SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs VMware Aria Operations comparison

SolarWinds and Broadcom are both solutions in the Virtualization Management Tools category. SolarWinds is ranked #6, while Broadcom is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. SolarWinds holds a 9.7% mindshare in VM, compared to Broadcom’s 23.7% mindshare. Additionally, 71% of SolarWinds users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

SolarWinds Virtualization M...

Read 7 SolarWinds Virtualization Manager reviews

1,403 Views
1,193 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations

Read 376 VMware Aria Operations reviews

14,893 Views
5,510 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Virtualization M...

VMware Aria Operations

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

VMware Aria Operations and SolarWinds Virtualization Manager compete in the virtualization management space. VMware Aria Operations is favored for its integration and analytics capabilities, while SolarWinds Virtualization Manager stands out for its ease of use and specialized virtualization features.

Features: VMware Aria Operations provides robust performance optimization, automation features, and dynamic threshold monitoring that leverages historical data to set performance baselines. Its integration with multiple cloud platforms offers unified visibility and advanced predictive analytics for capacity management. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager delivers simplicity in virtual machine performance insights, capacity planning tools, and customizable dashboards, making it efficient for targeted virtualization management.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Operations could enhance its user interface for easier navigation and reduce deployment complexity, especially for smaller organizations. It also requires improvement in reporting granularity. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager could benefit from deeper integration with third-party tools, more comprehensive analytics, and broader support for heterogeneous virtual environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Operations requires meticulous planning but provides extensive resources and customer support for complex environments. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is quicker to deploy with an emphasis on user-friendliness, offering efficient customer support specifically tailored for virtualization concerns.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Operations, while potentially entailing higher setup costs, offers substantial ROI for businesses requiring broad IT management functionalities. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager presents a cost-effective solution with solid ROI for enterprises primarily focused on virtualization management, valued for its affordability and efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations

June 2026

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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

SolarWinds Virtualization M...

Ranking in Virtualization Management Tools

6th

Average Rating

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Operations

Ranking in Virtualization Management Tools

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

376

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Virtualization Management Tools category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager is 9.7%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 23.7%, down from 34.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtualization Management Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware Aria Operations	23.7%
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager	9.7%
Other	66.6%

Virtualization Management Tools

Featured Reviews

Ravi Khanchandani

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.

Read full review

AldoDomini

Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa

Have faced limitations due to high costs but have maintained reliability over time

The primary issue is the pricing, which is very expensive for my company's budget. We cannot afford to pay such a large fee. We are not Microsoft or BMW; we are a small company. As a small company, I have no power to negotiate directly with VMware. Perhaps larger companies have more opportunity to contract directly with VMware, but I do not have that leverage. The only path I can follow is to change solutions. Net.spA is a company working in the field of waste management. We are not a technological company, so we do not have a large margin to justify purchasing and maintaining the VMware infrastructure at current costs.

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

"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."

"Alerting expands, and makes, our monitoring and management much more efficient."

"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."

"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."

"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager are the non-Windows servers' monitoring and capacity planning."

"This product is so helpful out-of-the-box."

"The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this product is that if you want to have a private cloud, VMware is the best option."

"Valuable features include trending of performance and capacity. Also, being able to dive into some more detailed analysis of performance metrics and compare them to a baseline of what's normal for particular time frames."

"The most valuable feature is the insight into how our infrastructure is actually working and the kind of performance that when users either say there is an issue, it gives some insight into finding out what's going wrong with it. I think its cause we have it mainly based on our production units."

"Can be customized according to customer requirements."

"ROI’s very good. Ultimately, based on the business case that we did, we spent 20 million dollars and got 50 million dollars return on investment."

"The reporting feature is most valuable to me for capacity management."

"Monitoring is the most valuable feature for us. When our customers have a problem and we can monitor it in real time or evaluate the history of the problem."

"My advice would be to purchase the product because it definitely helps troubleshoot issues in probably one-tenth of the time that it would take without it."

More VMware Aria Operations pros

Cons

"I had some stability issues. I lost my environment."

"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."

"The SolarWinds Virtualization Manager platform in general can have a better response time in the performance."

"Out of the box support for a wider array of hardware vendor/device-specific SNMP mibs could be improved upon."

"The UI is a little cumbersome at first, but the more you use it and get accustomed to it, the simpler it becomes."

"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."

"One thing I don't like is, all the scales are self-referencing. So when I get a number one, is that one out of ten, one out of a hundred? I don't know. So I can say these servers are performing ten times better than that server but I don't know where the scale goes."

"The advanced version could be more affordable, therefore giving us access to more advance features."

"The product's support services need improvement."

"Dealing with the technical support the first time for that internal CA certificate, was quite painful."

