VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs WhatsUp Gold comparison

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs. WhatsUp Gold

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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

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

17th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

14th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Monitoring (6th)

WhatsUp Gold

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

39th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

20th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

26th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (25th), Server Monitoring (14th), Configuration Management (21st), Log Management (41st), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhatsUp Gold is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware Aria Operations for Applications	1.3%
WhatsUp Gold	1.3%
Other	97.4%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Ajay Shukla

Consultant at HCLTech

Automation and insightful diagnostics elevate operations while improvements are welcome

The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including private, public, and hybrid, are already well-implemented. The ability to manage multiple vCenters across different geographical locations is very effective. The new Skyline health feature and certificate and licensing management are particularly useful improvements. The dashboard's overview tab provides comprehensive information about current vCenter status, resizable amounts, reclamation opportunities, anomalies, diagnostics, licensing, and certificates. However, there is room for improvement in application analysis. The current functionality lacks detailed monitoring at the kernel level, focusing mainly on CPU, memory, and storage matrices. Enhanced application monitoring capabilities, including tracking downtime for specific types of applications such as transactional or e-commerce applications, would be beneficial.

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Erik Cheng

Technical Manager at Quan Hung Gourmet

Efficient monitoring with detailed customization, yet complexity remains

The best feature of WhatsUp Gold is the automatic generation of topology and its integration with virtualization and wireless. I have used the automated device discovery with this topology feature. The interactive map feature helps me manage the topology because sometimes we cannot draw the topology correctly, so we need to manually edit the connections. The alerting system is very tunable and customizable, but it's a little complicated to use. Many customers cannot manage it by themselves and need support from us, the provider. We always use the dashboards in the SOC, where we constantly display a dashboard or multiple dashboards. This allows us to know immediately if the connection or bandwidth is full or if the connection is broken.

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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 solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."

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

"It has a familiar interface, which makes it easy to get started."

"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."

"Scalability for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is easy to implement and manage."

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."

"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."

"This solution will give you a single pane of glass for everything, and centralized monitoring."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

"It is stable."

"It is very good at monitoring the network and keeps us up to date on the status of internal devices."

"The visual map and email alerts are very useful to have in real time so we always know the state of our network."

"Our local support team provides excellent service."

"You have to invest a few days to become an expert in this solution, but after that, it's possible to do almost anything with it."

"We primarily use the solution to check the state of the network, monitoring thousands of devices and all of the internal network, and it is the first tool we use to see the state of the network for real-time monitoring."

"Overall, we have been satisfied with the functionality of the product."

"Auto scanning is most valuable. It looks for rogue devices on your network."

More WhatsUp Gold pros

Cons

"VMware technical support has declined since the Broadcom acquisition. Previously, they were more focused on issue resolution, but now they prioritize licensing verification before providing support."

"So far, the solution's learning curve has been pretty high."

"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."

"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."

"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 documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."

"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."

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

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

"Setting up WhatsUp Gold is complicated and not easy because it requires managing SNMP and many complex settings in the devices it's monitoring, and fine-tuning it to fit our needs is also not very easy."

"I think there are a few bugs now. Although they give some resolution for this, we cannot share the network remotely because of our company policy."

"The licensing model could be improved. Right now, the levels are too far apart. This causes the solution to be more expensive than it needs to be."

"Adding on services increases the cost and on the version we have there is no option for ATM monitoring."

"The technical support does not bother to respond."

"I haven't had any issue with stability, except during the upgrade to 2017 when we encountered slow responses."

"This product should add other options for monitoring. It does not currently meet the broader needs of the banking industry in the version we have deployed."

"The price could be improved. When we first started using this product, the company was new. The prices were very low then, in comparison with HP OpenView or IBM, but now the policy is too high, relative to the number of devices we have."

More WhatsUp Gold cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"The tool's price is reasonable. WhatsUp Gold is cheaper than SolarWinds."

"The most valuable feature is the cost compared to other solutions."

"This is a well priced solution."

"There is a license needed to use WhatsUp Gold."

"There are some subscription charges that are quite heavy. I need to pay for support every year and these charges can be quite expensive. Aside from the initial cost for the tool, you need to pay additionally for support."

"It is per device, per year. The pricing is very clear. If you have a service agreement, you get all of your major upgrades and minor upgrades. It was under $10,000 to go all-in with all of the different add-ons for it."

"The pricing can be on the expensive side when considering competing products."

"The choice of version depends on the number of points, or devices, that you want to monitor, and this makes the product expensive."

More WhatsUp Gold pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

The solution includes cost drivers that can be configured according to your environment. You can input server-wise, CPU-wise, storage, and memory costs per hour or day. Once cost drivers are provid...

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

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

I have been involved in several projects where I had to implement automation and monitoring alerting. I performed automation using VMware Aria Operations for Applications. There is an automation ta...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WhatsUp Gold?

Clients find the licensing calculator confusing, but we simplify this for them by collecting relevant information first. The licensing is based on devices, providing better cost-effectiveness than ...

What needs improvement with WhatsUp Gold?

It would be great if WhatsUp Gold could add features that simplify management with AI, as it is currently too complicated to manage.

What is your primary use case for WhatsUp Gold?

My use case for WhatsUp Gold includes all device availability checks, bandwidth usage, CPU, and memory usage, as well as alarm notifications.

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Product Reports

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

WhatsUp Gold

Download WhatsUp Gold product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

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.

Broadcom

WhatsUp Gold stands out with its comprehensive network monitoring, dynamic mapping, and real-time alerts, offering essential tools for managing extensive IT infrastructures.

WhatsUp Gold provides robust capabilities in network visibility through dynamic mapping and NetFlow analysis. The platform's interactive topology aids in pinpointing issues effectively. Auto-discovery ensures complete network device tracking. While offering an intuitive interface and integration with Cisco ServiceNow, users find server performance monitoring useful for incident handling. However, improvements are anticipated in application monitoring and Active Directory integration. The pricing model and customization options leave room for enhancement. Despite these, users benefit from its integrated dashboards for immediate device health checks and network updates, making it beneficial for large-scale infrastructure management.

What features does WhatsUp Gold offer?

Network Monitoring: Provides continuous oversight of network components
Dynamic Mapping: Offers visual representation of network topology
NetFlow Analysis: Delivers insights into bandwidth utilization
Threshold Alerts: Notifies users upon reaching set performance thresholds
Auto-Discovery: Detects devices automatically for complete network coverage

What benefits should users expect from reviews?

Comprehensive Visibility: Enhanced understanding of network elements
Real-Time Monitoring: Immediate insights into network and device status
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive solution suitable for expansive networks
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the management of complex networks

Organizations in sectors like telecommunications, education, and healthcare utilize WhatsUp Gold for their network monitoring needs. Telecom companies track switches and routers, educational institutions manage bandwidth usage, and healthcare facilities monitor device availability to ensure seamless operations.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

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

Artoni Trasporti, Austin Independent School District, Banca Marche, Burke County North Carolina, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Clayco, Community Integrated Care, Desca, Deutsche Bergbau, Flexi-Van, Gropper, Hamleys, Hammonds Furniture, Knowledge IT, Idras S.P.A., Sibeg, Swann Engineering, Trivium Lindenhof

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs. WhatsUp Gold