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IBM Turbonomic vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

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 Turbonomic
Ranking in Virtualization Management Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
205
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (2nd), Cloud Management (4th), IT Financial Management (1st), IT Operations Analytics (9th), Cloud Analytics (1st), Cloud Cost Management (3rd), AIOps (17th)
SolarWinds Virtualization M...
Ranking in Virtualization Management Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Virtualization Management Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Turbonomic is 17.1%, up from 15.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is 9.0%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtualization Management Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Turbonomic17.1%
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager9.0%
Other73.9%
Virtualization Management Tools
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1446966 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
The solution reduced our operational expenditures and is able to identify points before we even noticed them
The management interface seems to be designed for high-resolution screens. Somebody with a smaller-resolution screen might not like the web interface. I run a 4K monitor on it, so everything fits on the screen. With a lower resolution like 1080, you need to scroll a lot. Everything is in smaller windows. It doesn't seem to be designed for smaller screens. When I change the resolution to 1080, I only see half of what I would on my big 4K monitor. It would be annoying to have to scroll to see the flow chart. They have a flow chart that goes top to bottom like a tree. On a lower resolution, it might be nice if that scrolls horizontally because it's long, narrow, and tall. It's only three icons wide, but it's 15 icons tall. I think it would be helpful to have the ability to change that for a smaller screen and customize the widget.
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder Director at Techsa Services
Optimizing virtual environments by reclaiming and allocating resources efficiently
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization. It provides me with recommendations for resource allocation, indicating if a virtual machine is under-provisioned or over-provisioned. This allows me to reclaim resources, such as reducing the number of CPU cores or RAM, which is beneficial. Its capacity planning feature is also very useful for me. The GUI is highly simplified, cutting across various virtualization platforms, including VMware, Hyper-V, and Nutanix environments.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has reduced our hardware costs by allowing us to purchase only the necessary resources instead of over purchasing out of caution."
"Turbonomic has been excellent in keeping us running smoothly."
"Turbonomic is one of the best software solutions ever written."
"Improvements for performance or growth can be executed without human interference."
"Turbonomic, per its design, finds bottlenecks and, depending on how it is configured, recommends actions and takes action to resolve the bottlenecks."
"This solution is rock solid."
"The biggest value I'm getting out of VMTurbo right now is the complete hands-off management of equalizing the usage in my data center."
"Turbonomic's realtime environmental monitoring and aggregated dashboard have been instrumental in expansion decision making for our infrastructure."
"This product is so helpful out-of-the-box."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is a great tool that is easy to use...It is a stable solution."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager are the non-Windows servers' monitoring and capacity planning."
"Virtualization manager’s cost analysis comparison report identified areas in which specific customers were being grossly undercharged for their resource consumption levels, as compared to rates available through AWS."
"Alerting expands, and makes, our monitoring and management much more efficient."
"If you’re looking to get a lot more insight into your virtualization environment and more than just basic information, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is the choice you should make."
 

Cons

"Also reporting needs to be worked on, the lack of ability to edit a report has been a challenge."
"We did have an issue certain build causing the database to fill up however technical support was very helpful in getting updated to a newer version to correct this issue."
"Have plan data shared across user accounts within Turbonomic. Also more granular permissions."
"I do not like Turbonomic's new licensing model. The previous model was pretty straightforward, whereas the new model incorporates what most of the vendors are doing now with cores and utilization. Our pricing under the new model will go up quite a bit. Before, it was pretty straightforward, easy to understand, and reasonable."
"I'd like to see the creation of custom dashboards become a little more streamlined."
"Definitions/descriptions of what each chart means. The line graph looks good, but doesn't mean anything without prior knowledge of what a good UI number is for example."
"We did see a few issues on a previous version with reporting."
"I have found the interface not to be intuitive."
"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment."
"Out of the box support for a wider array of hardware vendor/device-specific SNMP mibs could be improved upon."
"SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems."
"Adhoc reporting takes time to get used to – due mainly to the fact that the team I am on are all admins, and not necessarily accustomed to query reporting in the manner utilized by Solarwinds Virtualization Manager."
"The SolarWinds Virtualization Manager platform in general can have a better response time in the performance."
"The problem or issue with the product is related to its pricing."
"The UI is a little cumbersome at first, but the more you use it and get accustomed to it, the simpler it becomes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In the last year, Turbonomic has reduced our cloud costs by $94,000."
"IBM Turbonomic is an investment that we believe will deliver positive returns."
"The product is fairly priced right now. Given its capabilities, it is excellently priced. We think that the product will become self-funding because we will be able to maximize our resources, which will help us from a capacity perspective. That should save us money in the long run."
"I'm not involved in any of the billing, but my understanding is that is fairly expensive."
"Licensing is per socket, so load up on the cores rather than a lot of lower core CPUs."
"When we have expanded our licensing, it has always been easy to make an ROI-based decision. So, it's reasonably priced. We would like to have it cheaper, but we get more benefit from it than we pay for it. At the end of the day, that's all you can hope for."
"If you're a super-small business, it may be a little bit pricey for you... But in large, enterprise companies where money is, maybe, less of an issue, Turbonomic is not that expensive. I can't imagine why any big company would not buy it, for what it does."
"I have not seen Turbonomic's new pricing since IBM purchased it. When we were looking at it in my previous company before IBM's purchase, it was compatible with other tools."
"The is an annual subscription needed to use this solution."
"The maintenance and support are a part of the package, meaning it is included in the product's price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise147
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
This solution delivers significant cost savings, especially from a capacity perspective. Consistent monitoring is essential in a virtualization environment, and Virtualization Manager, or VMAN as i...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
We predominantly work with financial organizations such as large banks, stock exchanges, and insurance companies, as well as IT-enabled services (ITES). I use SolarWinds Virtualization Manager at o...
 

Also Known As

Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager
SolarWinds VMAN
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.
Elliot Health System
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Turbonomic vs. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,801 professionals have used our research since 2012.