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Cribl vs VMware Aria Operations for Logs comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 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
4.3
Cribl offers cost-effective solutions with potential 30%-50% returns, reducing operational costs through log optimization and automation.
Sentiment score
5.0
VMware Aria Operations for Logs boosts ROI with cost savings and efficiency, especially in virtualization-focused environments, within two years.
In the case of optimization, it has helped return on investment to somewhere close to 50%.
we have saved a significant amount of time and resources moving from a manual approach to something that's more automated.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.0
Cribl's customer support is highly responsive with quick issue resolution, knowledgeable staff, and strong technical assistance despite minor improvements needed.
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.
If they could enhance their internal logging, we won't require Cribl support to engage.
The community, including the engineering and sales teams, is available on Slack and is very supportive.
While support staff is knowledgeable, getting access to specialists can be challenging when dealing with the limits of a product.
Customer service and support have declined.
I did not need technical support because I am a professional with VMware.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.9
Cribl offers scalable, automated deployment and seamless growth for efficient data handling, suitable for businesses of all sizes.
Sentiment score
8.5
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is highly scalable and integrates well, though licensing and space management affect scalability.
It's an enterprise version, and we have a good amount of users using this solution.
I don't need to talk to a Cribl engineer to connect a new log source.
Cribl is quite scalable, as we could add worker nodes as our data grows.
Since payment is based on hardware, scalability impacts are managed more effectively than with other tools paid by data volume.
It's relatively easy to find individuals with the skills to work with VMware because it is a widely spread tool.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.3
Cribl is stable and reliable, with minor bugs quickly resolved, earning stability ratings between six and nine.
Sentiment score
7.1
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is stable, integrates with Microsoft, and is reliable, with minor issues resolved swiftly.
I would rate the stability as ten out of ten.
If the pipeline is down and we receive an alert that it's not sending information to the log collection platform for more than one or two hours, if we receive an alert, it would be great.
Cribl is quite stable and doesn't crash; there's no unusual behavior.
Managing a lot of data involves reliance on hardware and network performance, which are external factors that can affect stability.
It has been very stable, and every time I needed it, it was available and working.
VMware as a whole provides very stable tools.
 

Room For Improvement

Cribl struggles with legacy integration, advanced customization, and documentation, while users seek better logging, indexing, and Microsoft connectors.
VMware Aria Operations for Logs needs better usability, integration, documentation, cost efficiency, stability, and enhanced filtering and dashboard features.
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.
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.
Since Cribl is such a large platform with numerous features, having a clear, structured approach would make it easier for me and others to understand and utilize its capabilities.
It would be beneficial to have a roadmap for these dashboards to ensure consistent functionality.
There is also dissatisfaction with Broadcom's broader attitude, which is prompting me to search for alternatives.
VMware Aria Operations for Logs is not a cost-effective tool.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find Cribl cost-effective, offering good value and savings, despite its complex credit-based billing and yearly price increases.
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.
Cribl is very inexpensive, with enterprise pricing around 30 cents per GB, which is really decent.
Splunk, often paid by the terabytes, becomes expensive quickly if not managed carefully.
The price has risen significantly, and for smaller customers, the cost can be up to ten times more than before.
VMware comes with a lot of packages, however, it remains too expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Cribl excels in real-time data transformation, routing, and management with user-friendly tools, cost efficiency, and extensive integration support.
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.
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.
The community on Slack is excellent for solving questions and getting ideas.
This tool also provides greater insight when integrated with VMware infrastructure, making it more precise than other tools.
The most valuable features are log centralization and long-term retention for logs.
A valuable feature of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is its ability to allow personalization of dashboards and requests.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cribl
Ranking in Log Management
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (12th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (10th), Observability Pipeline Software (1st)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in Log Management
12th
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 October 2025, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Cribl is 2.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Logs is 1.4%, 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 (%)
Cribl2.5%
VMware Aria Operations for Logs1.4%
Other96.1%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Manoj Gowda J - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps reduce log ingestion cost by dropping unnecessary events and customizing pipelines
The best feature in Cribl, when getting logs from some custom application, is the ability to break up logs that pile up together and come as one event. 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. This is critical as this generally happens in CrowdStrike. This feature helps us significantly. When the ingestion is high from unwanted logs, logs not related to security purposes can be dropped by writing the parser function. By dropping events that are not required for security purpose monitoring, we can reduce the ingestion, which drastically reduces the cost as well. Cribl gives another option where I can store some logs, and when needed, I can pick them up from there. The interface is very handy and not very complicated, yet there are many functions you can perform. You can play around with numerous functions, parse there, and add UDMs to SecOps, which makes it really easy. To simplify the pipeline, when we go to the pipelines, there are vast options. We can make it specific requirements based on the customers. I would prefer a customized or simplified version. Cribl is a very good platform to work with, with lots of features that other platforms don't provide.
LarsChristensen - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient troubleshooting with precise log filtering and an easy setup
The tool could benefit from improved filter settings and dashboarding. While there are dashboards available, they are often created by community members and may not work after updates. It would be beneficial to have a roadmap for these dashboards to ensure consistent functionality. It would also be advantageous if the tool could process even large amounts of data faster, though this may be more related to data movement challenges rather than the software itself.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cribl?
Cribl is very inexpensive, with enterprise pricing around 30 cents per GB, which is really decent. Organizations looking to ingest terabytes or petabytes of data each day find it quite an inexpensi...
What needs improvement with Cribl?
They've already done many good things with the product, but perhaps they could implement a temporary SIEM solution where we could store logs and display them as a SIEM, though I think that's not th...
What is your primary use case for Cribl?
Our main use case for Cribl was SIEM migration, where we merged multiple SIEM solutions to a single SIEM solution. SIEM migration was the most major use case we were looking for. The second use cas...
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: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.