicating that Cribl Cloud has started using AI and considering MCPs and model context, but I'm not certain how far along they are. If Cribl asked me what they could improve, that would be my suggestion. The support is very good, and I had a few issues with Cribl where I raised support cases and received good responses, which is better than the quick response I didn't get from other SIEM tools and vendor tools I use. Compared to other SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper than Splunk and DataDogs. However, it's still a bit expensive from my point of view, though I won't call it expensive. Overall, I think 99% of companies use Cribl before their SIEM tools, and compared to SIEM tools, Cribl is cheaper. Companies can use any SIEM tool such as Google, Splunk, or Cisco, and Cribl is cheaper than those SIEM tools. They might have a slight chance to reduce costs further, but I'm not the correct person to evaluate that since I'm more focused on the operational side. Regarding training, it was quite easy to grasp. It took me almost a week to understand the basic functionalities and what Cribl does. Getting more expertise took additional time, but basic functionalities and understanding what Cribl does took around four to five days. One point I want to mention is that Cribl could improve their labs or training materials in their Cribl Cloud or whatever portal they have.
reviewer2668767 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solution Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Dashboard personalization enhances troubleshooting capabilities
A valuable feature of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is its ability to allow personalization of dashboards and requests. This personalization capability is crucial because it helps tailor the tool to specific needs. It also has many effective features for log analysis, making it a competent tool despite not having a comprehensive comparison with other tools.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
I'm not sure of Cribl pricing because it has been procured as a package by our client, and we are not exposed to or do not have an idea of how much they have spent to get a license from Cribl. But ...
What needs improvement with Cribl?
I am not in a position to comment on how Cribl could be improved or enhanced because it is a good tool, and I have only used a small part of the entire Cribl product. As of now I am pretty happy wi...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
My usual use cases for Cribl involve collecting logs from many endpoints, including user activities. We collect logs into either Log Analytical Workspace or Event Hub and redirect to Cribl so that ...
What do you like most about vRealize Log Insight?
The events are notably more descriptive, aiding in security and event analysis. We've also integrated Sky Collector, providing valuable insights and solutions for troubleshooting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vRealize Log Insight?
The cost of using VMware Aria Operations for Logs was very high, around two to three million dollars, although the exact figure is uncertain. The price was proving to be too much, especially with t...
What needs improvement with vRealize Log Insight?
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is not a cost-effective tool. Changing any telemetry requires creating a new template, such as changes to the VM disk size. Always having to create a new template ma...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vRealize Log Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Wildlands Adventure Zoo, Medic Mobile, IBM, Seventy Seven Energy, Baystate Health, Osis, Oxford University, Columbia University, Siemens, Cardinal Health, Ashdod Port, Vasakronan, Sydney Adventist Hospital, University of Derby
Find out what your peers are saying about Cribl vs. VMware Aria Operations for Logs and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.