"It is somewhat not as user friendly as I think it could be."

"I would like more application dashboards to be available."

"The whole interface is like an information overload, it just bombards me with messages, warnings, and alerts. When I follow through on the majority of these messages, I realize that I'm really just wasting time because they're not really real problems."

"Unfortunately, it has not been a consistently stable solution, because we've never fully deployed it as it's supposed to be."

More VMware Aria Operations cons

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."

"The initial costs are a bit on the higher side but the licensing is flexible."

"Pricing could always be cheaper, but it's acceptable."

"The licensing is quite expensive for our company."

"Our manpower costs have been reduced due to the automation in conjunction with the usage of the dashboard."

"The product is too expensive to implement."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price an eight out of ten."

"Get the right licensing and increase your licensing as you upgrade and grow. If you get the wrong licensing, it will be expensive, especially if you plan improperly."

"The licensing is not clear at the moment if the on-premises pricing is the same as on the cloud. I am checking on the pricing. However, you can save a lot of money with the cloud solution because you need to spend time installing, upgrading, and connecting with the on-premises solution. Also, you don't need to spend time scheduling the maintenance and maintaining the solution when using the cloud version."

More VMware Aria Operations pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Healthcare Company

Government

Energy/Utilities Company

Construction Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Marketing Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	66
Midsize Enterprise	61
Large Enterprise	281

Questions from the Community

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...

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What needs improvement with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?

SolarWinds needs to support integration with other virtualization platforms like KVM or Linux-based systems.

See all answers

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...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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Comparisons

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Dell OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs SolarWinds Virtualization Manager

Compared 10% of the time

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IBM Turbonomic vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 3% of the time

Densify vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Virtualization Management Tools

May 2026

SolarWinds Virtualization Manager report

Download SolarWinds Virtualization Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations

May 2026

Download VMware Aria Operations product report

Also Known As

SolarWinds VMAN

VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)

Overview

SolarWinds Virtualization Manager streamlines the monitoring and management of virtual environments by offering comprehensive visibility and actionable insights for IT professionals.

Designed to handle complex virtual systems, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager aids IT teams in tracking application performance, optimizing resource utilization, and identifying potential issues before they impact operations. The robust features ensure efficient operation and continuous system health, fostering an environment where virtual infrastructures can be effectively monitored and managed without significant manual intervention.

What are the key features of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?

Performance Monitoring: Tracks system health and alerts users to potential bottlenecks.
Capacity Planning: Analyzes trends to predict future resource needs.
Sprawl Control: Identifies and manages VM sprawl to optimize resources.
Storage Monitoring: Provides insight into storage utilization and performance.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows personalized views of critical data.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Increased Efficiency: Streamlines virtual environment management.
Cost Savings: Reduces resource wastage and prevents overspending.
Improved Uptime: Proactive identification of issues minimizes downtime.
Enhanced Planning: Data-driven insights support effective resource allocation.

In industries such as healthcare, finance, and manufacturing, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager supports infrastructure maintenance by ensuring reliable performance and aiding compliance management through detailed monitoring capabilities. It adapts to specific industry requirements, facilitating seamless integration and operational excellence.

SolarWinds

VMware Aria Operations provides detailed metrics, graphing capabilities, and historical data for proactive infrastructure management, offering a single pane of glass for comprehensive views, alert notifications, and seamless integration with VMware tools.

VMware Aria Operations is designed for monitoring and optimizing virtual environments, empowering businesses to enhance infrastructure efficiency and manage workloads. With stress ratings and capacity planning, it facilitates troubleshooting performance issues while forecasting resource needs. Automation and integration with VMware tools streamline operations, making it indispensable for maintaining system health and enabling data-driven decisions. Users appreciate its comprehensive infrastructure views, though they note the interface complexity and high pricing as key considerations. Improved automation, third-party integration, and usability are desired enhancements.

What are the key features of VMware Aria Operations?

Single Pane of Glass: Provides comprehensive views of infrastructure for easy management.
Performance Monitoring: Tracks performance with detailed metrics and trend analysis.
Capacity Planning: Offers insights into stress ratings and future resource needs.
Alert Notifications: Effectively notifies users of potential system issues.
Automation and Integration: Streamlines operations with VMware tools.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Infrastructure Efficiency: Ensures optimal use of virtual environments for effective workload management.
Operational Visibility: Improves decision-making with detailed insights and analytics.
Resource Optimization: Helps forecast and allocate resources efficiently.
Proactive Management: Facilitates early detection of issues to maintain system health.

VMware Aria Operations' implementation across industries like finance, healthcare, and education showcases its utility in maintaining operational efficiency. It aids in tracking usage metrics and integrating workflows, benefiting sectors with critical performance and resource management needs.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Elliot Health System

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

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations

June 2026

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