Densify vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Densify and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Densify is ranked #32 with an average rating of 7.0, while Broadcom is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.8. Densify holds a 2.3% mindshare in CM, compared to Broadcom’s 5.3% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Densify users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Densify

Read 10 Densify reviews

4,429 Views
2,657 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Automation

Read 172 VMware Aria Automation reviews

18,397 Views
10,486 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Densify

VMware Aria Automation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Densify and VMware Aria Automation are direct competitors in cloud management and optimization. While VMware Aria Automation is recognized for its advanced automation capabilities, cost-sensitive customers often prefer Densify due to its favorable pricing and support, impacting the perceived value of each product differently.

Features: Densify is known for precise cloud cost management, offering actionable insights that help optimize resources and achieve cost savings. Additionally, it provides extensive cloud account aggregation and visualization, aiding in comprehensive capacity planning. VMware Aria Automation offers robust automation features, supporting complex workflows and integrations. The platform enables automated deployments, detailed blueprints, and integration with a variety of third-party tools, emphasizing its strength in handling sophisticated environments.

Room for Improvement: Densify could enhance its feature set by offering more extensive automation capabilities and deeper integrations with other cloud services. Its analytics dashboard, while functional, may benefit from more intuitive navigation and customization options. VMware Aria Automation, on the other hand, could reduce the complexity of its initial setup and streamline its user interface. Simplified deployment processes and better documentation could make its features more accessible to a wider range of users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Densify is often favored for its quick deployment times and responsive customer support, which users appreciate for its efficient service. In contrast, VMware Aria Automation may require prolonged setup due to its comprehensive feature set. However, it excels in supporting complex enterprise environments, making it suitable for larger organizations despite potential deployment delays.

Pricing and ROI: Densify generally offers lower initial setup costs with a faster return on investment, particularly valuable for those focusing on direct cost savings. Its emphasis on targeted resource optimization allows for quicker financial returns. VMware Aria Automation, although presenting a higher entry cost, offers substantial long-term benefits through its deeper integration and automation features, which can lead to greater operational efficiency and ROI in complex setups.

To learn more, read our detailed Densify vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Densify vs. VMware Aria Automation

September 2026

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Helped 913,924 peers since 2012

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

Densify

Ranking in Cloud Management

32nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (10th), Virtualization Management Tools (8th), Cloud Analytics (6th), Cloud Cost Management (20th)

VMware Aria Automation

Ranking in Cloud Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

172

Ranking in other categories

Configuration Management (10th), Network Automation (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (28th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Densify is 2.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 5.3%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware Aria Automation	5.3%
Densify	2.3%
Other	92.4%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

AbhishekGupta2

Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Optimized cloud costs and automated right‑sizing have reduced spend while reporting needs improvement

The best features Densify offers are actionable optimization recommendations, which tell you how to reduce costs while maintaining performance; the ML-powered predictive analytics feature, which considers historical patterns to provide recommendations; multi-cloud coverage for optimization across AWS, Azure, and GCP; and a solid balance between performance and cost. Out of those features, I find myself relying on actionable optimization recommendations and predictive analytics features the most because Densify goes one step beyond by providing recommendations considering historical patterns, especially for workloads that only spike during certain times of the month. Densify has positively impacted my organization by providing significant cost savings through right-sizing and eliminating inefficient resources, allowing faster decisions based on data, and reducing manual intervention for cloud operations, thus providing automation of basic cloud routines. I usually see a twenty-five to thirty percent cost saving in my customer's environment, and from a time-saving perspective, it has almost halved the time of the operations team.

Read full review

VasilisGiannitsiotis

Senior IT at ITSolutions

Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration

Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One would be the automatic rebalancing of the environment. That was one feature which helped. With that, we could improve our efficiency of our VMware infrastructure."

"This product has provided us with a more comprehensive solution that is now replacing nearly all other tools which were previously used in the different platforms and environments within the account."

"The Control Console is an incredible way to give a quick view of current capacity utilization allowing technical people to drill down quickly and allowing business/management people to get a quick overview of the environment."

