Splunk Observability Cloud vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Splunk and VMware are both solutions in the Cloud Monitoring Software category. Splunk is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.7, while VMware is ranked #23 with an average rating of 9.0. Splunk holds a 1.2% mindshare in CMS, compared to VMware’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Splunk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 52 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

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163 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 12 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

1,015 Views
161 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

VMware Aria Operations for ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 11, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and VMware Aria Operations for Applications are leading contenders in the realm of application performance monitoring and management. Splunk Observability Cloud edges ahead with its flexible data gathering and superior application monitoring capabilities.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud is notable for its customizable dashboards, efficient log analysis, and strong support for cloud integration and open telemetry standards. VMware Aria Operations for Applications is recognized for its real-time statistics, hotspot identification, and enriched resource allocation strategies.

Room for Improvement: Splunk Observability Cloud needs enhancement in cost efficiency and scalability, as well as better integration with signals. VMware Aria Operations for Applications should reduce its high licensing costs and aim for a more user-friendly design while exploring broader integration for cloud operations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk Observability Cloud supports both cloud and on-premises environments, with generally satisfactory but sometimes slow support response times. VMware Aria Operations for Applications excels in on-premises deployments, with mostly positive customer service feedback but similar concerns about support response times.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Observability Cloud is seen as cost-effective due to its extensive features, despite its higher pricing. VMware Aria Operations for Applications offers comprehensive services that justify the investment, yet its high licensing costs pose a concern. Both solutions demonstrate positive ROI, with Splunk improving IT efficiency and VMware Aria enhancing application management.

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

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

June 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

11th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

7th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Management (7th)

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

27th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

30th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

23rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Monitoring (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.2%, up from 0.8% 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

Lakshmi Padaga

Java Developer at U.S. Bank

Collaborates performance metrics with log data to pinpoint the exact cause of issues and offers error detection

Splunk APM is a robust tool with many capabilities. There are always areas for potential improvement to enhance its functionality and user experience. For Splunk APM, there could be simplified navigation, like streamlining the user interface to make navigation more intuitive for our users, especially those new to APM, which can enhance usability. We can provide more customization options for dashboards and visualizations to help users tailor the platform to their specific needs. There could be more integration capabilities with a wider range of third-party tools and platforms would also be beneficial. By focusing on these areas, Splunk APM can enhance its value proposition, improve user satisfaction, and better meet the evolving needs of organizations monitoring their application performance.

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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.

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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 feature is dashboard creation."

"The most beneficial aspect of Splunk APM is the ATM, which is the map displaying the inbound and outbound relationships of the microservices, as well as the traffic between these dependencies. This feature provides us with valuable insights and helps us understand the interactions between different microservices."

"The company has many systems that the customer is paying to access. Splunk APM issued via AppDynamics helps find problems in the feed. It reduces the risk of supervising all the devices. I can supervise the flow and simulate the conditions of the repository across several dashboards to show what's happening at the moment."

"The most valuable feature in this solution is the log searching."

"The ability to create custom dashboards is one of the best features and that's typically why most people deploy Splunk. Users can create dashboards for just about anything."

"The solution monitors attacks or unauthorized access to the information we want to protect."

"The data collection from our VMs, containers, databases, and backend components is valuable."

"I manage six tools, but Splunk Observability Cloud is one of my favorites, and I aspire to build my career specializing in it because it has great features, more attention in the market, and is a relatively new tool with promising growth."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

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

"No issues with stability."

"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."

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

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

"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

"They do not have all the features that I expect right now."

"The price has room for improvement."

"Splunk could be better integrated with configuration manager solutions so we can automatically resolve issues without human interference."

"In Splunk Observability Cloud, I notice room for improvement in synthetic monitoring. It does not provide output based on server names."

"Primarily, the logs in Splunk APM can be challenging to navigate and comprehend, making it difficult to understand the details within each log. Compared to other tools like LogDNA, which are more intuitive in this aspect, the logs in Splunk APM can require more effort to understand."

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

"I've been using the Splunk query language, and it can be a bit time-consuming to set up the queries I need."

"There's no standard use case available where you can see the utilization of the number of use cases I have."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

"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."

"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."

"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."

"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."

"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."

"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."

"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is an expensive solution."

"Splunk Observability Cloud is expensive."

"Splunk's infrastructure monitoring costs can be high because our billing is based on data volume measured in terabytes, rather than the number of devices being monitored."

"The solution's pricing is costly."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

"I would rate the price of Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"It is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pricing and cost advice

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

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

"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

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 cost of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is fair and reasonable compared to what we receive in support and packages from VMware.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

Our primary use case for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is to enhance application monitoring tasks, allowing us to set up alerts for different components and send them via SMTP to a team d...

See all answers

Comparisons

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 18% of the time

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Dynatrace vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

ServiceNow IT Operations Management vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Instana Infrastructure Monitoring vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

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Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 12% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 10% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 7% of the time

Prometheus Group vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 6% of the time

New Relic vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

May 2025

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

May 2025

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring

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

Overview

Splunk Observability Cloud combines log search, data integration, and dashboards for seamless monitoring, enhancing infrastructure visibility and security. Its cloud integration and scalability support diverse environments, improving operational efficiency.

Splunk Observability Cloud offers comprehensive monitoring tools with user-friendly interfaces, enabling end-to-end infrastructure visibility. Its real-time alerting and predictive capabilities enhance security monitoring, while centralized dashboards provide cross-platform visibility. Users benefit from fast data integration and extensive insights into application performance. Despite its advantages, improvements could be made in integration with other tools, data reliability, scalability, and cost management. Users face challenges in configuration complexity and require better automation and endpoint protection features. Enhancing AI integration, alerts, and adaptation for high-throughput services could further improve usability.

What are the key features of Splunk Observability Cloud?

Log Search: Efficiently search and analyze log data for enhanced insights.
Data Integration: Fast integration across platforms for comprehensive visibility.
Custom Dashboards: Powerful and adaptable dashboards for real-time monitoring.
Cloud Integration: Seamless integration with cloud services for scalable solutions.
Application Performance Monitoring: Advanced tools for improving application performance.

What benefits and ROI should be expected?

Infrastructure Monitoring: Improved visibility and monitoring across infrastructure components.
Operational Efficiency: Enhancements in data analysis lead to efficient operations.
Business Resilience: Supports adaptability and swift responses to changing needs.
Security Management: Enhances threat identification and response through real-time alerts.
Compliance Support: Aids in meeting compliance and auditing requirements effectively.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for application performance monitoring and infrastructure metrics. Its ability to track incidents and analyze machine data benefits network infrastructure, while distributed tracing and log analysis aid in tackling security threats. Organizations often integrate it for compliance and auditing purposes, enhancing visibility into network traffic and optimizing performance.

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.

VMware

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

June 2025

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

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