Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Grafana Enterprise Stack vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Grafana Labs and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Grafana Labs is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.2, while VMware is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0. Grafana Labs holds a 0.8% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Grafana Labs users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of VMware users who would recommend it.
Grafana Enterprise Stack
Read 9 Grafana Enterprise Stack reviews
  • 692 Views
  • 501 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Read 12 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews
  • 1,344 Views
  • 1,198 Comparison Views
92% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report
Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

VMware Aria Operations for Applications and Grafana Enterprise Stack compete in application performance monitoring and data visualization. Grafana Enterprise Stack appears to hold the upper hand due to its comprehensive visualization features and flexibility in handling diverse data sources.

Features: VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides deep insights, predictive analytics, and seamless integration with VMware environments. Grafana Enterprise Stack offers powerful dashboard capabilities, extensive plugin support, and broad platform compatibility.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Operations for Applications could expand support beyond VMware environments, improve user interface intuitiveness, and enhance integration with non-VMware tools. Grafana Enterprise Stack may need streamlined configuration processes, improved role-based access control, and enhanced support for newer data sources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers easy deployment within VMware ecosystems and access to VMware’s support network. Grafana Enterprise Stack, although possibly requiring more initial setup due to its open-source nature, benefits from detailed documentation and community engagement, with responsive customer service aiding deployment.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations for Applications might involve higher setup costs but can deliver significant ROI in VMware environments due to its compatibility. Grafana Enterprise Stack provides flexible pricing models, generally lower initial costs, and high ROI potential for enterprises focusing on scalable visualization solutions, potentially reducing costs through its open-source foundation.

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
To learn more, read our detailed Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: April 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications
April 2025
Download the complete report
Helped 849,686 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

Grafana Enterprise Stack
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (27th), Container Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Grafana Enterprise Stack is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Gregory Diana - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers very good charting capabilities and capable of automatically generating dashboards, even for a large number of data points
In terms of what Grafana provides, it just provides the charting tools. Everything else is third-party. It's like Node-RED. Node-RED is free, and you can choose an application, but that application depends on the person who's supporting it. If they decide not to support it, then you're stuck. However, I believe that it can't be improved or changed because people have to make money and make a living from it. Nothing will ever be changed. It depends on the software. Same as Windward. Windward just decided it could not support a large number of customers, so it focused on high-income, low-volume clients. Whereas Node-RED has millions of followers and fantastic support, the same as Grafana. Grafana is partly free, but it's your problem. That's how all these companies work. If you're big and you pay a lot of money, they'll pay attention to you.
Read full review
ToniLindberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Troubleshooting capabilities have improved application monitoring and support engagement
I can see what happens end to end, which is pretty beneficial. The solution has troubleshooting capabilities, providing a direct connection to knowledge base articles from VMware Broadcom. When I encounter an error, I can search directly within the system to see what solutions have been employed by others. It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started.
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

"The dashboards are pretty good."
"Grafana's most valuable feature is its ability to provide a graphical representation of data collected from various sources."
"Our productivity has improved with its use."
"Grafana's full observability stack, known as LGTM, is highly valuable."
"Grafana's full observability stack, known as LGTM, is highly valuable."
"The most valuable features of Grafana for data visualization are its ability to create intuitive dashboards and its wide range of visualization options like graphs, charts, and tables."
"The tool's most valuable feature is real-time monitoring. It helps in securing the application or the node by allowing us to monitor and manage resource consumption during peak times. For instance, from 10 AM to 2 PM, we may experience high memory utilization. It helps us to solve these issues."
"It is truly reliable."
More Grafana Enterprise Stack pros
"People are very pleased with the implementation."
"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."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"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."
"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"No issues with stability."
"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros
 

