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SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs VMware Aria Operations vs Veeam Data Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Virtualization Management Tools category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is 10.1%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veeam Data Platform is 9.6%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 32.1%, down from 34.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtualization Management Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Edward Hore - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable with good support but needs a better navigation menu
We use Veeam Data to back up our VMware infrastructure Veeam Data Platform is valuable for its stability and the ability to easily contact support for assistance. The support team provides answers whenever we need them. It is also one of the most scalable backup solutions I've worked with. The…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager are the non-Windows servers' monitoring and capacity planning."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager optimizes VM performance and virtualization."
"SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is a great tool that is easy to use...It is a stable solution."
"It's streamlined the backup and recovery for my customers in the sense that it has an easy management console that's easy to set up any type of instant recovery."
"This product is user-friendly. The interface is easy to use."
"Veeam Backup & Replication is definitely very useful and simple to learn, and the restoring processes are very straightforward, making it a very solid product."
"Veeam Backup Replication has good performance and can do location-to-location backups. Additionally, it is user-friendly and easy to manage."
"They introduced a new feature called the Immutable Repository feature, which helps protect environments from malware attacks that target backup file extensions."
"It is cost-effective. A lot of times, people pick Veeam because of its price."
"Veeam Data Platform manages and protects data across multiple cloud environments amazingly."
"I think that the scalability is very good. We can't compare it."
"vROps' best feature is the easy integration with the environment."
"The most valuable feature is performance monitoring. It's much easier to show problems to users. If someone comes and says, “My server is slow,” I can show them exactly what's happening with the server over time and at that exact moment as well."
"I think vROps is scalable and suitable for our environment."
"For me, it's the dashboard."
"Alerts and monitoring were most valuable. It was also pretty user-friendly and interactive. I was able to generate good reports in PDF and HTML formats, which was really helpful."
"vROps was the only tool which we found which was capable at the time to create customized dashboards."
"I find the stability of VMware Aria Operations to be impressive, rated as a stable nine out of ten."
"It has great charts and graphs which provide a high level overview of our environment. Being able to click through those to deep dive, we can easily get to the information that we are looking for."
 