"Using the reports from Densify will provide us with the trusted advisor backing for our own purchase and provisioning decisions."

"The tool will come back and tell us that we can operate with 1,000 minutes as an example, save 90% on the contractual rate and not run into any issues."

"Our team members are now spending more productive time on other priorities and are handling much more effective tasks."

"The Densify Control Console, and Environment Status."

"From my perspective, this product is really good, and we are not even using each and every feature."

More Densify pros

"With the advent of the automation, we've been able to give DevOps the ability to spin up environments, give them lease times, and then have it automatically reclaim the environment."

"It is mostly for our tech support to test new versions, find bugs, and troubleshoot what is happening at customer sites."

"A lot of its DevOps for infrastructure capabilities improve reliability. Much effort was put in by some customers, like a large automobile manufacturer, a large telecom, and two large banks, to achieve a certain level of capabilities in this space. These DevOps for infrastructure capabilities have saved time for developers. In one use case for a large marketplace, a typical release cycle took about 80 hours and was brought down to three hours by automating deployment for developers. The quicker that deployments happen, the faster that they can do their product release cycles."

"I recommend the product due to its effectiveness in automation and integration."

"What we do with it is we've taken a very lengthy deployment process and we have shrunk it from what was a months-long process down to a matter of hours."

"If you're looking to deploy virtual machines through a self-service portal, this product works well."

"The automation part is valuable, especially where vRA integrates with vRO, because it reduces the amount of effort we have to make."

"I like that it is easy to deploy the infrastructure."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"Service management level integration is probably the biggest area for improvement."

"There are times when results are very slow when we search for servers."

"Densify can be improved in a couple of areas: the learning curve for new users, where it feels like an advanced optimization tool that needs time for full leverage; enhancements in reporting and filter options for more detailed custom reports; and improvements in UI performance since some users feel that the UI is a bit slow or outdated, especially with certain interfaces such as the Kubex Console or the Cloud Decks."

"A closer integration to the service management processes."

"It seems that the mechanism for integration is, it goes so far but I think there could be some standard integration to normal remedy service now etc. I think that should be out of the box."

"Normalization of CPU utilization is required. At present, the data is available based on entitlement level."

"Initially we talked about some custom reporting, wherein our customer expected certain reports on a few areas, like how the storage is allocated, how the network performance is doing, and how the network utilization is happening for a virtual machine."

"Some parts of the interface are rather complex and require a bit of time to navigate, but this has never stopped us as a Densify advisor is readily available to help with our "how to" queries."

More Densify cons

"Every time it was failing with different errors. This used to be a one day job, and it has been a one week job."

"If you are using Aria Automation by itself, you won't get the features you want, and the license cost is high."

"The stability is okay, but could be improved. We sometimes receive strange errors, which can only be solved with specialists."

"Hands down, the main thing for improvement is Windows orchestration. Repo is very limited and multiple issues occur when installing vendor products."

"There are still some issues such that, if you are going to go 100% cloud, if you don't want anything on-premise, there are some other solutions that might have a leg up."

"They can improve on the dashboard representations and the options for non-technical people. I would like to see the ability to customize that and maybe provide them with helpful guides to what subscriptions they have. Sometimes, I find that I have to do more explanation to people who do approvals. I would really like to customize the display to the terms they use in their particular business unit. So a little bit more of a nod to the customization of the UI for non-technical users would be helpful."

"The setup is difficult. You need a technical person to help you set it up."

"They should concentrate on navigation and service improvements."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There was some sticker shock, as this is not just another software product to spit out graphs."

"Densify has licensing setup so you can collect data without licensing. It gives you the ability to collect on everything, then choose later what you would like to license."

"Cost is always involved, but then I feel that this solution is better than other products that we have."

"Setup cost is negligible, as it scales fairly well."

"The pricing is very high."

"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."

"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."

"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."

"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."

"SaltStack is an open-source product."

"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	131

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Densify?

Densify can be improved in a couple of areas: the learning curve for new users, where it feels like an advanced optimization tool that needs time for full leverage; enhancements in reporting and fi...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Densify?