Cons

"I have encountered occasional issues with false inputs or incorrect data in Grafana."
"They could use more small tutorials to explain a bit about how Grafana works."
"The solution should include integration with Power BI."
"The tool needs to show only fewer updates."
"I find Grafana really hard to configure. It's difficult to build the dashboard, and it's non-intuitive. In my opinion, it's very difficult to work with Grafana."
"The connection between metrics, logs, and traces could be improved."
"Integrating AI capabilities for automated self-healing and reduced manual interventions would be valuable."
"The connection between metrics, logs, and traces could be improved. Currently, one needs to ingest labels and timestamps for them to be connected, however, drilling down sometimes takes time."
More Grafana Enterprise Stack cons
"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."
"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."
"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 solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"The initial setup should be easier and more seamless."
"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."
"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."
"They could make it more easy to plug-in data so that a nontechnical person will be able to use it, like accountants or finance people. That way they don't have to ask us."
More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the tool's free license."
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
"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."
"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."
report
See which vendors are best for you
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
See recommendations
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Energy/Utilities Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Grafana Enterprise Stack?
The tool's most valuable feature is real-time monitoring. It helps in securing the application or the node by allowing us to monitor and manage resource consumption during peak times. For instance,...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Grafana Enterprise Stack?
From an analytics perspective, the integration of AI would be a beneficial improvement for Grafana Enterprise Stack.
See all answers
What is your primary use case for Grafana Enterprise Stack?
Our primary use case for Grafana Enterprise Stack includes monitoring cluster utilization, taking care of impact avoidance, conducting upgrades, ensuring storage memory does not become full, and id...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The cost of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is fair and reasonable compared to what we receive in support and packages from VMware.
See all answers
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases.
See all answers
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
Our primary use case for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is to enhance application monitoring tasks, allowing us to set up alerts for different components and send them via SMTP to a team d...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

PRTG Network Monitor vs Grafana Enterprise Stack Logo
PRTG Network Monitor vs Grafana Enterprise Stack
Compared 36% of the time
OpsRamp vs Grafana Enterprise Stack Logo
OpsRamp vs Grafana Enterprise Stack
Compared 18% of the time
Cisco Intersight vs Grafana Enterprise Stack Logo
Cisco Intersight vs Grafana Enterprise Stack
Compared 9% of the time
WhatsUp Gold vs Grafana Enterprise Stack Logo
WhatsUp Gold vs Grafana Enterprise Stack
Compared 7% of the time
ITRS Geneos vs Grafana Enterprise Stack Logo
ITRS Geneos vs Grafana Enterprise Stack
Compared 7% of the time
More Grafana Enterprise Stack Competitors
Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications Logo
Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Compared 12% of the time
Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications Logo
Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Compared 10% of the time
Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications Logo
Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Compared 6% of the time
Prometheus Group vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications Logo
Prometheus Group vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Compared 6% of the time
InfluxDB vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications Logo
InfluxDB vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Compared 3% of the time
More VMware Aria Operations for Applications Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Grafana Enterprise Stack
April 2025
Grafana Enterprise Stack reportDownload Grafana Enterprise Stack product report
Buyer's Guide
VMware Aria Operations for Applications
April 2025
VMware Aria Operations for Applications reportDownload VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

Grafana Enterprise Stack is a powerful tool for real-time data monitoring and visualization. With its flexible and scalable features, it is widely used for creating dashboards, analyzing metrics, and gaining insights into infrastructure, databases, and applications. 

Its valuable features include powerful visualization capabilities, extensive data source integrations, customizable dashboards, a user-friendly interface, and a robust alerting system. Users appreciate its flexibility, scalability, and ability to integrate with different data sources, making it suitable for a wide range of industries and use cases.

Grafana Labs

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.

VMware
 

Sample Customers

1. Uber 2. PayPal 3. eBay 4. Sony 5. Red Hat 6. IBM 7. Cisco 8. Adobe 9. Expedia 10. Booking.com 11. Airbnb 12. LinkedIn 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Spotify 16. Pinterest 17. Slack 18. GitLab 19. Docker 20. Atlassian 21. Salesforce 22. Microsoft 23. Google 24. Amazon 25. Facebook 26. Apple 27. Intel 28. Oracle 29. SAP 30. VMware 31. HP 32. Dell
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
Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications
April 2025
Free Report: Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Find out what your peers are saying about Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
DOWNLOAD NOW
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See our Grafana Enterprise Stack vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications report.
See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors.

We monitor all IT Infrastructure Monitoring reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.