No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Aria Suite 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

VMware Aria Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Configuration Management (8th), Network Automation (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (6th)
VMware Aria Suite
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.
it_user224100 - PeerSpot reviewer
SSIO Infrastructure Engineer at Wyndham Destination Network - RCI Europe
Key benefits include the ability to identify resource usage and hot spots.
I have been using Operations Manager for the last few months since reviewing my licence structure and procuring the Enterprise Plus, management bundle. Having a number of distributed vSphere environments spread across the UK and Europe has presented a number of challenges in terms of centralised alerting and reporting. With my collections all configured I am now able to receive invaluable information quickly - reducing the labour that was previously causing issues. Key benefits:- * Ability to identify resource usage and hot spots * Understand where I can reclaim resources * Trend and forecast my virtual landscape by adding projects

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The automation part is most valuable. Because it is a VMware product, the automation capabilities that come with vRA are pretty extensive. We can integrate and build a lot of features on top of it, which makes it extremely useful for us."
"Among the valuable features are the ease and speed of creating the VMs. Originally, we provisioned them manually and it would take us two days to do the provisioning... but with the automation, we are able to provision a VM with the click of a button, within seconds. It cut down on the time as well as cut down on the expense and employee cost in provisioning."
"This is such an all-encompassing solution."
"Currently, the primary feature we're using in VMware Aria Automation is its ability to execute tasks quickly. However, we haven't explored other features like workload management or the full stack yet. So it's hard to make comparisons or fully utilize its potential until we expand our usage."
"Now, it's no more than a half hour to activate a new VM at the customer's site."
"The most valuable feature is the way that it plugs into our monitoring systems, and Infoblox and Puppet."
"Our time to deliver a fully unified three-tier app, at the right version, is one-twentieth what it was before. There is no manual intervention. No IP management. It just dramatically simplifies all of our processes."
"The automation function itself and how to group and publish those groupings is quite easy for customers to learn with Aria."
"I found the ease of use with Operations Manager Dashboard and providing complete visibility of your infrastructure most valuable."
"With my collections all configured I am now able to receive invaluable information quickly, reducing the labour that was previously causing issues."
"This is our lifeblood, our ability to be pro-active instead of retroactive, and without it, it hurts our bottom line."
"Thanks guys – you managed to turn around an extremely frustrating experience into something more positive."
 

Cons

"New versions are quite scalable, but when it comes to managing a Telco environment, it has bottleneck."
"We are migrating from vRA version 7 to 8, but the migration is really hectic and time-consuming."
"There are still some issues such that, if you are going to go 100% cloud, if you don't want anything on-premise, there are some other solutions that might have a leg up."
"There is room for improvement for mostly stuff around containers and controlling containers."
"I would also like to see them streamline the install. It's split between Windows and Linux appliances, and it would be easier if it was all appliances. I think they're going that way."
"It's not a smooth upgrade process. For a DTA environment, which is very simple, it is a smooth process, but for our production environment, which is quite enhanced and has a lot of dependencies, it's not easy at all, and it results in a lot of errors... It takes a lot of retries to upgrade which ends up being costly."
"With distributed, installation is a pain. I have always gotten into errors when employing a distributed environment, which provides High Availability."
"They need to help in managing the change of corporate culture involved in establishing the solution."
"I would like the reporting function to be made more complete."
"It has color coding to an extent, but it needs more colors to tag more diversely."
"It’s hardly the most streamlined deployment experience is it? It’s ironic that an application designed to orchestrate operations can’t orchestrate its installation a bit better!"
"I would like to see the vrealize Suite support the Mcrosoft Azure"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being very expensive."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.
899,645 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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 there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
vRealize suite
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Weill Cornell Medical College
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Nutanix, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: June 2026.
899,645 professionals have used our research since 2012.