Elastic Observability vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Elastic and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Elastic is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.0, while Broadcom is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.8. Elastic holds a 1.9% mindshare in CMS, compared to Broadcom’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Elastic users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Elastic Observability

Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews

11,402 Views
3,991 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

7,303 Views
3,140 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

VMware Aria Operations for Applications and Elastic Observability compete in the observability and performance management sector. Elastic Observability holds the advantage with its advanced analytics capabilities, suited for feature-rich environments.

Features: VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers comprehensive application monitoring, predictive analytics, and workload optimization. Elastic Observability provides real-time insights with powerful log analysis, advanced data visualization tools, and extensive customization options.

Room for Improvement: VMware could enhance its analytics capabilities, offer more customization options, and improve its support for non-VMware environments. Elastic Observability could improve ease of integration with third-party tools, simplify its setup process, and enhance customer support for complex deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations for Applications integrates seamlessly into VMware-centric infrastructures and offers responsive support. Elastic Observability provides flexible cloud and on-premise deployment options, supported by thorough documentation and a strong community.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations for Applications involves higher upfront costs but provides significant ROI through integration and infrastructure efficiency. Elastic Observability offers a flexible pricing model and delivers compelling ROI due to its advanced analytical features, despite potentially higher setup costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: July 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2026

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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

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

11th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

13th

Ranking in Container Monitoring

5th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (16th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

18th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

14th

Ranking in Container Monitoring

6th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.9%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 2.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Elastic Observability	1.9%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	2.1%
Other	96.0%

Cloud Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Has provided powerful customization for unique monitoring needs but needs more out-of-the-box capabilities

In my opinion, the best features of Elastic Observability are their flexibility to integrate with other existing systems and the ability to build a unified monitoring tool that can integrate with existing ones and end-to-end user journeys which require a lot of customizations. The greatest feature in Elastic is the ability to customize. This is similar to my comments about customizable dashboards in Elastic because it's visible to the analyst. However, it's very great. Customizing these dashboards can meet the customer's specific use cases and specific stories that they have in their environment, their special environment that doesn't look like other environments. The dashboarding in Elastic is highly customizable to the level of logos. If the customer wants his company logo in the dashboard, it can be done.

Read full review

Ajay Shukla

Consultant at HCLTech

Automation and insightful diagnostics elevate operations while improvements are welcome

The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including private, public, and hybrid, are already well-implemented. The ability to manage multiple vCenters across different geographical locations is very effective. The new Skyline health feature and certificate and licensing management are particularly useful improvements. The dashboard's overview tab provides comprehensive information about current vCenter status, resizable amounts, reclamation opportunities, anomalies, diagnostics, licensing, and certificates. However, there is room for improvement in application analysis. The current functionality lacks detailed monitoring at the kernel level, focusing mainly on CPU, memory, and storage matrices. Enhanced application monitoring capabilities, including tracking downtime for specific types of applications such as transactional or e-commerce applications, would be beneficial.

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

"Elastic Observability is highly stable; we ingested nearly 170 million records in the system and we have tested it, and you get your reports and dashboards within a few seconds, so it doesn't take much time."

"The architecture and system's stability are simple."

"The Elastic User Interface framework lets us do custom development when needed. You need to have some Javascript knowledge. We need that knowledge to develop new custom tests."

"Good design and easy to use once implemented."

"It's easy to deploy, and it's very flexible."

"In addition to the fact that we are more proactive in the detection of incident before they occur, we can on one click see the request path from the customer to the backend."

"The product has connectors to many services."

"It has always been a stable solution."

More Elastic Observability pros

"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."

"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."

"Scalability for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is easy to implement and manage."

"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."

"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support."

"Tanzu itself, integrated with multiple solutions, bestows support and security upon a container platform, especially when it comes to managing open-source container platforms such as Kubernetes."

"VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers significant features such as real-time statistics, the ability to identify possible issues within the VM environment, and helpful heat maps."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"The solution needs to use more AI. Once the product onboards AI, users would more effectively be able to track endpoints for specific messages."

"Elastic Observability’s price could be improved."

"Elastic Observability needs to improve the retrieval of logs and metrics from all the instances."

