Splunk Observability Cloud vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Splunk and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Splunk is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.7, while Broadcom is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.8. Splunk holds a 2.1% mindshare in CMS, compared to Broadcom’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Splunk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 70 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

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1,602 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 14 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

2,704 Views
1,055 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 19, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and VMware Aria Operations for Applications compete in the observability and application performance management category. VMware Aria Operations for Applications appears to have the upper hand due to its superior integration with VMware-specific infrastructures.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud handles diverse data sources and offers strong dashboard customization and scalability for cloud environments. VMware Aria Operations excels in its integration with the VMware ecosystem, offering extensive application performance management and advantages for VMware-centric operations.

Room for Improvement: Splunk users recommend improvements in its pricing model, third-party integrations, stability, and user-friendliness for smaller enterprises. VMware Aria Operations could enhance predictive capabilities and user-friendly alerting, besides better support and documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk supports hybrid and cloud deployments, offering flexibility, though its customer service may delay detailed technical responses. VMware Aria is preferred for on-premises and hybrid environments, with responsive support and effective documentation, especially in VMware settings.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Observability Cloud is costly but delivers significant ROI with real-time insights and improved operations. However, VMware Aria Operations proves more cost-effective within VMware environments, especially when bundled with other VMware services, offering reduced overall spending.

To learn more, read our detailed Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

September 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

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

8th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

7th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (6th), Container Management (7th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

18th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

17th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Monitoring (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 2.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.8%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	2.1%
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	1.8%
Other	96.1%

Cloud Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Taiwo Ige

IT Operations Engineer at ABC Supply Co. Inc.

Alerting improves incident response across teams and enables faster awareness before customer impact

Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved in terms of integrations with more technical add-ons, such as Zoom. Although they have one with Zoom, it's not available in the cloud, so having that feature would be beneficial. Essentially, Splunk should continue expanding to create easier ways to ingest logs from different products. The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another. While IT leaders may not drill down, it's crucial to create levels of dashboards for technical users to find root causes, making it effective for stakeholders.

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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.

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

"Once configured correctly, the analysis reporting the Splunk APM provides is better than that of the other APM tools."

"It has been beneficial for our IT infrastructure."

"The product's deployment phase is good and very easy because it is done with OpenTelemetry for most of the parts."

"What I appreciate most about Splunk Observability Cloud is the correlation feature, specifically the ease of correlating logs and issues to those traces to see where within the path of the business function is failing."

"The initial setup of Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM) was easy."

"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."

"I find the monitoring console very helpful. With one click, I can see how we are performing, and at the same time, I can see what data is flowing."

"The features I appreciate the most about Splunk Observability Cloud are the ServiceNow integration feature, which is very seamless, and that's probably my favorite since ServiceNow is big in the observability industry."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

"No issues with stability."

"I find VMware Aria Operations for Applications to be very stable, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

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

"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."

"It significantly improves application performance management by offering recommendations for resource allocation to avoid wastage or overcommitment."

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

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"It would be beneficial to have more enhanced features with capabilities to adapt more integrated applications. Improvements in dashboard configuration, customization, and artificial intelligence functionalities are desired."

"There is room for improvement in the alerting system, which is complicated and has less documentation available."

"The deployment can be quite complex."

"There are some predefined metrics.......we may want to create customized metrics."

"This solution is difficult to configure and the instructions are complex."

"A wide variety of logging makes log onboarding difficult."

"They can get more integration with a few more products. They can also update some of the dashboards that are in there now."

"Splunk isn't an ideal tool for application performance management due to the extensive setup required."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

"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."

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

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

"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."

"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."

"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."

"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

"It is expensive."

"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."

"The solution's pricing is costly."

"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."

"Splunk offers a 14-day free trial and after that, we have to pay but the cost is reasonable."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

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

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	44

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

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

Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 9% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 8% of the time

Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

August 2025

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

August 2025

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

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

Overview

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

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.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

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

Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

September 2025

Free Report: Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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