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Spot by Flexera vs VMware Aria Operations comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

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
7.6
Spot by Flexera enabled substantial savings in compute costs and enhanced efficiency, though ROI may take longer for some.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware Aria Operations enhances VM efficiency, reduces costs, optimizes performance, and improves infrastructure with initial investment and substantial returns.
I have seen a return on investment as I was able to reduce my compute cost by 60 to 65% for some of my applications that needed light temporary processing tasks with ephemeral storage and stateless applications.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
Our technology predicts demand, selects the cheapest instance mix, sizes the workloads appropriately, and scales it automatically based on policy, resulting in significant savings by reducing manual work and enhancing our flexibility, which has helped accelerate our deployments.
Global Hyperscaler Alliances Director at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.4
Spot by Flexera's customer service is highly rated for its excellent technical support, responsiveness, and reliability, ensuring customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.6
VMware Aria Operations is praised for customer service but faces mixed reviews on technical support efficiency and responsiveness.
I would rate the customer support a nine out of ten.
Global Hyperscaler Alliances Director at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
They remain in the top 25% of vendors.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
I would rate technical support around eight or nine.
Owner at Micronet Systems
I rate the customer service and support for VMware very highly, at nine out of ten.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Spot by Flexera is highly scalable, effectively supporting multiple users across environments, particularly with AWS services, boosting user confidence.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware Aria Operations is praised for its scalability, efficient resource management, and seamless integration with various VMware solutions.
Spot's scalability is quite good, and it can be expanded to multiple environments.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
I consider VMware Aria Operations to be very scalable, earning a high rating of nine out of ten.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
I find VMware Aria Operations to be quite scalable for my needs.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Spot by Flexera is mostly stable and reliable, though some users report occasional bugs indicating room for improvement.
Sentiment score
7.8
VMware Aria Operations is reliable and stable, with minor issues occasionally arising, often linked to improper setup.
I have never experienced any downtime or lost connectivity.
Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa
The solution is not very stable.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
It is a stable solution, which is one of the reasons people prefer it since everyone knows how to use it.
Founder and CEO at Zed
 

Room For Improvement

Spot by Flexera needs OCI support, better multi-cloud integration, and UI improvements, though it's stable and mature.
VMware Aria Operations faces user interface complexity, integration issues, high costs, steep learning curve, and needs better documentation.
Continuously making advancements based on customer feedback.
Global Hyperscaler Alliances Director at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
More guided onboarding would help teams adopt advanced features faster.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
Spot could be improved by adding features that help identify data to optimize storage costs by detecting datasets within our environment based on criteria such as age and usage.
AVP DevOps and Product Support at a recruiting/HR firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stability is a significant area that needs improvement as I experience frequent disconnections and interruptions in data collection.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
The primary issue is the pricing, which is very expensive for my company's budget.
Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa
Customers have commented on the pricing issues, noting that doubling the price is not normal.
Founder and CEO at Zed
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users praise Spot by Flexera's pricing and setup, with structured management of licensing, via AWS Marketplace.
Enterprise reviewers find VMware Aria Operations costly, exceeding budgets, prompting some to consider alternatives for better value.
The pricing is reasonable and convenient, and the value it offers is completely in line with what I am spending.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
The pricing is very expensive for my company's budget.
Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa
This makes the cost complex to determine individually.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
VMware Aria Operations is considered overpriced.
Founder and CEO at Zed
 

Valuable Features

Spot by Flexera offers cost optimization, Kubernetes management, and security compliance with intelligent autoscaling, AWS integration, and AI-driven insights.
VMware Aria Operations offers comprehensive monitoring, management, and scalability with predictive analytics, real-time visibility, and vCenter integration.
The fact that it can mix dozens of instance families dynamically is something which the AWS native autoscalers simply cannot do.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
Spot's automated cost optimization works by continuously analyzing the workload and applying policies to minimize cloud spend without sacrificing performance.
Global Hyperscaler Alliances Director at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
One use case we plan to implement within the next few months is the overall commitment savings, which we used to manage manually, but with Spot, it automatically helps us detect when and what kind of instances to purchase, making it easier for us to manage our overall commitment for the savings plan.
AVP DevOps and Product Support at a recruiting/HR firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
It allows me to perform deep monitoring and logging of the entire environment, providing a quick alarm and warning system through email.
Team Lead Virtualization at Hybrid Tech
The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations are its stability, ease of use, and extensive range of features.
Founder and CEO at Zed
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.
IT Solution Architect at DCS
 

Categories and Ranking

Spot by Flexera
Ranking in Cloud Management
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (14th), Cloud Operations Analytics (1st), Cloud Analytics (2nd), Compute Service (9th), Containers as a Service (CaaS) (4th), Cloud Cost Management (5th)
VMware Aria Operations
Ranking in Cloud Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
376
Ranking in other categories
Virtualization Management Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Spot by Flexera is 1.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 4.9%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Operations4.9%
Spot1.7%
Other93.4%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

KS
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
Intelligent autoscaling has cut compute costs and now manages ephemeral workloads efficiently
I think overall Spot is quite good. The UI is powerful, but it can feel a bit dense for some new users. More guided onboarding would help teams adopt advanced features faster, and deeper insights into Kubernetes resource usage would be beneficial. Overall, it is a really good platform that is quite mature and stable. I chose a rating of nine because it may sometimes be a bit overwhelming for newcomers, and there are also a few areas in which the EKS Kubernetes level granularity is a little missing. Overall, I think Spot is a really good and stable tool.
AldoDomini - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Computer Software Company
16%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise278
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Spot Ocean?
The solution helps us to manage and scale automatically whenever there is a limit to the increase in the application workflow.
What needs improvement with Spot Ocean?
Spot can be improved by adding deeper multi-cloud integrations, enhancing real-time security automation, and continuously making advancements based on customer feedback.
What is your primary use case for Spot Ocean?
I have been using Spot for five years. My main use case for Spot is cloud optimization.We use Spot for optimization by leveraging real-time optimization as well as auto-optimization. The company al...
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

Spot Ocean, Spot Elastigroup, Spot Eco
VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Freshworks, Zalando, Red Spark, News, Trax, ETAS, Demandbase, BeesWa, Duolingo, intel, IBM, N26, Wix, EyeEm, moovit, SAMSUNG, News UK, ticketmaster
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 Spot by Flexera vs. VMware Aria Operations and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.