"Elastic APM's visualization is not that great compared to other tools. It's number of metrics is very low."

"They need more skills in the market. There are not enough skills in the market. It is not pervasive enough on the market, in my opinion. In other words, there isn't a big enough user base."

"When opening tickets, we cannot use our team mailbox."

"More web features could be added to the product."

"I am familiar with Azure Monitor, which I find more user-friendly compared to Elastic, which is a very technical tool."

More Elastic Observability cons

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

"They just need more capability. A few areas still need more enhancements in the technology capability space."

"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."

"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."

"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."

"However, it is still not a very mature product."

"In the new version, I would love to see more prediction capabilities. It would be great if one could see the alerts get a little more enriched with information and become more human-friendly instead of the technical stuff that they put in there. I think those would be really awesome outcomes to get."

"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"So far, there are just the standard licensing fees. Several of the components are embedded in the license or are even open source. They're even free depending on what you use, which makes it even more appealing to someone that is discussing pricing of the solution."

"Pricing is one of those situations where the more you use it, the more you pay."

"The product is not that cheap."

"Users have to pay for some features, like the alerts on different channels, because they are unavailable in different source versions."

"Elastic Observability's pricing could be better for small-scale users."

"There are two types: cloud and SaaS. They charge based on data ingestion, ingest rate, hard retention, and warm retention. I believe it costs around $25,000 annually to ingest 30GB of data daily. That is the SaaS version. There is also a self-managed license where the customer manages their own infrastructure on-prem. In such cases, there are three license tiers that respectively cost $5,000 annually per node, $7,000 per node, and $12,500 per node."

"The price of Elastic Observability is expensive."

"We will buy a premium license after POC."

More Elastic Observability pricing and cost advice

"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."

"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."

"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."

"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Construction Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

After careful consideration about areas for improvement in Elastic Observability, aspects such as pricing, customization, implementation, and scalability could be improved. As a user of the system,...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Elastic Observability?

My use case for Elastic Observability is observability, as we upload our customers' data, including logs, and when there is an issue, we can analyze what went wrong.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

The solution includes cost drivers that can be configured according to your environment. You can input server-wise, CPU-wise, storage, and memory costs per hour or day. Once cost drivers are provid...

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

I have been involved in several projects where I had to implement automation and monitoring alerting. I performed automation using VMware Aria Operations for Applications. There is an automation ta...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

August 2026

Download Elastic Observability product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2026

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability

Overview

Elastic Observability offers a comprehensive suite for log analytics, application performance monitoring, and machine learning. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Teams and Slack, enhancing data visualization and scalability for real-time insights.

Elastic Observability is designed to support production environments with features like logging, data collection, and infrastructure tracking. Centralized logging and powerful search functionalities make incident response and performance tracking efficient. Elastic APM and Kibana facilitate detailed data visualization, promoting rapid troubleshooting and effective system performance analysis. Integrated services and extensive connectivity options enhance its role in business and technical decision-making by providing actionable data insights.

What are the most important features of Elastic Observability?

Centralized Logging: Streamlines the collection, analysis, and storage of log data.
Powerful Search: Provides robust search capabilities for quick access to relevant information.
Scalability: Supports growing data needs across diverse environments.
Real-time Telemetry: Ensures up-to-date insights and monitoring.
Platform Integration: Seamlessly connects with services like Teams and Slack.
Data Visualization: Enhances visibility with Elastic APM and Kibana.

What benefits and ROI should users explore in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers significant savings through efficient data management.
Rapid Incident Response: Minimizes downtime with quick troubleshooting tools.
Comprehensive Insights: Supports better business decisions with detailed data analysis.
Performance Tracking: Enables assessment of system effectiveness and improvements.

Elastic Observability is employed across industries for critical operations, such as in finance for transaction monitoring, in healthcare for secure data management, and in technology for optimizing application performance. Its data-driven approach aids efficient event tracing, supporting diverse industry requirements.

Elastic

VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing the performance and availability of applications and infrastructure in real-time.

With its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, visualizing and analyzing data becomes effortless. The real-time alerting system ensures timely issue resolution, while scalability and a user-friendly interface provide a seamless experience for smooth operations.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2026

Free Report: Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Observability vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.

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