IBM Application Performance Management vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

IBM and VMware are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. IBM is ranked #50 with an average rating of 7.0, while VMware is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.8. IBM holds a 0.3% mindshare in APM, compared to VMware’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 62% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of VMware users who would recommend it.

IBM Application Performance...

Read 7 IBM Application Performance Management reviews

762 Views
739 Comparison Views

62% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

2,539 Views
1,422 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM Application Performance...

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

VMware Aria Operations for Applications and IBM Application Performance Management are robust competitors in the APM market. Based on user reviews, VMware takes the lead in ease of use, while IBM offers a more extensive feature set.

Features: VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides straightforward monitoring, comprehensive dashboards, and user-friendly navigation. IBM Application Performance Management offers in-depth analytics, extensive integration capabilities, and a broad feature set suitable for complex enterprise environments.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Operations for Applications could benefit from improved alert management, enhanced analytical capabilities, and better integration with third-party tools. IBM Application Performance Management needs better scalability, a more intuitive setup process, and faster performance optimization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations for Applications is noted for its simplified and quick deployment process along with responsive customer support. IBM Application Performance Management tends to have a complex deployment process and less accessible customer support.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations for Applications has a favorable cost to value ratio with strong ROI, making it competitively priced. IBM Application Performance Management, although more expensive, provides a justified ROI due to its superior feature richness.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Application Performance Management vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Application Performance Management vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2025

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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

IBM Application Performance...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

50th

Average Rating

6.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

18th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (17th), Container Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of IBM Application Performance Management is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Daniel Tamiru

Manager, Database & System Administration at Awash International Bank

A multi-functional solution but has poor stability and performance-related issues

We are using version 4 of IBM Application Performance Management, and it is deployed on-premises. We use it for internet banking and mainly for application performance on-site. For example, if we face performance-related issues in one of our software or managed services, we use this solution to…

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ToniLindberg

senior consultant at Virtual Consultants Sverige AB

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Application Performance Management helped us increased our response time by 80% and cost 60% less."

"It's easy to use."

"Because we have partnerships with other partners, I can share a bit about what I've noticed with IBM APM compared to other vendor solutions. Specifically, with IBM, the visibility into detailed process information is more tangible. On the OS level, APM displays all processes (or the top 10 processes) that are consuming CPU or resident memory. This is the most important thing that is not always available with other vendors."

"The initial setup was straightforward and took minimal effort."

"The transaction tracking feature from IBM is the most important feature for us. It is something that provides a terrific value for us and our clients. It has a lot of data sources and agents that are collectors. It is also stable."

"I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten."

"The most valuable feature is the breakdown that it provides, such as a description of the fields for a particular transaction."

"No issues with stability."

"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."

"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."

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

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

"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."

"For us, the ease of deployment in combination with TMZ was the most important part because we don't have to manually deploy a complex monitoring solution. We can more or less do that with the click of a button, and we are not dependent on the developers to provide us with all the necessary features and functions to make that work. We can just deploy it on a workload cluster and monitor at least a good part of the workload. If we want to go into detail, we clearly need to make changes, but for a good part of application monitoring, it gives us good insights."

"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."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"Its web user interface is a little bit old in comparison to other solutions, such as New Relic, and it should be improved. Its scalability and technical support should also be improved. Currently, it is scalable, but only in a vertical way. They provide good technical support, but the initial steps for a new case can be improved to fasten the resolution process."

"With APM, we noticed that the agent can cause a lot of issues for the application, making the agent very unreliable. Many issues are happening, and we've had to discuss it with support to try and get a fix. It affects application availability, and sometimes actions fail because of the agent, degrading the performance of the application."

"The stability is not great and should be better."

"It's still missing some platforms. For example, if you look to applications itself, it is missing the interface."

"They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy."

"The demo that was provided to us is not working very well. At times, there are errors."

"Technical support can be slow and needs improvement."

"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."

"VMware technical support has declined since the Broadcom acquisition. Previously, they were more focused on issue resolution, but now they prioritize licensing verification before providing support."

"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."

"The return on investment is best suited for organizations that do not have the resources for a dedicated VM environment team. However, the cost of the product doesn't show significant benefits."

"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."

"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."

"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."

"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."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees can be paid every six months or on a yearly basis."

"As I previously indicated, I initiated the IBM and uncovered all its elements. Consequently, I'm not inclined towards a licensing approach."

"IBM APM is one of the cheaper products on the market, while everything necessary to get started is included in the license."

"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."

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Retailer

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

University

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Application Performance Management?

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Application Performance Management?

They should focus on potentially enhancing the dashboard to make it more contemporary and adding some customization options. Furthermore, there might be room for improvement in the pricing policy. ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Application Performance Management?

I monitor business applications for more than four end users.

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?

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 priva...

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

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

August 2025

IBM Application Performance Management report

Download IBM Application Performance Management product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2025

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

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Also Known As

IBM APM

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

Overview

The IBM Application Performance Management portfolio provides visibility, control and automation of your mission-critical applications. It helps pinpoint the root cause of application's issue more quickly and resolve the problem. The integrated capabilities cover the five key areas: discovery, end-use experience, transaction tracking, enterprise diagnostics and analytics. It also easily monitors applications to ensure optimal performance to extend your hybrid management environment capabilities, to measure the customer experience from multiple locations and to further eliminate blind spots in your application environment.

IBM

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

Mibtree, EatDrinkDeals.com, IT Performance Advisor

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

IBM Application Performance Management vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

July 2025

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