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Icinga vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Icinga
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
28th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (20th), Server Monitoring (13th)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
17th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (18th), Container Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Icinga is 4.3%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.7%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Harrison Bulley - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable, scalable and cost-effective solution that helps with inbuilt scripts for easy modification
I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has a self-healing handler where if the service is down, it is automatically restarted."
"The apply rules feature saves a lot of time."
"The drafts are easy but what I like about Icinga is that there are many add-ons that you can download."
"Icinga does the job and is fairly stable."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"Macros and the ability to connect it to Google Maps are valuable features."
"There's a module called Icinga Director, which helps us configure the product using an intuitive interface through clicks instead of creating a text configuration. It's very helpful for us."
"The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first."
"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."
"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."
"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."
"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."
"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."
"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."
"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."
"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."
 

Cons

"Icinga’s automation could be improved."
"I think the software is quite good, but we have had problems with getting it to recognize certain areas and amend certain checks, where we needed so we would have to create backend scripts for those checks. Though, being open source, it has the support to create backend scripts, it would be better to have these scripts in-built."
"The tool currently fails to provide notifications to users."
"It needs Trap SNMP. I saw the documentation for Zabbix, that it has its own built-in product which handles SNMP traps, and there's nothing similar in Icinga or Nagios. I think this feature is most important for me."
"The installation and configuration are very complex."
"The user interface should be improved."
"One thing that Icinga lacks is the capability to create advanced and customized dashboards within the tool itself."
"One of the areas that are frustrating is remote monitoring for more than one machine."
"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 implementation is a long process that should be improved."
"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."
"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."
"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."
"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."
"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution."
"It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low."
"This is an open-source solution with paid support."
"We're using the free version of Icinga."
"Even though Icinga's financial cost is low, it is an expensive product regarding the resources required to maintain and operate it."
"The solution is free to use."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other DBM products."
"The solution is cheap."
"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."
"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
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Icinga?
The best thing about the solution is how it highlights errors, the issues, and what needs my attention. The solution directs me to areas that I should look for first.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Icinga?
It is cost-effective, and the return on investment can be very interesting because the price is low. If you want to include this product in the services you offer to your customers, the return on i...
What needs improvement with Icinga?
There is room for improvement in multi-tenancy. It's not perfect, not even really good. It's average, but it should be improved. For instance, multi-tenancy for monitoring the virtual infrastructur...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Icinga Cloud Monitoring
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Puppet Labs, Audi, Spacex, Debian, Snapdeal, McGill, RIPE Network Coordination Centre
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Icinga vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.