My main use cases for Densify include cloud cost optimization, predictive resource sizing, assistance in multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments, and reducing the manual analysis of the environme...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Densify?

My advice for others looking into using Densify is to focus on setting up governance policy early, integrate optimization results into your usual sprints, and train FinOps and engineering teams tog...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?

When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...

See all answers

Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?

I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Densify

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

CloudSphere vs Densify

Compared 5% of the time

IBM Service Delivery Manager vs Densify

Compared 3% of the time

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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

HashiCorp Terraform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Densify

September 2026

Download Densify product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

August 2026

Download VMware Aria Automation product report

Also Known As

No data available

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack

Overview

Densify provides advanced cloud resource optimization, driving efficiency and performance for businesses. Leveraging AI and analytics, it ensures precise resource allocation.

Densify caters to the dynamic needs of businesses in optimizing their cloud environments. By integrating sophisticated analytics with AI-driven insights, Densify facilitates efficient resource management. It minimizes waste and enhances operational efficiency through continuous monitoring and real-time recommendations. The platform is tailored for enterprises looking to enhance cloud resource utilization and reduce costs without compromising on performance.

What are the essential features of Densify?

AI-Powered Analytics: Leverages machine learning to provide actionable insights.
Real-Time Monitoring: Continuously tracks resource usage for optimal efficiency.
Automated Recommendations: Suggests improvements to enhance performance and reduce costs.
Cloud-Specific Solutions: Tailored optimizations for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Integration Capabilities: Easily integrates with existing IT management systems.

What benefits can users expect from using Densify?

Cost Reduction: Optimizes resource allocation to decrease unnecessary spending.
Improved Efficiency: Enhances system performance by aligning resources with demand.
Scalability: Supports business growth by adjusting resource management strategies dynamically.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Densify is implemented to manage extensive data workloads efficiently, ensuring resources are aligned with organizational performance goals. It helps IT departments meet compliance requirements and maintain high throughput in data-sensitive sectors.

Densify

VMware Aria Automation is known for its automation capabilities, integrating with VMware and third-party tools to enhance workflow efficiency, save time, and manage resources effectively.

VMware Aria Automation offers a diverse set of features including a self-service portal and a streamlined user-friendly interface, which make it ideal for organizations aiming to automate virtual machine provisioning. The platform supports extensive automation capabilities across multi-cloud environments, featuring flexible blueprint designs and comprehensive integration with platforms like AWS, Azure, and ServiceNow. Though improvements are desired in areas like logging, template management, and vCenter integration, its robust framework facilitates IT infrastructure services, disaster recovery, and development operations. It is specifically beneficial for orchestrating workflows, automating routine tasks, and managing workloads efficiently in private and hybrid cloud environments.

What are the most important features of VMware Aria Automation?

Self-Service Portal: Empowers users with easy access to resources and tools needed for automation.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and usage for both technical and non-technical users.
Extensive Automation Capabilities: Streamlines VM deployment and processes across various platforms.
Integration with VMware and Third-Party Tools: Enhances workflow automation and extends functionality.
Flexible Blueprint Designs: Allows for customized and scalable deployment solutions.

What are the benefits and ROI users should consider?

Efficiency: Reduces manual workload, leading to time and cost savings.
Scalability: Supports dynamic growth and resource management.
Enhanced Workflow Automation: Improves process efficiency with comprehensive integrations.
Customizable Orchestration: Enables tailored solutions that meet specific requirements.
Resource Management: Efficiently utilizes resources, reducing waste and optimizing operations.

VMware Aria Automation is implemented across industries for automating the provisioning of virtual machines and managing cloud environments. It is used in sectors requiring efficient server deployment, network configurations, and seamless integration with tools such as AWS and Azure. It aids in reducing manual efforts, supporting IT infrastructure services, and enhancing disaster recovery protocols.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

AIG, Bank of America, Cigna, Citi

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Buyer's Guide

Densify vs. VMware Aria Automation

September 2026

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