Cons

"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."
"SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems."
"SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems."
"I would like to see the licensing model improved. They have recently changed the model and have made it more complicated."
"The implementation was straightforward. However, we used an integrator, the process could be easier for us to do it ourselves."
"The initial setup is not always easy, and customers often need a lot of help to get Veeam up and running successfully."
"The virtual sandboxes seem complex to setup, so I have not invested time in leveraging this feature. It would be nice if this feature was more user-friendly."
"Veeam Backup Replication has agents for Linux, but they are not supporting Cluster Shared Volumes. It would be great to have agents for Linux be cluster-aware, just like the Windows agents. That's the main pain point. In addition, we should be able to handle the automation of Oracle backups from the backup server. We should be able to schedule, control, and deploy them from the backup server rather than relying on scripts and/or the system you are backing up to perform the backup. Currently, we install the plug-in inside Oracle VMs and then use crontabs to handle the task schedule on each machine for scheduling the backups. Veeam Backup Replication should also support the automation of Nutanix backups from the backup server, not from the proxy. The other not so major thing is that they don't support legacy systems because Veeam is a new company. It is not as old as other companies. They don't support physical workloads that are really old, which a major challenge, but they do have a point. Legacy systems should be virtualized, and if they're virtualized, then the backup is not an issue with Veeam, but some customers like the physical setup, and they don't want to have it virtual."
"Apart from security improvements, enhancing compatibility with various platforms and addressing limitations related to integration and verification would be beneficial."
"I have found that the reporting could improve in its structure."
"The SME that helped us with the implementation would probably have more insight because he used it way more than we have. We just use it for making sure that our backups are done daily, and the replications are being performed between sites. We haven't had any issues at all with it other than the fact that there is a slight process to acquire additional licenses if we want to expand our number of hosts. That's because it is based on the number of cores and threads that are used."
"The solution must provide better training options to help us make the most of the tool."
"One area that needs improvement is the solution's connectivity and integration with other products, such as IBM and Huawei servers and storage."
"It is quite expensive and if you just implement it just because you can then you won't get any benefit from it. You have to think through and plan ahead. You have to understand what the issues are that you want to solve with this solution. Otherwise, this solution is a waste of money."
"It does the functions that we need it to. Although we do have some issues from time to time. We're looking for more maturity out of the product but it's getting better with every release."
"It wasn't exactly proactive. It was supposed to, but there were a lot of delays. It could also be because of our infrastructure and the way our network was set up. If vROps could be more proactive, that would be nice. It is nice to have the information beforehand, but when there is downtime, it takes a lot of time for us to be able to see an issue in real-time, which becomes a bit challenging. If there is a way to improve the data collection for the whole vCenter that would be nice because data collection takes a lot of time."
"I'd like to see more out-of-the-box dashboards and less customizing of the environment. The interface could be more streamlined. There are still a lot of old dashboards versus the new UI dashboards."
"In the next release, vROps should add integration with Apache OpenStack."
"The one thing that I am always missing is training specific to Horizon. There is no training class you can go to for the Horizon add-on for vROps. I'd like to see specific training for Horizon admins, as opposed to general vSphere admins."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I acknowledge there are concerns about pricing, specifically in gaining more customers for VM. We've encountered difficulties in convincing them due to pricing issues. So, I rate it a six."
"The product is inexpensive."
"Since our Veeam license is perpetual, we only pay for annual maintenance."
"The product is expensive."
"Setup cost and licensing of Veeam are nothing to complain about when compared to similar products for enterprise backup recovery solutions."
"The price of Veeam Backup Replication is reasonable."
"The price is a bit high. Licensing type is VMware friendly, so it is easy."
"It's the market price. It isn't expensive, nor is it cheap."
"The billing is complicated because every country has a different option. Here in Chile, we don't pay for this kind of service with the Chilean pesos. We use another currency. In the future, I think vROps needs to work with governments for a native solution."
"We have definitely seen ROI by removing unnecessary servers and VMs. By having vROps as an assistant when it comes to monitoring and managing resources, it has helped us a lot with cost savings and managing expenses."
"Every VMware product is a licensing challenge. It's always costly. It's based on processors. From a technical side, the product is very good. The challenging part is always the licensing. They should have some kind of alternate pricing models."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price an eight out of ten."
"Most small users don't adopt VMware Aria Operations until it's necessary. Small businesses are looking for it, too. We need more monitoring and insights, so we're analyzing solutions to help us out here. I rate the solution’s pricing a five out of ten."
"The licensing is quite expensive for our company."
"The solution is costly."
"If you compare the prices of VMware and the cloud solutions along with the components that you may use, I feel that it may be costly."
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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2014
VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto
Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is a great tool that is easy to use...It is a stable solution.
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 ess...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems.
Major Differences Between These 4 Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions?
Comparing the features of the four is not the right approach. You need to develop a list of requirements for backup ...
How do the backup solutions of Veeam and Veritas compare?
Technically, Veeam is best for hyper-v & VMWare replications, snapshots, HA failover, also support for file syste...
How does Nakivo compare with Veeam Backup & Replication?
Nakivo is my favorite backup software. Below are the main benefits of Nakivo compared to Veeam 1. Low cost. 2. Backup...
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 y...
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 compl...
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 i...
 

Also Known As

SolarWinds VMAN
Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam ONE, Veeam Backup & Replication
VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elliot Health System
Business & Legal Resources Inc., Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, Alliance Healthcare, Poulin Grain Inc., Linear Technology, Northwestern University, ARKEMA, Sogegross, City of Lynchburg
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 VMware, Veeam Software, IBM and others in Virtualization Management Tools. Updated: July 2025.
863,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.