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Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Operations comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
Organizations reported improved efficiency, reduced costs, faster deployment, and enhanced resource management with Nutanix Cloud Manager's streamlined integration and scalability.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware Aria Operations enhances efficiency, saves time, reduces costs, and boosts ROI through optimized resource allocation and improved troubleshooting.
Anything that reduces bandwidth and reduces the brain work that our teams have to do to maintain systems across all environments is time-saving and cost-saving.
The biggest return on investment for me when using this product is the fast deployment and the rapid integration and migration without impacting our operations during the migration.
Playbooks and automation definitely freed up engineer time. This allows us to focus on other projects and not have to get hands-on, reducing operational costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Manager's support is praised for quick response, knowledgeable staff, proactive issue detection, and effective communication.
Sentiment score
6.6
VMware Aria Operations support is generally reliable, but complex issues may require escalation; response times and expertise vary.
There is a feature that allows you to escalate the call.
The handoff with support and the knowledge of the support engineer is significantly better than experience with other vendors.
Even when a node goes down, it doesn't impact our infrastructure because it gets load-balanced between the available nodes.
They remain in the top 25% of vendors.
I rate the customer service and support for VMware very highly, at nine out of ten.
I would rate technical support around eight or nine.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Nutanix Cloud Manager offers scalable, automated cluster management for businesses of all sizes, ensuring performance and seamless expansion.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware Aria Operations efficiently scales across environments, praised for seamless vertical and horizontal adjustments with minimal disruption.
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) scales well.
The key aspects include mix-match hardware and hyper-converged infrastructure, combining compute, storage, and network in a single platform.
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has not had any issues scaling with the growing needs of my company.
I consider VMware Aria Operations to be very scalable, earning a high rating of nine out of ten.
I find VMware Aria Operations to be quite scalable for my needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Nutanix Cloud Manager is highly stable, reliable, and resilient, with minor issues quickly resolved, ensuring seamless user experiences.
Sentiment score
7.8
VMware Aria Operations is highly stable, with minor issues, praised for resilience and adaptability in various environments.
We've never had any downtime related to the Nutanix product itself.
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
The stability and reliability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) have been excellent.
The solution is not very stable.
I find the stability of VMware Aria Operations to be impressive, rated as a stable nine out of ten.
It is a stable solution, which is one of the reasons people prefer it since everyone knows how to use it.
 

Room For Improvement

Nutanix Cloud Manager needs better VM organization, simplified pricing, improved interface, and enhanced features for smoother cloud integration.
Users seek better reporting, UI, pricing, automation, documentation, and training for VMware Aria Operations, citing integration and stability issues.
It supports different hardware types without vendor lock-in, which is an advantage over Azure Stack HCI, which may only work with specific vendors such as HP or Dell.
Our primary reason for choosing Nutanix was for mission-critical applications and Kubernetes.
Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial.
Stability is a significant area that needs improvement as I experience frequent disconnections and interruptions in data collection.
Customers have commented on the pricing issues, noting that doubling the price is not normal.
One area that needs improvement is the solution's connectivity and integration with other products, such as IBM and Huawei servers and storage.
 

Setup Cost

Nutanix Cloud Manager offers flexible pricing, delivering ROI through management consolidation, reduced overhead, and scalable, negotiable plans.
Enterprise buyers should consider VMware Aria Operations' high cost and complex pricing, especially for larger deployments or advanced features.
It's not cheap, but there are savings and return on investment when coming from a non-Nutanix shop.
In comparison, Nutanix's pricing is significantly higher than that of other setups.
While VMware costs depend on ESXi hypervisor pricing, the AHV hypervisor for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is free.
The pricing and cost of VMware Aria Operations increased significantly after Broadcom acquired VMware.
This makes the cost complex to determine individually.
VMware Aria Operations is considered overpriced.
 

Valuable Features

Nutanix Cloud Manager offers centralized upgrades, simple interface, automation, and manages on-premises and cloud environments for efficient resource management.
VMware Aria Operations provides real-time insights and predictive analytics to optimize infrastructure performance and resource utilization efficiently.
It's easy to control resources and govern the resources, and it frees up support to focus on other things without having to help developers.
I would approximate the cost savings to be in the 20% to 25% range since we can optimize our resources and avoid the need to purchase more hardware or reuse resources in the infrastructure from one implementation.
The importance of faster outcomes for their environment is significant; for example, when I delivered the Disaster Recovery solution, we included automation for auto-configuration of VMs and resizing of VMs, which replaced many tasks that were previously done manually.
It allows me to perform deep monitoring and logging of the entire environment, providing a quick alarm and warning system through email.
The valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include the single pane of glass for all my environments, which allows a deep dive into the metrics.
The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations are its stability, ease of use, and extensive range of features.
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Ranking in Cloud Management
1st
Ranking in Virtualization Management Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (3rd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th)
VMware Aria Operations
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Ranking in Virtualization Management Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
375
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Virtualization Management Tools category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 8.9%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 30.7%, down from 33.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtualization Management Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Operations30.7%
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)8.9%
Other60.4%
Virtualization Management Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Phani Venkata Sai BKD - PeerSpot reviewer
Manages hybrid infrastructure seamlessly with flexible cluster scaling and comprehensive oversight
The most important aspect of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that it helps us manage the infrastructure as a hyperconverged infrastructure in HCI mode. If I have different physical servers, I can map them into a cluster and manage the storage together. It provides flexibility to make use of storage in a clustered format instead of using it in an individual storage endpoint. We have the flexibility to have Nutanix-based licensing based on the core model, instead of having a specific cost on the cluster. The costing on a core model gives customers flexibility to add multiple cores to a single physical host and adjust the infrastructure accordingly, and we can scale up the cluster as needed. While other cloud providers, AWS or Azure, are mostly into cloud-based solutions, and Azure has introduced Azure Stack HCI for managing on-premises infrastructure, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides flexibility from day one. We can manage both on-premises and Azure solutions using a single pane of glass, eliminating the need to navigate different windows or screens. It provides a comprehensive view of the infrastructure and highlights specific areas through alerts, giving us good visibility of infrastructure conditions.
Amar Sorro - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage and monitor crucial banking operations with deep logging and efficient alerting
The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include its excellent monitoring capabilities. It allows me to perform deep monitoring and logging of the entire environment, providing a quick alarm and warning system through email. These features help me in efficiently managing virtual machines. The solution also offers easy access to VMware KB articles for problem resolution, ensuring quick access to troubleshooting information.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise278
 

Questions from the Community

Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?
For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...
Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?
When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...
Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?
Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...
What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is VMware Aria Operations a user friendly solution?
In terms of user-friendliness, VMware Aria Operations is one of the best solutions out there. It is not overly complex to set up and you can rely on the technical support to provide you with assis...
What is the most useful new feature of VMware Aria Operations?
For me, the alerts features are the most unique part of this product, no matter the current name it uses. When they introduced the new version of VMware Aria Operations, they also introduced more a...
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central
VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Science Applications International Corporation, Tribune Media, Heartland Payment Systems, Telkom Indonesia, Columbia Sportswear, iGATE, CSS Corp, Angel Broking, Adira Finance, Hipskind, Beiersdorf Shared Services, Innovate Mas Indonesia, Adobe, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi , Join Experience S.A, Borusan Holdings, Department of Transport - Abu Dhabi
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. VMware Aria Operations and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.